Download peaking at 7Mb/sec - paying for "up to" 20Mb

[badsoupday]

I have a speed issue, I'm hoping you guys can point me in the right direction.

Obviously I'm not expecting 20Mb, but I seem to have hit a glass ceiling between 6/7Mb....

1)What, specifically, is your issue? I can't get anywhere near advertised maximum speeds. I'm paying for up to 20Mb but 7Mb is about as much as I can achieve.
(I've checked VM have me on XL by checking the Maximum Downstream Data Rate on my router).

a) Is there a specific time that this issue is most prevalent? Not really (of course) it's worse on Friday evenings - but the problem persists at 3am in the morning
b) How long has this issue been going on? (days, weeks, months etc) As long as I can remember. I've put up with it for far too long.

2) Do you have cable TV? If so, is there any reception degradation? Yes I have TV, no problems with it.

3) Have you contacted customer support about this problem? If so, what did they say? Initially they told me the problem was likely to be my wireless router (Linksys WRT54GR) so I removed it and plugged the ethernet straight into my desktop PC, but the performance was identical. I phoned up again and now they are advising that as my Ethernet is running through one of the PC's USB ports that this is the likely problem as USB Ethernet is "limited to 8Mb/s".

Now before I tootle up the road to get an ethernet card I just thought I'd drop a note to the forum to see if anyone has heard of this limitation of USB ethernet. I can't say I have, but then I'm a complete novice when it comes to networking.

4) What troubleshooting steps have you taken to resolve this problem? See above

5 Who you are and what you have
a) Where in the country are you? UK
b) What is your operating system? XP home Edition
c) What is your home network setup? Provide details. Cable Modem->Linksys WRT54GR->(PC vi USB Ethernet) and (Laptop via wireless network)
d) If you have more than one computer, is the problem occuring on all other machines? Yes - speed issues are common across PC and Laptop
e) Are you running a firewall of any sort? Have you ever installed one? Did you try to turn it off during troubleshooting? No firewall.
f) Please supply a traceroute from you to www.bbc.co.uk in text format

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.253.70] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 30 ms 34 ms 16 ms 10.69.228.1
3 8 ms 8 ms 7 ms wtfd-t2cam1-b-ge910.inet.ntl.com [80.3.2.149]
4 45 ms 8 ms 25 ms wtfd-t2core-b-ge-wan64.inet.ntl.com [195.182.176.229]
5 11 ms 11 ms 9 ms pop-bb-b-so-710-0.inet.ntl.com [80.3.1.137]
6 10 ms 6 ms 22 ms tele-ic-2-as0-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.184.6]
7 8 ms 8 ms 15 ms ntl-ge2-8.prt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.217]
8 20 ms 26 ms 11 ms 212.58.238.129
9 12 ms 12 ms 9 ms te12-1.hsw0.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.222]
10 11 ms 22 ms 14 ms www1.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.253.70]

Trace complete.

6) Further Info: If you're posting about:
b) Speed issues: Please post at least one speed test which tests speed in both directions.

Typical test: http://www.speedtest.net/result/246682308.png

Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Soupy :confused:

[Ernie_C]

You have been advised by Virgin Media and documented here yourself what the problem is - USB cannot cope with high datarates.

[flowrebmit]

Yep, USB 1.1 devices have a published hi-speed of 12Mb/s, but you're unlikely to reach that speed in practice.

[webcrawler2050]

Personally I wouldn't say the issue is VM - I would say the issue is USB as other people said, you are no way in blue hell going to get 20mb out of USB - the advice buy an ethernet card, you are more likely then to get the speed or closer to the speed you are paying for.

[blade85]

out with the USB and in with the Ethernet cable.

Also, what modem have you got? Some older modems just cant go up to 20 megs.