This topic

Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

snadge — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 23:53:27 GMT

Hi everyone,

I can't say how upset and angry I am at myself, that I have made the mistake of joining BT FTTP900, it would seem I did not do my homework properly and rushed into the "fancy speeds" over "FTTP" - well it would seem i have found a LOT of problems with BT, and the latest one is severe congestion after my grace period, so much my webpages freeze or won't load or need refreshing, when this happens I use TBB metrics to check the 'Line Quality' and each time I'm getting (E) and (F) which state there is a severe problem.

This is FTTP to a PON to the SMartHub 2 LAN'd into a 1Gbit port on a good spec PC with 16GB, i5 and SSD, and yes the speeds seem to be okay for the first 28 days right enough, nice little sneaky trick that one eh?

Tests prove it, but BT tester i put under load deliberately while testing and guess what? the exact same 5-digit speed of 930.08 Mbps - when the line was under 100% load!! no-load = same result than under load, so its lies....to make you think your connection is fine when it is not!.. luckily I have a way out!!

Now it seems since my grace period has ended, so the problems have started, BT won't disable my or other peoples hotspots, even when you turn your own wifi off, and now this rubbish!!

i can post many, but look what my Full-Fiber 900 can do with its 'super-fast latency'.... didn't have this with VDSL and with Plusnet on VDSL the metric was 0.1 all 5 years I was with them: - I've no qualms about the actual speeds, but the SERVICE as a WHOLE, the staff are un-trained (I worked CSA twice), told me different stories each time, then the connection is useless by 5pm... I will be writing to BT and the Ombudsman about it too, just so they are aware. I can play games too...

Please remember, this is a full-fiber connection, LAN'd into a good machine at 1Gbps: (no AV or background apps to be sure use private windows)

let this be a reminder for anyone thinking about rushing into things....!!!

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 06:55:41 GMT

@snadge

See https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Fibre-broadband/full-fibre/m-p/2183080#M329924

You do not have an exclusive connection.

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

snadge — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 09:14:34 GMT

doesn't matter - didn't happen on VDSL either (Which also has bandwidth constraints thats shared at the exchange) , I've got 15 years of experience with broadband and its technologies, and worked as a CSA for Sky (well-trained, an ex-BT CSA was there and said its training was much better than BT call centre) so I'm very well informed of how things work, yes a 2.5Gbps backhaul i know - but CONGESTION on a fibre line is a serious PROBLEM

AND breaking the TOS by not disabling my opt-out of shared hotspots... and faking speed test results when the line is under-load

web pages freezing and not loading, requiring a refresh is A big sign of congestion issues - and TBB METRICS prove it

edit: @ KIETH - you would say that's normal then? Nah I didn't think so... - even FAST.COM which test from Leeds to London used to say 1.3Gbps until one month had past and now it says 600 lol... as I say I'm not complaining about the actual download speeds, it's the fact i know from EXPERIENCE that there is an issue on my line, unfortunately, BT forums have no-to-little staff, and calling them? i may as well ask my neighbour as he would know more, each time i called i was given lies and 'extended' answers to keep it pushed away!! - one didn't even know what a hotspot was, never heard of it in router and advised disabling the wifi (which i need for my mobile and TV) - and even when you do it is still there - HOPELESS

I won't reveal much more.

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

pippincp — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 09:48:38 GMT

It's easy to opt out of BT WiFi.

https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/how-do-i-opt-out-of-bt-wi-fi-

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

clayma — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 12:36:47 GMT

If you look at the OP's graph there is an immediate problem. On Fibre 900 the download speed should not average 510Mbps. This looks like either a router problem (I ditched the Smart Hub almost immediately) or a problem with the physical network connection. Additional congestion does reduce the speed but not that amount. I'm at the end of an FTTP connection so there's congestion in front of me and on Fibre 900 I'm getting 864 download and 110 upload which is pretty consistent. If it was me I would log a fault and ask them to investigate.

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

MC22 — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 14:37:37 GMT

Hi, this is my first post since joining BT from Plusnet. I currently have Full Fibre 500 which I’m absolutely delighted with. Speed Tests to the Hub have consistently been very close to 500/72 (the lowest download speed I’ve seen was 495Mb).

When I run a Think Broadband speed test I consistently get a Quality Rating of 0.11 ‘A’ so perhaps there is something amiss with your connection?

I do have BT WiFi enabled as it’s a feature that I will use when I’m out and about, it doesn’t seem to negatively affect my home Full Fibre service at all.

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

ch — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 23:05:19 GMT

For what it's worth, I'm on FTTP900 as well and I just ran the Thinkbroadband test:

Quality 0.10 (A) is better than average 0.98 (B) for FTTH/FTTP

Graph from speed tests run hourly over the past 6 days. It peaks overnight and averages less during the day I assume partly due to my usage, and partly due to congestion.

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

matekaneve — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 09:57:32 GMT

I honestly don't want to be cheeky, rude or sceptical, but I ran a few speedtests on the thinkbroadband website yesterday and today. The results are ridiculous... According to these tests I have an average download speed of 530Mbps and ping is between 20ms and 48ms. All other "well-known" and trusty speedtest websites giving me back a download speed of 910Mbps-920Mbps and a ping between 10ms-20ms. Day and night! According to thinkbroadband the quality of my line is "E" this morning however yesterday it was "B". I am using the smarthub 2, I'm on the 900Mbps BT package and I have absolutely no issues with the connection! Everything is working flawlessly and as it should. So my honest question, can you really trust the Thinkbroadband speedtest and analysis? I personally don't think it's accurate or giving you a real overview of your line. If you have any issues you should get your ISP and Openreach could investigate and test your line?

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

SixtiesFan — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 10:51:38 GMT

I've just tried a speedtest on my FTTP 500 service and got the following result:-

Using the BT Speed tester, I got this:-

and using Ookla, I got this:-

But what does it all mean?

By the way; I'm using an ASUS RT-AX88U router and Wi-Fi to my fairly powerful laptop. Automatic speeds tests from the router to the Ookla speed testing site gave the following results over the past 24 hours, most of which were taken when I was using Quad 9 DNS, but I switched back to BT this morning, which seems to have given a slight boost on the download speed:-

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

snadge — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 20:19:56 GMT

so you live CLOSE to a data centre OR don't have many on your backhaul... i hate people that have FINE connections trying to accuse others with CONGESTION a LIAR

**Edited**

Iam not, soon as my grace period was up it all went to **bleep**!!!! isn't that a surprise???

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

snadge — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 11:25:32 GMT

METRICS EXPLAINEDGRADE F - externalCongestion and possibly using wifi...on a 1Gbit LAN lone user

thats at 11am LOL MY **bleep** OFF - pings are all over, webpages hang n crash... but i must be a liar, and BT won't lift a finger to help - its an absolute joke - I'm NOT COMPLAINING about attainable speeds (which are from 400-900 until it stops on 800-900 - so don't think its 800/900 straight to from the start to the end, and stays there?, that would get an A on Metrics), its the TRAFFIC OVERLOAD that causes packet delay or packet loss,

BT staff need some proper training - I've been in this game so long I know when there is a problem, and people reporting NO PROBLEMS with theirs means NOTHING ..are you on the same pole as me? no - well DONT POST!!!

Re: Slow speeds at peak time, congestion causes delays on FTTP900 (Worse than VDSL)

SixtiesFan — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 11:49:43 GMT

I've just run a couple more tests on my service (from a laptop connected via Wi-Fi 6) and also taken a screenshot of the router's automatic tests with FlexQoS enabled, which does throttle my download speeds quite a bit, but on the other hand, does seem to improve the quality of the data transfer.