problem with broadband speed (not just pcl-ag04)

[#1]

Yeah. It's probably the mouse.

[#2]

what chewing through his cable?

[#3]

This isn't a local problem

[#4]

Well the latest response from CSC says there's no problem.
Which is strange as the last thing they said before that was that there IS a problem.
And now the answer to all my problems is to reboot my router and all the other cut'n'paste stuff they told me. 
Here's a result from mybroadbandspeed.co.uk just now:

Date	Download Speed	Upload Speed	
Today 18:31	263 kbps (32.9kB/s)	368 kbps (46kB/s)

And a BT speedtest less than a minute later:

 Download speedachieved during the test was - 3567 Kbps
 For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
 Additional Information:
 Your DSL Connection Rate :7616 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
 IP Profile for your line is - 6500 Kbps

I'm happy that CSC have concluded that my line doesn't have a fault (I already believed that).
So the question remains, what IS the problem? And why do so many people seem to be experiencing the same symptoms ?
How can there be such speed issues when PN almost weekly add 155MB segments to the network?
I'm confused AND annoyed

[#5]

Ok - Odd.
Do you non BT Speedtests generally show dreadful throughput?  I'm a little bemused as to why the BT one would show much better throughput.

[#6]

In general  -- prior to this recent dramatic early evening phenomenon of extremely poor browsing and slow non-BT tests -- all speedtests are within a few k of each other.
My line generally gives 5900-6000 whether I use a BT test or a BBMAX or a mybroadbandspeed test.
The whole problem I have been trying to get across in this thread and my tickets is that, since the end of August,  I am getting incredibly slow pageloads, missing images etc etc in the early evening, which are accompanied by sub-400k speedtests from BBMAX and mybroadbandspeed. Yet during the periods I am getting this, I can also run a BT speedtest and show I am getting close to linespeed.
So how can I get, on the very same computer and the same pair of wires running to the exchange, both incredibly slow and very good throughput at the same time ?
I'm not quite sure how many more different ways I can explain or provide evidence for this than I've done in this thread and in the tickets I have raised.
There is a problem. I don't think (by the looks of some of the other threads I am seeing at the moment about speeds) it's just with my line. But even if it is just my line, the CSC response is "there is no problem, reboot your router", whereas I see something extremely odd going on that needs more creative investigation.

[#7]

Mmm. Odd.
For the speeds to be absolutely fine one second and then shocking the next is a really weird one.
We've seen a number of complaints recently suggesting either network congestion, exchange congestion, or both.  I wouldn't expect it to be our ne3twork later on in the week, as that's when it's generally quietest, especially over the weekend.  Do you still see the same issue at the weekend?
Fancy humouring me and trying an MTU of 1430?

[#8]

I've seen this at weekends too, yep.
Yeah I'll try the MTU thing when I get home ... router or XP or both ?
the thing that I don't understand is how congestion would mean I get to see both terrible browsing and speedests simultaneously with very quick BT speedtests (I mean I'm completely ignorant of the way it works  - does the speedtester go via a direct route to the test server or something?)

[#9]

Router and XP please.
I don't know why you're seeing massively quicker results on the BT Speedtest - It doesn't bypass our network like it used to (before Max).

[#10]

But it does bypass the Ellacoyas and that was a possible problem in another thread

[#11]

...and it's hitting rock bottom again.  Just look at this graph and tell me it's normal!  Even upload has dropped to 200kbps!

[#12]

OK James, with MTU dropped I still get the sub-300k speedtest from bbmax and mybroadbandspeed, and still get 4762 Kbps with BT and a slow browse.
Then sudddenly browsing seemed very quick, so I ran another mybroadbandspeed and I was getting 5900 ... this is so hard to test conclusively because it is so intermittent.
I see by the way that the traffic from a BT test is marked 0xa0 -- is that what allows it to bypass the Ellacoyas?

[#13]

Same here, this was a few hours back

This is right now.  It's still the same session, the router hasn't been rebooted or anything.

[#14]

Date	Download Speed	Upload Speed	
Today 20:16	5887 kbps (736kB/s)	371 kbps (46.4kB/s)
Today 19:52	262 kbps (32.8kB/s)	372 kbps (46.5kB/s)
Today 19:18	5441 kbps (680kB/s)	372 kbps (46.5kB/s)
Today 18:46	5806 kbps (726kB/s)	373 kbps (46.6kB/s)
Today 18:26	271 kbps (33.9kB/s)	372 kbps (46.5kB/s)

feast or famine!

[#15]

Your problem does look almost identical the problems I'm having at the moment.
During the morning the speed is fine but in the evening the speed is arround 100..300 kbps with the intermittent return to normal speed every so often.
BT speed tests always give a good speed.
I do hope that plusnet manage to get to the bottom of this soon.