Slow broadband

Post Reply New Topic

Isn't broadband suppose to be fast? My connection is terrible lately. Does anyone get very slow speeds?

I did a speed test and it comes back at 0.1 Mbps.

I was having the same issue. Learned yesterday that they had released a firmware update for my modem... Have updated it and today all issues I have been having for the last months have vanished. It can also be your ports.

Maybe call tech support. I bit the bullet and called more times than I care to count.. but it resolved my issue in the end so well worth it.

Good luck!

0.1mbps? I would definitely call your Internet Service Provider and get them to fix that issue. When we used to have Qwest/Century Link as our ISP, we payed for 1.5mbps speeds but one day, I decided to check and noticed we were only getting .6 - I called them and they apologized profusely before 'resetting' our connection and giving us a speed of 1.3mbps. I asked why we still weren't at 1.5 and they said they only guarantee 80% of the speed you pay for. In my opinion, they slowly cut your internet speed and reap the benefits of reduced data transfer from people who aren't internet savvy. Then, get this, once we switched to Xfinity (for 3.0mbps which actually gives us 3.2mbps; more than what we pay for! Amazing...), Qwest sent us a bogus $14 bill, just to get us to call them up so they could preach a few alternatives to the switch. Can you believe that? Half the people who got that bill, probably unwittingly paid it and the other half, had to listen to the Qwest sermon. Needless to say, I hate them.

You got to read the fine print on the contract, (as well as the small print on the advertising), the provider does not guarantee you will receive the full bandwith allocated.

My internet is slow too. Even worse, it has constant interuptions in service. They usually last less than a min, but it makes watching youtube, playing games, or making a skype call impossible..

Anything over 128Kbps ISDN is considered broadband. Is your connection DSL, cable, satellite, wireless? because there is several things for each can cause Slow Speed.

With DSL here is what I have seen with that causes Slow Speed
- Line condition inside and outside.
If the Phone line on the inside of the house is old like before 90s, most of the time the phone line is not neat and is up in the adict which can cause noise in the DSL signal in the copper which with that the modem will slow itself down to scale the speed to were it is as stable as possible. The Fix for that is to rewire the whole house. if it outside from the line box to the switching station your phone company would have to come and check the line. if the wire going from the poll to the house is the OLD line with fabric in it that needs to get replaced because waster can get in causing crappy signal and shorts in the lone. To check that you would have to disconnect the house and connect the modem right into the line box and with a laptop check the speed.


- Line Length to Switching Station"or Central Office"
with DSL distance from your house to the central office is also critcal because the DSL max length Very and will determine your Speed. This your phone company would have to come to the house can check the DSL Line Quality.

- How full the switching station"Central Office" is.
Because there is a limit of how many slots can connect into because if the central office is overfilled and the internet backbone will get cramed with connection.

-Bandwidth Caps
Lately ISP have been popping in caps sometimes without the customer knowing, Or even is there is no caps sometimes during peak hours if you use to much bandwidth then your speed would be slowed down. Also there is what are softcaps like what the cell companys use to were you get 2.5GB - 5GB at full speed then after that is used the speed would be slowed.

--Cable
-Speed can depend how many people on you block
unlike DSL, cable line in your naiberhood is shared and only so many people can connect to it also like with DSL distance also matters.

-Bandiwdth caps
Cable companies are well known for caps like Comcast, and caps can be different between providers.

---Satellite Internet example: Exced, Wildblue, HughesNet
-Line of site
Satellite Internet requires a clear line of sight to the sky to get the ka band signal.

-Weather conditions
Satellite internet is very weak when it comes to weather like a cloudy day or storms. When it is cloudy or storming the satellite dish can't get the signal to the satellite in earth's orbit.

-Bandwidth Caps
Satellite internet is will know to have the lowest caps I have seen from the main service providers to were you can go through you daily because some of them have 200MB -500MBs aday cap and others do have GBs.

---Wireless Internet "3G, 4G, WiMAX, WISP, etc."
-Distance for transmitter tower
The distance from transmitter like WiFi is important. The further you are from the tower the crappier and the slower it would go.

-Tower Load
If the tower is overpacked the speeds for everyone on that tower would slow down. The Peak hours would get slower also.

-Bandwidth Caps
Wireless internet providers and have from bad to good caps or even non at all.

0.1 mbps is painful and indicative of an underlying problem.
It'd be best to follow up with your ISP.

You should post your issue in your ISP's direct forum at Broadband Reports. Don't try to deal with tier 1 by calling, go further up. I've had success in posting to the direct forums.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forums/60

I wonder this too but i cannot think of why that would benefit them.

The problem started months ago. The internet just basically switched off and we had no connection. Then they sent an engineer who gave a new router and it worked fine for a week then went slow again.

Calling them up is useless, you end up talking to someone who is just reading responses from a screen. I have been trying to figure it out myself and wonder if there is a setting on the router I can alter to make the connection faster. Anyone know of anything?

There is no way to magically make your connection faster, it's whatever speed you are provisioned for.

If you have DSL, take the modem out to the NID, the box where your phone service comes from, disconnect the cord connected to the test jack and connect the modem. Hopefully your modem has built in wi-fi, if not, then connect a router to it and use a wifi device. If the connection is better, then your home wiring is the issue. If its still the same, then it's the phone company's responsibility to fix the problem. Also make sure all phones, caller id's, fax machines, etc. are connected to phone filters.

Numbers you're looking for in DSL are as follows:

SNR margin should be more than ~10, 11db. Anything less than that will lead to problems
Attenuation is dependent on your distance to the DSLAM. Range of 38 to 50db is ok

Cable can be many different factors up to and including too many splitters and/or splitters that have gone bad. The numbers you are looking for in a cable connection are as follows:

36db to 39db for your SNR
-10 dBmV to +5 dBmV for your downstream power
+35 dBmV to +52 dBmV for your upstream power

If you are on a windows machine I would suggest looking into the following commands from a command prompt

ping 4.2.2.2 -t

the -t will make the command keep going until you stop it. I normally just enter that after pressing windows key + R. You can also use this against your dns entries. to see your dns entries, you can type ipconfig /all in your command prompt.

Also try this, it can help you find out where the slow down is happening.

pathping -n 4.2.2.2

Site Explaining the command more in depth