Poor ADSL Speed/Ping - But why?

[mks2005]

Hey,

I'm based in the South West of England running a basic wireless network and I'm getting very low speeds and poor pings, on Virgin's up to 8Mbit ADSL service. At times, pings are acceptable (20-30ms) but usually they are poor (150-300ms). The acceptable pings are very rare and seem to occur on random days, for a short period of time. Usually, it's always poor, even at off peak times (e.g ping of 200ms at 9am on a Monday morning.) It just gets even worse at peak times. The samje applies to download speeds. Using the ThinkBroadband speed test, it records speeds of 0.3-0.6Mbit off peak and 0.2-0.4Mbit peak. Yet strangely, on the odd occasion I have seen 3-4Mbit.

The above has occurred pretty much consistently for about a couple of months or so since installation.

In addition, I've tried 3 routers and 3 modems and I get the same speeds and pings. The problem occurs on all machines in my network. Turning windows firewall on and off makes no difference.

I contacted customer support about it today. The guy told me that I should run the BT Speed Tester and report some statistics back to them. He also claimed I could only achieve up to 2Mbit in my area, but I'm sure I've had faster.

Check out this lovely tracert to bbc.co.uk (2.34PM, Monday 8th Oct)

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.131]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 198 ms 203 ms 213 ms brhm-bam-1.inet.ntl.com [194.145.148.5]
3 196 ms 196 ms 211 ms brhm-t3core-1b-ge-112-0.inet.ntl.com [213.106.231.197]
4 220 ms 234 ms 215 ms bir-bb-b-so-020-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.5]
5 227 ms 215 ms 212 ms win-bb-a-so-220-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.188.145]
6 328 ms 223 ms 216 ms gfd-bb-b-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.172.130]
7 223 ms 223 ms 228 ms redb-ic-1-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.78]
8 230 ms 224 ms 214 ms 212.58.238.189
9 221 ms 328 ms 217 ms 212.58.238.149
10 216 ms 228 ms 222 ms rdirwww-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.131]

Here's a line test:

http://www.dslreports.com/linequality/nil/2291833

Here's a speed test (using BT's tool):

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 5000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 6336 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1615 kbps

(Can anyone explain what this one actually means?)

So, reckon this is a BT problem, or a virgin problem? The tech support guy suggested I downgrade to 2Mbit service. But I swear I've had faster speeds. I could understand maybe slow downloads but the latency problems too?

Any advice/help much appreciated.

[Jonathan90]

Are you running secure wireless router like wep enabled if your not enable it maybe somebody leeching your wireless or try without router see if its eny better

[n0c0ntr0l]

That ain't the problem. It seems like what I am having as a problem. They are oversubscribed and aren't using close by base stations. Its causing havoc with the first jump.

[mmm]

What do you get it you eliminate the router and connect one machine to a modem by Ethernet directly? Can you get a full diagnostic stats dump from the modem - Interleaving can cause high latency (but I don't know if you can change this)

[kin242]

I was on 1 MB and have upgraded to 8 Mb... but my connection speeds are totally unchanged! Still on a 1 Mb max according to speedtest! Also, my pings are as described above- truly appalling!!!

[anz]

get in touch with BT sales and ask what your line can take. or do it online, most sites tell you what your line can take. i live about 400 metres away from my exchange and have suffered with high pings and slow speeds for approx 9-10 months. i have read in Computer shopper that someone is getting a refund from Virgin. He was supposed to be getting 8 meg but actually getting 2 meg. btw downgrading doesn`t downgrade the price you pay, not when i asked anyway. and they don`t guarantee anything after the downgrade

[mks2005]

Unbelievable - I just changed the ADSL cable to a spare and bingo - the pings dropped and speed rocketed. What the hell was causing the old one to have such an effect?

Nevertheless, at peak times pings and speed are still unbearable (200ms/~30kb/s downloads) but during the day its a solid 17-18ms to bbc.co.uk at all times. Damn you Virgin.