Elderly Mums Broadband throttled back

[iain123]

Hi.
My mum hardly uses her broadband - just occasional song playing over amazon dot and ipad email/weather. Every so often it gets so slow its buffering just to play a song. Every 6 months I complain to the provider and they speed it back up again. Every time I ask them to disable whatever it is that throttles it back due to lack of use, but to no avail.

Anybody know of a good app the 'exercise' the broadband or how I should approach the supplier? (Am I asking for the wrong feature?)

Thanks

[Alaric]

Anybody know of a good app the 'exercise' the broadband

Introduce her to the delights of catch up TV perhaps. The simplest might be a Freeview box with catch up software. Alternatives are a Now TV box or Chromecast, although a subscription is needed for much of the content.

[Slarti]

Hi.
My mum hardly uses her broadband - just occasional song playing over amazon dot and ipad email/weather. Every so often it gets so slow its buffering just to play a song. Every 6 months I complain to the provider and they speed it back up again. Every time I ask them to disable whatever it is that throttles it back due to lack of use, but to no avail.

Anybody know of a good app the 'exercise' the broadband or how I should approach the supplier? (Am I asking for the wrong feature?)

Thanks

Sounds like it is time to look for a better ISP for her.
Who is she with?

Slarti

[mc2fool]

Many routers will drop the connection if there's no activity for a while, so make sure your mum's router is set to Always On/Keep Alive/Nailed Up.

Here's a page that describes how to do it for the routers that TalkTalk provides, and even if your mum's isn't one of those the page will give you an idea of what to look for (or if you let the board know which router your mum has then someone might be able to tell you how to do it). https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Sup ... -p/1338951

[Itsallaguess]

Every time I ask them to disable whatever it is that throttles it back due to lack of use, but to no avail.

Are you quite sure that it's the ISP changing something here?

I only ask because the issues you're describing might be difficult to differentiate between pure-ISP issues and more general issues with the wifi signal that seems to be the main source of data.

As a simple check (if you've not done it already), the next time your Mum has this issue, just ask her to turn the router off at the wall, leave it off for 30 seconds, and then ask her to turn it back on. After the router is powered back up it might take a couple of minutes to re-connect to the broadband, after which you could ask your Mum to re-try the services she was having issues with previously.

If the issues persist, then your ISP might be culpable, but if a router power-cycle fixes the problems, even if it's just for a short period, then it might be worth looking into the wi-fi side of things, and seeing if changing the wi-fi channel on the router helps prevent the issue re-occurring so frequently.

Crowded wi-fi channels show up as very similar issues to the one you're describing, so before you go to the trouble of changing the ISP, I'd want to make sure that it's nothing more mundane that you might be able to rectify yourself.

There's wi-fi channel-viewing apps available for free if you want to check the area for potential interference on the channel that the router is currently using, but if this isn's possible then usually moving the channel by two numbers one way or the other from the original setting will help if this is the root-cause of the problem.

The fact that you're asking the ISP to 'do-something', and then you're seeing an improvement might not tell the full story, if as part of that 'do-something', the ISP is power-cycling the router themselves (or asking you / your Mum to do it as part of their 'fix'...). Beyond what the ISP are actually doing at their end, it might well be purely the router power-cycle that's doing the real 'fixing' here....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[iain123]

Hi
Thanks for the responses.

Yes, rebooted the router multiple times. We even renewed the router after signing a new contract with PlusNet 6 months back (thinking the old router may be a cause) but speed has now started crawling back again after being acceptable for months. She's in a fairly quiet wifi area being some distance from all neighbours/fridges/washing machines/etc so I don't expect interference. Also we have the approved line filters plugged in - so I do suspect the provider as nothing has changed in the environment.

[Alaric]

Hi.
My mum hardly uses her broadband - just occasional song playing over amazon dot and ipad email/weather.

Another thought on this. Leave the ipad on and connected to wifi and install something which can be set to "call home" frequently. That could ensure the router stays active.

[jofc]

Its not just her.

We have had Plusnet a long time, with unlimited ADSL (not fibre to the box)

And what was a rock steady connection up until 5 or so years ago is just rubbish now.

Its not Wifi. Tried replacement router & even bought a TP-Link one independently.
Even had an engineer in that replaced the socket on the wall.
And anyway we have 2 main pcs with wired LAN connection to the box as well as assorted wifi connected devices.

I wonder if it is a deliberate ploy to get me to fork out for a fibre connection.
Well if they can't get this working why should I throw more money at it?

Or are they trying to squeeze more speed out of a copper wire link than it can cope with in an attempt to get their 'headline' average speed up?
Seeing as I can get 5+Gb/s at 7am on a Sunday morning
but by the time we get to the afternoon:
its dropped to less than 100K/s
Speedtest refuses to run
Ping to some server in Slough is more than 1 second

I don't blame Plusnet - they just re-sell the line from Openreach - they are the real problem

[Infrasonic]

I managed to persuade my sister to upgrade from ADSL to fibre (basic cheap FTTC package with the same ISP) as her speeds were so low (max of 3Mbps off peak and generally much less) and they immediately jumped to a solid 40Mbps downstream and 10Mbps up, even during peak times when contention ratios are an issue.

City centre suburbs, so not huge copper runs to the premises from the street box, but I was quite surprised at the major difference between the two.

The router BB connection was dropping a couple of times a day initially (router status light), so it may be that the bandwidth will decrease somewhat to provide more stability long term?

[Breelander]

Hi.
My mum hardly uses her broadband - just occasional song playing over amazon dot and ipad email/weather. Every so often it gets so slow its buffering just to play a song. Every 6 months I complain to the provider and they speed it back up again. Every time I ask them to disable whatever it is that throttles it back due to lack of use, but to no avail.

The router is continually negotiating the speed based on the quality of the line. It should settle down to a steady rate after about 10 days of negotiations. Does Mum only turn the router on occasionally? If so, it would have to negotiate all over again. Perhaps the line is poor quality at times. You could get BT to check that.

The line speed profile should always be slightly under the sync rate, which in turn is set by your router negotiating the speed it sync with at the cabinet (the green box in the road).

https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Bro ... -p/1498583

[chas49]

The router is continually negotiating the speed based on the quality of the line. It should settle down to a steady rate after about 10 days of negotiations. Does Mum only turn the router on occasionally? If so, it would have to negotiate all over again. Perhaps the line is poor quality at times. You could get BT to check that.

In fact, if the router is frequently turned on/off, the exchange end will think there's an issue and drop the speed down to improve the connection. IS this what's happening - and Plusnet reset the line speed when you phone up to complain?

If this is what's happening, your Mum needs to leave the router switched on all the time. AFAIK there's no need for any device to be connected to keep it active.

[kiloran]

In fact, if the router is frequently turned on/off, the exchange end will think there's an issue and drop the speed down to improve the connection. IS this what's happening - and Plusnet reset the line speed when you phone up to complain?

If this is what's happening, your Mum needs to leave the router switched on all the time. AFAIK there's no need for any device to be connected to keep it active.

I also wondered if it was this. But I also wondered if any speed drop would be so great as to be that noticeable. I would have thought that the initial speed on connecting would be somewhere near optimum, and any change due to the ongoing training between router and exchange would be relatively small. I might be wrong though.

My wife also frequently complains about the slow internet and blames it on our router, but we have a rock-solid 12-13Mbps ADSL and I don't see any speed issues whenever I test it. She does tend to frequent a lot of shopping-type sites which are riddled with adverts and the like, whereas I tend to use "quality(?)" sites like the BBC. Perceived speed problems can be caused by the local line, the internet infrastructure or the far-end server, so I wonder if the OP's problem is truly known to be a local issue.

--kiloran

[Breelander]

...a lot of shopping-type sites which are riddled with adverts and the like...

Adverts do eat bandwidth - I know from experience! Before broadband I used a pay-as-you-go T-Mobile dongle. Even with 'quality' sites (TMF as was?) the Flash adverts in particular caused heavy usage.

With a very limited monthly cap I put a HOST file in place to block all adverts. My monthly usage dropped by more than 50%.

[Slarti]

She does tend to frequent a lot of shopping-type sites which are riddled with adverts and the like, whereas I tend to use "quality(?)" sites like the BBC. Perceived speed problems can be caused by the local line, the internet infrastructure or the far-end server, so I wonder if the OP's problem is truly known to be a local issue.

For your wife, install an adblocker!

uBlock Origin is one of the best.


Slarti

Moderator Message:
Fixed incorrect quote (chas49)

[kiloran]

She does tend to frequent a lot of shopping-type sites which are riddled with adverts and the like, whereas I tend to use "quality(?)" sites like the BBC. Perceived speed problems can be caused by the local line, the internet infrastructure or the far-end server, so I wonder if the OP's problem is truly known to be a local issue.

For your wife, install an adblocker!

uBlock Origin is one of the best.

Slarti

I use uBlock Origin. Wouldn't be without it. But when I installed it for my wife, she complained that she was "missing stuff"!

--kiloran

Moderator Message:
Fixed incorrect quote (chas49)

[Slarti]

I use uBlock Origin. Wouldn't be without it. But when I installed it for my wife, she complained that she was "missing stuff"!

[Infrasonic]

I use uBlock Origin. Wouldn't be without it. But when I installed it for my wife, she complained that she was "missing stuff"!

--kiloran

For the e-commerce type sites in particular you need to be careful how much stuff you block.
Most of them will need first and third party cookies, some 'tracking' cookies, Javascript et al functioning to work properly for payments or linked continuity (online calendars and such.)

You can still block the ads but it requires a bit of tweaking to retain full functionality.

I generally just whitelist all my essential logged in sites and services in the various blockers (uBlock Origin, Ghostery, browser 'advanced settings' for cookies, Javascript etc.) but you can get even more granular than that if you are prepared to put in the time.

[Breelander]

For the e-commerce type sites in particular you need to be careful how much stuff you block...
...You can still block the ads but it requires a bit of tweaking to retain full functionality.

I've yet to find an e-commerce site that my HOST table stops from working...

[Sussexlad]

Its not just her.
We have had Plusnet a long time, with unlimited ADSL (not fibre to the box) And what was a rock steady connection up until 5 or so years ago is just rubbish now.

Ditto Plusnet/ADSL. Funnily enough I measured the speed just a day or two ago and it's 14.5Mb/s which is around what it's been for several years. Admittedly, I'm fairly close to the exchange but it's certainly not been downgraded in any way.

[UncleIan]

In fact, if the router is frequently turned on/off, the exchange end will think there's an issue and drop the speed down to improve the connection. IS this what's happening - and Plusnet reset the line speed when you phone up to complain?

If this is what's happening, your Mum needs to leave the router switched on all the time. AFAIK there's no need for any device to be connected to keep it active.

I also wondered if it was this. But I also wondered if any speed drop would be so great as to be that noticeable. I would have thought that the initial speed on connecting would be somewhere near optimum, and any change due to the ongoing training between router and exchange would be relatively small. I might be wrong though.

We used to turn our router off every night, well, every evening, to stop late night surfing by the offspring, but as I understand it the ISP sees this as a fault with the router as it can't ping it or whatever, and keeps throttling the speed lower and lower to less frequent checks. Last time our router or line went wrong it took a few days to get up to speed. It stays on all the time now, that's what we got advised to do by the support people.