This topic

Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

montgomerydog — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 21:36:58 GMT

Hello,

I have been experiencing extremely reduced downstream speeds in the evening for the past few months now. It has been almost impossible to find someone to address this - the online fault logger at BT insultingly returns a "Your broadband speeds look great!" response after forcing me through 10 minutes of 'testing', phone support has been an exercise in endless frustration and all the while I have download speeds in the range of 500 KB/s - 1 MB/s in the evening (when it should be ~6 Mbps).

Clearly there is either some serious contention at the cabinet or some arbitrary throttling being applied as these reduced speeds come down like a wall at pretty much exactly 5pm every evening.

Yes, I have run the BT wholesale speedtests. Yes, I am connected to the hub by ethernet and yes, the home hub is connected to the master socket.

Can anybody help me log an actual fault report or a request for investigation - or do I literally have to switch broadband providers to get it solved?

(Can you tell how frustrated I am?)

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

pippincp — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 22:26:04 GMT

There is no contention at any cab, it doesn't work that way, nor is any arbitrary throttling applied so wrong on both counts.

It is possible you are on a congested SVLAN at the exchange but to show that you need to run a BT speed test when the connection is OK and another when you have the problem and post the results here. Not being mindreaders you'll also have to state the exchange you are connected to.

Once you do that one of the CL's can flag it for a mod and take a look and see if any of the SVLANS at the exchange are reporting issues and pehaps may get you transfeerred to another less utilised one until a permanent fix is put in place by BTWholesale.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

scottrc — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 00:05:14 GMT

Exactly the same as me, https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Fibre-broadband/Peaktime-throughput-speeds-less-than-half-minimum-speed/td-p/2079973 the fault checker says there's a problem, then the next page says speeds are great. There's something strange going on somewhere. The furthest I got was on live chat where the guy said there was a problem with the smart hub 2 and them not being able to connect to it correctly. He put in an order for a new one, but the despatch date is Sept 2nd for some strange reason. Maybe new firmware coming or something.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

montgomerydog — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 09:58:39 GMT

I'm so sorry - I didn't realise that I'd actually stumbled into pedants corner. I was just looking for help.

Is there anyone less rude who can help me with a congested SVLAN?

My exchange is: Marshalls Cross, LVMSX, St Helens

Here's the BTW Performance Report for the MORNING:

I'll post an evening one later.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

montgomerydog — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 18:32:36 GMT

...and here is my report for the EVENING.

That's quite a drop!

As I say, it's been like this - every evening - for months. Can anyone please advise?

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

scottrc — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 18:53:26 GMT

Our problems are very similar and according to https://aastatus.net/36413 both of our exchanges had the exact same work carried out by TT. Wonder if this is something to do with it and if BT need to do the same.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

pippincp — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 20:09:03 GMT

@scottrc TT has no bearing on a BT connection. BT has its own far larger backhaul. A&A lease backhaul from more than one provider.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

scottrc — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 21:16:30 GMT

Ah ok thanks, TT must be upgrading at quite a few places then. I left TT because of my congestion problems, then like a week later they did this same work at my exchange. No idea if it would of upgraded capacity and fixed things though.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

pippincp — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 21:45:29 GMT

@scottrc TT are changing their access network. BT did this back in 2009 (IIRC) when they moved from 20CN to 21CN. This is why the PTSN phone service is being retired by 2025.

There is more than enough capacity on BT's backbone for about the next 20yrs. Congestion occurs at the exchange not at a cab as the OP thought. BTWholesale are normally pretty quick at resolving congestion as SVLANS are continuously monitored.

Delays can happen though especially if extra or new kit needs to be installed as supply chains have not fully returned to normal for obvious reasons.

If the op is on a congested SVLAN the mods would be able to see it and perhaps have him transferred to a less congested one until any upgrades happened. The mods however don't check every post on the forum and rely on the CL's to flag a problem.

I could ask a CL to do so for him but as he considers me as a pedant for correcting a misconception he had rather than being helpful by telling what to post...

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

imjolly — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 22:06:45 GMT

@montgomerydog

As I asked @scottrc @on his own thread if he can post results from btspeedtester with Ethernet connection first when throughput/download speed appears ok and then same thing but when it appears poor

that will help mods if the need to get involved

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

montgomerydog — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 22:20:22 GMT

@imjolly

Thanks for your reply. I've posted up the wholesale performance test results up above for both good and bad. Both tests were over ethernet. As you can see, downloads drop from ~50 Mbps to ~1 Mbps.

Is there anything else you think I could do to attract the favour of the BT support gods?

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

pippincp — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 23:51:20 GMT

I think you will find @imjolly has one it. As the mods are busy it may take a few days for then to contact you for further info and once you've supplied it you will go into a queue. The mods will reply when you get to the top of that queue. They deal with requests in strict order of recieved.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

scottrc — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 00:29:17 GMT

I get the same peak time congestion issues with BT as I did with TT, do you guys think this could still be an exchange problem, but both having congested SVLANs? I had line tests done and all was clear when I was with TT, they never even tried swapping to a less congested SVLAN though because they kept saying it wasn't congested despite the countless offpeak and peak time speed test results showing otherwise. In the end they just ignored me and I moved to BT, who at least seems to monitor the lines better.

Re: Very poor speeds in the evening (FTTC)

JohnC2 — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 07:30:29 GMT

Hi @montgomerydog Welcome to the forum and sorry you are getting slow speeds in the evenings. I've sent you a Private Message with details on how to contact the Mod team and we'll be happy to help you with this.

cheers

John