Intermittent very slow speeds

[#1]

Surely wasting 8 hours of electricity every day just so I can maintain my sync speed in the evening is not sensible.

[#2]

If you have a reasonable line and you are not trying to squeeze the last bit of performance out of a indifferent line - then you are right - turn router of at night if you get what you need.
I'm luckier than some - I'm within 1km of the exchange and get a solid 6.5M signal most of the time. I turn my router off at night, and when I go out. I retyrn in the evening sometimes about 8pm - turn on and I still get 5.5M, and in the morning get my 6.5M back.
Others find that doing this ruins their routers performance and leave their router on overnight.
Each to his own.

[#3]

Quote from: jayed

Surely wasting 8 hours of electricity every day just so I can maintain my sync speed in the evening is not sensible.

I like you
Ultimately it boils down to how important speed is to you.  For some people, it is *very* important.
There's a chance that if you turn on your router at certain times of the day, you can experience a lower reconnection speeds. From my perspective, for the majority of the time, I really couldn't care less.  I just want to be able to browse the internet.

[#4]

Speed is not awfully important to me as long as the service is usable. I surf a bit, play world of warcraft, some xbox 360 games and download music from Amazon. My wife also watches iPlayer. But I don't think this is usable. I turned on this morning to play some World of Warcraft but found that my connection dropped at about 1am and was synced at 160kbps. I turned the router off and rebooted and it is now synced at 2100kbps but I am still getting about 160kbps in actual speed. Plusnet's profile is set at 1750, so I'm guessing that BT's is slow and at some point Plusnet's will catch up and I'll be stuck at this 160kbps for a week like happened last time. As for usability, I just grabbed a watch and timed a refresh on this page with the second hand. It took 1 minute 42 seconds. This is a basic web page and getting towards 2 minutes to be able to view it is very far from a usable speed. I seem to be paying Plusnet monthly for a 2, sometimes 3, weekly service. I've never had problems like this before with any other service provider. It is ridiculous. Will this ever get sorted out or do I have to guess whether my internet will be usable for the coming week?

[#5]

Just did a speedtest on ThinkBroadband, since the one on Plusnet's site won't actually work, and it's 128kbps. Twice dial-up... I'm paying for broadband and getting twice dial-up.
Link to the test is here http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/125094530756276930943.html

[#6]

Results of the BT test...
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 2240 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 26 kbps
This test was not conclusive and further testing is required.
26kbps??? I can't believe I am being charged for a service that my mobile phone can basically provide. I hope this problem gets addressed this time. Every time this happens I get left with a shockingly unusable line for a week until it gets back to speed and then told the problem is sorted when it obviously is not. Maybe I should only be charged for days when my connection is usable. It would save me a bunch of money.

[#7]

Your problem is that you have had a very low sync event which has set your IP Profile to 135 kbps. Providing you stay synced around your current BT will eventually automatically raise your IP Profile again and normal speeds will return.
You need to try to find out why you had a low sync. Have you got anything plugged in to any phone extension without a filter? Have you moved anything around recently?

[#8]

"Eventually"? I've been synced at over 2000kbps for about 26 hours now and BT still has my profile at 135kbps. Even when there is a rise, I don't expect they will jump me back to 2000kbps and when they do change I have to wait about 12 hours for Plusnet to catch up. This whole system of dropping my speed profile down for days just because of a slow reconnect over night is just not on. This is the 4th time this has occured and the 3rd time I've raised a ticket about it. My broadband is unusable and I should not be charged for the 4 weeks, so far, that I have not had a suitable service. If Plusnet/BT cannot provide a service then they shouldn't advertise and charge for it.
As for changes, nothing has changed. My hardware has remained unchanged for years other than a changed microfilter due to the previous one being a possible cause of the other 3 line drops so I got a new one. Turns out it made no difference. All computers, cables and router are unchanged for a number of years and have not been moved either. The only change is moving to the Plusnet unlimited package and having this BT thing where it penalises me for long periods for a short blip in connection.

[#9]

@jayed: I agree with you that the delay in adjusting the IP profile is a real pain.  IME it can take longer to recover than expected.  It's nine days since a temporary fault caused a speed drop for me and my IP profile has not recovered fully (It should be 1750 and it's 1500).
It is possible that you have a cable fault so I suggest that you replace the cable between your master socket and router.  If you have a modern BT master socket then connect your router to the test socket.  Leave your router on all the time and use a program like routerstats to monitor your connection.  You need to find out why your sync speed sometimes is so low.
 

[#10]

I have actually done a few of those things today. I've moved my router closer to the telephone socket so it is now on a cable about 1 meter long and have run longer CAT cables to my PCs. This means a new cable between socket and router. I've also plugged the micro filter into the test socket. Just have to wait for a speed increase and then see if it remains.

[#11]

Is your router one that can be monitored by routerstats or routerstats lite?

Quote from: jayed

I have actually done a few of those things today. I've moved my router closer to the telephone socket so it is now on a cable about 1 meter long and have run longer CAT cables to my PCs. This means a new cable between socket and router. I've also plugged the micro filter into the test socket. Just have to wait for a speed increase and then see if it remains.

How long was your previous socket to router cable?

[#12]

@Jayed
I've just had a quick look at your line and I can't see anything obviously wrong (apart from the line profile).  Glad you've managed to get your router close to your master socket and wired into the test socket.  Can you let me know if you continue to see connection drops, if not, hopefully you should see an improvement shortly.

[#13]

what could potentially cause problems at my end? I've moved the router closer and I'm using the test socket and have removed the telephone, although that will have to change shortly and I may get a front plate that splits the signals for me rather than use a microfilter. My next option would be to replace the router, which is not preferred due to the price of them. Are there any other things that I can do?

[#14]

Not a lot more, no.
Keep an eye on how it performs with the test socket.  If the connection doesn't drop then definitely have a look at a faceplate.
We can loan you a router if you need to try a different one.

[#15]

Well I have two Netgear DG834GT routers. One shuts down completely on occasions so I only use it for testing (it seems to be fine when it works but then totally dies when it isn't). I've had the problem with both. Potentially it is that they both have a connection problem, but that would seem odd. I've changed the firmwar on my router between problems too but this changed nothing.