[highbury]

I guess the title says it all - and I'm sure this is nothing new.

Had Virgin Cable installed at weekend - Broadband, Phone and TV. Quickbackground: Had BT, now out of contract of BB @ max 8MB (where typically I would get 4MB speeds), so when a flyer came thru the door from Virgin saying I could have cable BB @ max 20MB, I thought why not? (Financially its far better than I was paying with BT too)

However, having tried a couple of different laptops, wired, wirelessly, turning off as many applications that might be using bandwidth I am very dissapointed to have achieved a max speed of 3.6MB!!

That was once.. generally it was around 2.8 - 3.2MB..

Is this normal? Is this marketing claims gone wils? Because strictly speaking I am getting 'up to 20MB'

Any advice on what to do next?

Thanks!

Highbury

[SyStemDeMoN]

Where are you downloading from to get your speed test ??


Please do not say a speed test website, as they are basically crap.

20mb = 2.35MB or around 2400KBps - remember that mb here stands for MEGABIT and not MEGABYTE as most people seem to think.

Do you use newsbins, as that is probably the best way to test your speed, as torrents and other P2P sites are generally crap for speed testing. REMEBER ! Once you reach your maximum upload speed, your download speed will decrease A LOT! while your uploading, so this affects all P2P sites.

[essbeeuk]

I have just tested mine, and it depends which server I do a speed check with. From London I was getting 17.5... Dublin was 18.2... New York 11... and Torshavn in the Faroes 19.7...
Usually if I check with the London server I get 19ish which is near enough to what I am supposed to be getting.

Was this a new install with a brand new cable modem? If so, I think you need to run a couple of tests using Speedtest.net on various servers, and then if your speeds are still low get on to the wonderful customer service people at VM.

[highbury]

Thanks for the responses.

It was a brand new install so I will try a few tests with speedtest.net - using different servers... I seem to recall I did this one already and used Maidstone (I'm based near Bedford for what it's worth). But will give the Faroes a go if it helps avoid a call to Customer Services!

[SyStemDeMoN]

Speedtest and other sites are a joke, don't go by them.

Try this

http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/b5ifh/

There is a 211mb file there, download it and see what speed you get, if its not max speed, then open another TAB in IE and download the file again at the same time and simply add up the speeds.

hope this helps !

[steve tyler]

I just downloaded that file ( cheers ) and I got 1.8-1.9 for a 20 meg connection.

steve

[essbeeuk]

Originally Posted by SyStemDeMoN

Speedtest and other sites are a joke, don't go by them.

What do you base this opinion on?

Computer experts believe that Speedtest.net is the best checker site out there, and gives good results... so I would go with the experts on this one... although the download method works as well.. I get the same results whichever method I use.

[wynne_g_oldman]

When I first had my 20mb service installed a couple of months ago, I was averaging about 7mb. The engineer came and changed my modem, still no change. I was using a Belkin 10/100 wired router. I just got the Netgear wireless router from Virginmedia, and that cured it. My Speedtest.net results were around 18mb upwards on my Mac and 2 PC's, both wired and wireless. Wierdly, I have an ageing IBM Thinkpad, that's well within Virgin's minimum spec. that I can't seem to get over 7mb on, regardless as to whether I connect by 10/100 Ethernet, or wirelessly. The engineer that came round used Speedtest.net, so it can't be that bad!

[SyStemDeMoN]

Originally Posted by essbeeuk

What do you base this opinion on?

Computer experts believe that Speedtest.net is the best checker site out there, and gives good results... so I would go with the experts on this one... although the download method works as well.. I get the same results whichever method I use.

Well, I have had readings from that site that say im on a 50mb connection.

I based it on my experience, and the experience on other threads on this forum.

Speedtest has just told me that I have a 12.8mb connection. If that is what computer experts say is a good result, when my newsbin client gets the full whack of 20mb.

Of course I run the speedtest with my nzb client not downloading.

Also judging by the reply from the OP, he now also knows that speedtest is unreliable, after getting his near top whack with the link I gave him.

Computer experts, BAH !

[def]

Originally Posted by SyStemDeMoN

Also judging by the reply from the OP, he now also knows that speedtest is unreliable, after getting his near top whack with the link I gave him.

Computer experts, BAH !

Speedtest is not unreliable, you're misunderstanding what's happening here. When the OP downloads from the Blueyonder service he's simply testing the local connectivity to the Virgin/Blueyonder network. It's like sitting in your lounge and shouting to a friend in the kitchen - of course they're going to hear you, because you're in the same house.

When you use speedtest you're going outside of Virgin's network. This tests "real world conditions", in that it's proving the bandwidth capacity from your machine to a local hop outside of the Virgin network. It's testing Virgin's peering. This is actually the best kind of test you can do - you don't test whether your mobile is working by shouting into the kitchen, you test it by making a call outside your house.

Downloading a file from the blueyonder service is a local test that will basically prove whether you have access to a CIR equivalent to your service. In other words if you're on a 10mb service you'd expect to be able to download from a blueyonder server at 10mbit. If you can't, that's a fault with your service.

However if you use speedtest.net (or download a file from any high bandwidth file site such as oxford.ac FTP etc), you're checking your real world bandwidth usage.

If you find that you get 10mbit downloading from Blueyonder but only 2 or 3mbit downloading from multiple sources external to the Virgin network then you can clearly say that Virgin have a saturation/contention issue. The important bit is the multiple sources - it's possible that speedtest.net, oxford.ac.uk, Microsoft, Akamai, whoever, are experiencing high utilization, or the routes and peers you're using are congested, which is why you need to use a couple of sources.

So make sure you understand what you're actually testing when you test something. Speedtest.net is not "unreliable", you're just doing an experiment when you don't understand what you're testing.

[highbury]

Originally Posted by SyStemDeMoN

Speedtest and other sites are a joke, don't go by them.

Try this

http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/b5ifh/

There is a 211mb file there, download it and see what speed you get, if its not max speed, then open another TAB in IE and download the file again at the same time and simply add up the speeds.

hope this helps !

OK - tried that... How does that tell me how fast and if my BB connection is working ok?

Currently the transfer rate is hovering around 99KB/sec and I'm looking at 32.5mins download time! I think I'm not running at anyway near 20MB!...

Think I might have to call C-Services

[VinnyP!]

I think it definitely sounds like a problem. Virgin for all their faults has pretty good broadband
Just did a speedtest and as usual it's as near as dammit 20mb.
Here is my history bar

[highbury]

It’s all sorted … thanks to a call to customer services for 45mins last night..

Not sure really what’s changed, I reset the modem by unplugging it from router, removing cable feed and powering off for 10mins. Then re-connecting to laptop directly. This worked, that simple.

Speedtest reported 18-19MB! Not sure if the lady at the other end of phone made any changes whilst I was doing this or if that was all that was required.

I then reconnected the router and checked another laptop. And then connected the first laptop to my home plug in another room and that was 17-18MB too.

Happy days again.

Thanks to all for the feedback offered yesterday