We have cable broadband, two phone lines and a TV package. I’d always previously recommended our provider but over the last few days annoyingly the download speed we’ve been getting has dropped to about a quarter of what it should be, but only in the afternoons (full-speed ahead in the mornings). The ISPs broadband status page didn’t suggest there were any technical problems. I asked on Facebook if friends in the area with the same provider were seeing similar problems, but aside from general grumbles about quality there was one fairly near-neighbor who said her downloads were at full speed all day.

There are speed test programs, such as SpeedTest, which my ISP says aren’t necessarily accurate, so I used the ISP-recommended approach to testing and corroborated the SpeedTest results: 2Mbps when we’re paying for 10 Mbps. Annoying. Frustrating. Throttled? Possibly.

I ran through their FAQ and it suggests using TCP Optimizer to help boost connectivity, I’d already done that. It suggested rebooting modem, router, and PC…hmm. Well, that happens periodically anyway, although I did instigate all three in sequence to no avail. One friend in the locale reassuringly told me that his 50Mbps connection was coming down at 49.9. Lucky boy

I tested later in the afternoon and then again after 9pm and saw a shift from 2to 5 and then 6 Mbps. So, it definitely seems that our traffic is being managed. Funnily enough upload speed was steady throughout all testing at 1Mbps although advertised rate is just 512kbps (I assume we got an unannounced upgrade on upload when they upgraded neighbours to the 20Mbps+ loop; later confirmed by the ISP rep).

Anyway, as they used to say in the British Telecom ads, “It’s good to talk” so I phoned my ISP, not BT, ironically enough and confronted them with the facts, highlighting additionally that they are offering 30Mbps for less than the price I’m paying for 10Mbps. The jolly young rep I spoke to was very understanding and keen that I not switch to the aforementioned BT. In the end, she confirmed my connection’s daily usage (something customers cannot do online, unfortunately) and told me that on light days, we’re downloading about 200 Megabytes, but on busy days anything up to 4 Gigabytes (adding up to about 44-60Gb on average per month). I will be having words with the kids on how much TV they’re watching on the net, you can count on that. The rep also said that we probably were being throttled in the afternoons. Even though the account is on an unlimited data plan, they have a fair use policy to slow down heavy users so as not to degrade the connection of others on the same node. That’s almost fair enough, although the policy is new and I don’t recall ever receiving an official update notice of terms and conditions from the ISP.

Anyway, after more chit-chat and discussion about throttling, TCP, and telephones, I negotiated a free upgrade to 30Mbps, which would mean they would have to send me a new wireless hub (I should then be able to daisy-chain my original router to this hub to extend better wireless connectivity to the garden/backyard and the rest of the building). 30Mbps is also throttled but has much higher thresholds before the brakes are applied. Cherry on the cake is that the total cost for our telecoms package (which includes TV and phone lines as well as broadband) is that it worked out $1 cheaper to make the upgrade!

So, having been with VM since they were Cambridge Cable (back in 1998), then ntl, looks like we’re sticking with Russ Swan lookalike Richard Branson and not switching to BT or any other provider…for now, at least. It is good to talk, ironically enough, Beatty.

Related articles

• BT reveals 110Mbps broadband plan
• The Tech-pert: How to Speed Up Your Internet Connection
• It could be worse: data caps around the world
• ISPs tussle over broadband access
• Google’s ISP Speed – 524 Mbps Download Speed, 147 Mbps Upload Speed
• O2 comes top in broadband study

What is ironic is that having written this post, my router stats (which are a more direct and accurate record of down/up speeds than any web-based tool) have reported speed peaks of almost 15Mbps. I wonder if the nice, young rep from Virgin gave me a little upward nudge as an appetizer…and to stop me complaining…