Why do my speeds vary so much?

[#1]

Why is it that I can get around 8MB on the plusnet speed tester, I can download files at similarly fast speeds but watching videos on vimeo and youtube feels like I'm using a 56k modem?
Every time I ask I'm told that it's not due to traffic shaping in my account (Premier Option 1) so what gives?
Thanks for any feedback.

[#2]

Hi jagstang,
It'll be down to the network issues we've got going on at the moment. There's a thread on this here: http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,77821.0.html
You can read more on the network issues at http://status.plus.net, but basically at the moment we're out of balance following the new pipes that were added on Friday. We did some balancing work last night and are waiting for things to settle, but there's also the fact that Monday is our busiest night.

[#3]

Thanks Orbrey.
I've just read that entire thread and I have to say it does leave me wondering why after all these years with Plusnet I'm still persevering with it. Ultimately somebody or something on your network is deciding whether or not I can use YouTube or Vimeo at specific times of the day, I find that quite shocking. I pay over £20 a month for my broadband connection, it's not a luxury any more it's an essential service just like my water supply and like the water I expect it to be on tap when I require it.
The example HD video in the post you linked too plays just fine at the moment, I'm getting over 7Mbps on speed testers but I still can't watch my videos on vimeo.com.  Presumably this is again the decision of the bandwidth god (elcoya) who has deemed that youtube is now worthy but vimeo is not for this mere mortal user (me).
I've had enough to be honest, there must be a better way!
PS, Sorry to be an arse about it, but it's really annoying!

[#4]

I would not think that vimeo.com is being throttled, ON my one a non HD works, but was running at 500-600 kB/s download, on HD which you seem to be trying to run it is stuttering at those speed, far to large a load for a normal non LLU or ADSL2 line, and in my terms that is not throttling

[#5]

Watching one of their videos was stuttering for me - not because of the download speed but because the CPU utilisation was stuck on 100%!

[#6]

@jagstang, are you able to provide the links to some of the videos on Vimeo that you've been having problems with?

[#7]

I use vimeo to share my own videos, here's an example that I uploaded but can't play back this evening.
http://www.vimeo.com/7386884
The issue for me is not with CPU utilisation, it's pure download speed.

[#8]

There is something a bit odd going on - it keeps stop starting but the download rate is odd - see these sequential bandwidth reports

[#9]

I had no problem with the non HD, the HD stuttered, bot not because of the down load, which was always ahead of the display, perhaps it was the rendering on my machine
Liked the vdeo, nice

[#10]

The HD Stream is stuttering for me on my word computer, on a University network.  I can easily download at 20MB/s and upload isn't far behind, so there are definately problems beyond Plusnet here.
Phil

[#11]

Not being able to play back the HD video due to your CPU not being fast enough is an entirely different subject. The important thing is how quickly the video downloads / buffers. Do you see the buffer bar filling at a faster rate than the play head moves on your fast connection?
To be honest most decent machines should be able to play vimeos HD content, my 3 year old mac pro doesn't struggle at all in that regard. The playback only chokes then the bandwidth is not high enough to support the bitrate of the video in my case.

[#12]

Mine is buffering without a problem, and the PC is is a 6 month old 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo E7300 with 4Gb of RAM.
Phil

[#13]

Thanks Phil, so is that on your university network or on PN?

[#14]

This is on the University network.  It isn't our network having problems either, as the network team are in the office next door to mine.

[#15]

Thanks. The main thing is that you can stream the content in at a decent speed on another network, this goes some way to highlighting that the problem is on the PN network and not at vimeo. Orbrey stated earlier on that PN are having network issues so that's no big surprise really, what I don't understand is why it's effecting video streaming and not other usage, is video streaming something that PN deem to be not as important for it's users as http downloads?