Off Thread: Has your Internet been a bit slow lately?.

[Graziano]

Just wanted to see if any of the forum members have had their Internet access speeds decline in the last month or so, especially in Queensland. I've noticed my speeds slow to dial up speeds despite paying for a 1.5Mbs ADSL1 service. At first I thought it may have been something to do with all the flooding in the area but I have noticed late at night the speeds go up to 1.2Mbs and I have replaced my modem recently and the new one works fine, no flashing ADSL led which would indicate a problem. Across town another guy has noticed a similar slowdown in his ADSL2 link speeds around the same time, even though he's using a different provider.

So has anyone else noticed their internet access slowing down in their area?.

[Dave J]

About 1-2 months ago I was having trouble in my area and so where others around here. We pay for 1.5 as well and I was not real happy. It wasn't all the time, just a few hours here and there randomly over a month or so.
If you have wireless, make sure it's password protected or someone else could use it as well.

Dave

[dabbler]

No issues here. Bigpond cable.
From time to time I have to give the router an electronic kick in the guts but that's the result of having quite a large mix of wired and wireless connections. Even then it's more often than not the sites I'm trying to reach.

You need to document the slowdown if you have any chance of proving it's real. (If you want to win an argument with your ISP.) There are number of internet speed test sites and apps on the web. Some will let you record and save results. With others you may need to save a screenshot.

Pick one that lets you change test speeds to or across various locations and test speeds to locations beyond your ISP or your just testing your ISP not the internet. If you have a small local ISP then make sure you're not testing their ISP.

For a valid comparison and record, test your internet speed when it's good and when you think it slows. Use the same test site and "end point".

[Scott]

My connection speed is sporadic and completely random. One minute it's blazingly fast and next its like a snail. Blame the wally's who sold off Telecom without ensuring adequate competition and an assurance the infrastructure is maintained, not wait for a government bailout in the form of NBN.

By the way, my telephone line is nailed to a tree which is then connected to a pole up the road. All done by a Telstra *technician*. If I want it fixed then I have to pay to have it dug underground. 1st world country with a 3rd world communication network and paying exorbitant prices.

[dabbler]

The wallies who pushed T3 and took any hope of control out of the public's hands (albeit via the govt) don't want the NBN.

At the time T3 privatisation was supposedly only to occur if Telstra's coverage and performance was reviewed "favourably". Surprise, surprslise it was. That was at the same time I had to commission dedicated fibre optic broadband to three sites because Telstra couldn't provide dsl in the area. And they were 9, 10 and 13k from Brisbane CBD. At a 4th site about 22k the other side of the CBD they couldn't even give us landlines for 6 months. For 2 months after operations started we used mobile phone base stations connected to landline handsets. If the review had looked at the real issues, they never could have used it to justify T3.

Don't get me wrong. The Telstra people I dealt with were very good and I always knew where things stood. And once the infrastructure was installed in-suburb it became all systems go within days. But as a whole, it was impossible to force them to accelerate any plans. It's a long time since Telstra has been truly accountable because most pollies just don't get technology let alone technology infrastructure. Anyway, that's my rant for now.

BTW I've been with Telstra for internet since day one at home and the occassional issues I've experienced just don't compare to the nightmares that smaller and cheaper ISPs seem to produce.

[Graziano]

I'm in the suburbs with the fibre optic RIM box about 50 metres up the street. There has always been some hassles when it rains but lately Telstra has been working in the area and things have gotten worse performance wise since that day. I've run speed tests to determine that I can now get normal performance but only in the early morning about 1 am, so it seems the phone cables/ hardware are fine but that something has changed with my ISP. If I try downloading a video, everything else in the browser stops and times out.

[.RC.]

BTW I've been with Telstra for internet since day one at home and the occassional issues I've experienced just don't compare to the nightmares that smaller and cheaper ISPs seem to produce.

Every person has their own impression of Telstra... For me their wirless 3G service is woeful....Slow and congested... Switched to Internode who use the Optus 3G network and speeds are faster and more consistent and pings are lower...

[.RC.]

Could be congestion.... RIM's (or it is really a CMUX) do not have a lot of backhaul capacity...

[dabbler]

Every person has their own impression of Telstra... For me their wirless 3G service is woeful....Slow and congested... Switched to Internode who use the Optus 3G network and speeds are faster and more consistent and pings are lower...

I agree with you. Kinda like banks. I think it's pretty much the same with companies who primarily provide some sort of service.

I live about 600m in a straight line from the Suns stadium at Carrara. My immediate neighbour finds his Telstra 3G service falls on game day and becomes unuseable but my 3G tablet is unaffected. Go figure !

[petersemple]

Our internet had always been very patchy speed wise, and then one day the entire system (phone and internet) stopped working. It took 3 days to convince them there was actually a problem in the cable, and not a bad modem etc at our end and come out and fix it. Turned out a tech had been doing some maintenance on the local junction box a few blocks away and had left our connection unplugged. They plugged it back in and ever since our internet speed has been a lot more consistent. That suggests to me that the connection in the junction box was a bit dodgy all along (I dunno, slightly loose, or corroded or something). If there has been maintenance in your area lately, and the problem has existed since then, then there may be something similar going on. Of course, getting them to investigate may be hard, and that's when you need the evidence of slowdowns by using speed test sites.

[franco]

I have not noticed any difference recently while surfing, though have not checked the actual speed, but at some times of the day the quality of sound and/or picture on Skype becomes very poor. This has been happening for some time though - probably several months.

Frank.

[dabbler]

Our internet had always been very patchy speed wise, and then one day the entire system (phone and internet) stopped working. It took 3 days to convince them there was actually a problem in the cable, and not a bad modem etc at our end and come out and fix it. Turned out a tech had been doing some maintenance on the local junction box a few blocks away and had left our connection unplugged. They plugged it back in and ever since our internet speed has been a lot more consistent. That suggests to me that the connection in the junction box was a bit dodgy all along (I dunno, slightly loose, or corroded or something). If there has been maintenance in your area lately, and the problem has existed since then, then there may be something similar going on. Of course, getting them to investigate may be hard, and that's when you need the evidence of slowdowns by using speed test sites.

I never have any problem convincing anyone that our services are faulty because a quick check of records will quickly let them know something is up (maybe that should be down?). Same with my neighbours.

The copper telephony cabling in our street has been dodgy for some time and successive techs have told me it's slated for replacement across much of the suburb. About a month ago, the same tech had 6 calls for our street alone (about 35-40 houses). We routinely get our phone ring one or two times when the call is actually the neighbour but neither can actually recieve or make calls. If I had ADSL it would probably never work because the line is noisy 1 day in 4.

I have Foxtel and Bigpond on cable and have needed the final connections from the street replaced several times in the 10 years we've lived here. Mainly due to corrosion but once due to lightning strike on the tree next door (that one also took out the splitter and filter fitted to the outside of the house). Often the Foxtel drops out on one or two channels before internet fails completely. Copper just isn't meant to last forever in the ground.