hi,

i used to have copper broadband for quite a long time which used to have a max speed of 17Mbps. around six months ago i upgraded to 40Mbps fibre but my speed (according to fast.com and others) ranged from 10-30Mbps and even then 20-30Mbps was rare. recently my isp upgraded me to 70Mbps to say "sorry we screwed up" although that wasn't a quote. the thing is, my internet speed is still 10-30Mbps even though my router is telling me i have been upgraded from the 40Mbps package to the 70Mbps package. does anyone know what the issue is? my isp doesn't know the issue and this has been going on for literally months. i have tried all the steps my isp tells me. try ethernet, 5ghz, 2.4ghz, different speed test, different times, restart etc. thanks in advance.

Honest answer: You're going to have to read your contract and see if they have a third party arbitration option in there or something similar. Whatever the issue is, it's not something we're going to be able to fix.

Having said that, your ISP will probably fall back on their "Speeds are not guaranteed" clause.

Copper I can understand (quality and length of the cables can limit effective speed - my mother was stuck on 0.5 Mbps even as the ISP removed the lowest package and upgraded such customers to the new lowest, first to 2 Mbps and then to 8 Mbps, likely because the old phone lines weren't suitable for anything better than abysmally slow ADSL), but fibre should either work fully or not at all unless there are software limits in place or the hardware at either end is too weak for the traffic passing through it.

Perhaps you could check your speeds at a few different times during the day with a speed test, again. I know you said you've already done it, but just get good detailed info. You can either use an actual speed testing site, or just find a really reliable site (like, say, GOG or Steam servers) and download a game then delete it. Time the download each time, and remember that your line speed is measured in bits per second, and there are 8 bits to the byte. You'll be ignoring overhead but that's generally not a problem for very large files like games. If your speeds are always slower than they should be, that's good info to have to show your ISP. If you get proper speed during off-peak hours, then you've just got an oversubscribed infrastructure and there's nothing - legally or technologically - that you can do about it.

And like drmike says, your ISP is almost 100% for sure selling you a package that offers speeds "up to" whatever they're claiming to give you. See if there's a guaranteed minimum speed. If there is, and if you can show that you aren't always getting that, then you have something to work with.

under the 40Mbps package, the minimum is 20Mbps and it is the same throughout the day/week/weekend. my isp has acknowledged that i am not getting the minimum speed and has offered that i can leave. they are also currently offering free internet because i have chosen to stay with them and am being patient with them to find a solution.i was hoping someone would be able to diagnose the problem.

Not with any accuracy, not with the information you're giving us to work with, no. Your ISP acknowledges you aren't getting the speeds your package should support? Only they are going to know what's going on in their network.

Oversubscribed? Maybe their switching fabric is at 100% and despite having enough ports, and high enough speed per port, they can't process all the packets and they're dropping/throttling.

Upstream limitations? Maybe you're using a smaller ISP (you haven't told us which one) and if so, then they're probably leasing bandwidth from a major ISP. If that major ISP isn't giving them what they expected then perhaps they can't fulfil their obligations to their customers - like you.

Downstream limitations? Incomplete hardware failures, line noise, media-type transition points (fiber to copper), all these things and more could be the cause of data loss leading to lower speeds.

Crap employees doing bad device programming? Shoddy design overemphasizing a DMZ without load balancing to deal with the chokepoint? Government regulations or investigations eating up a bunch of cycles? Overeager application of line encryption? There are so very many things that could be wrong, and some of them - especially any sort of governmental oversight (and you seem to be in the UK, I don't need to remind you how nannyish your nanny state can be) - aren't even legal to disclose to the customer.

Nah, it could be anything, from what you've told us. Sorry.

It could be one of a couple dozen problems. Your power cord could have a break in it and your modem isn;t getting enough juice. The neighbor you live in could be maxing out in bandwidth. Little Susie next door who you can;t believe is actually 18 is running a cam show with all her girl friends and eating up the bandwidth. Your ISP could have set you to 70 at your modem and on your account but at the box on the pole, you;re still set at 40. Your modem is hardwired to 40.

I know with our 4 1-gig lines we have off of our server racks, we're only guaranteed 60% of that at any one time although it's usually higher than that. If we pressed our providers, they just point at that.

I'm assuming they;ve moved you up to something like a high level technician who's already looked at the problem? I know here in Charlotte, level 1 physical support is usually some high school drop out riding around in his mom's mini van installing equipment with a magnetic screw driver.

Can you tell I;m in a ticked off mood today?

edit: This is one of those I wish I was sitting in front of the computer with a power meter and a ladder to check the box on the pole. That that I;ve ever popped open a Time Warner or AT&T box. That would be illegal. :whistle:

Having said all that, I'm sure the others as well as myself are unable to point at something and say that's what you need to do to fix it.

I don't like not being able to fix things for folks.

Faulty router/modem? Did you try with different computers as to exclude a fault in your computer?

First read made me think that their ISP had switched out the hardware but I just noticed that timmy doesn;t mention anything about a visit and everything was done by him.

Timmy, have you had a visit?

The max of 40 really sounds like a setting that hasn;t been changed though somewhere.

This. Here in the US speeds are ALWAYS listed as "up to" a threshold. So basically it's either load on your service by your neighbors on the same trunk, they have a bottleneck in their infrastructure or your computer/router can't pass more than the 20MBps.

Also, make sure you're supposed to get 70Mbps (not MBps) and that you're measuring in Mbps (not MBps). The capitalization matters.

WOW IT REALLY DOES. when i type like this its eight times as fast

^_^