I've Broadband via BT but sometimes it seems to pause for ages. I run Zonealarm which gives a visual indication of traffic and sometimes the connection just seems to stop for up to 10 or 20 seconds. When it starts again it seems quite quick.

 

I'm not sure if it's perception or reality but it seemed quicker when I got it. Could something have messed about with some registry settings or something ?

 

Would welcome any suggestions.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

Use a modem LOL;)

Now why didn't I think of that ! Cheers Iain !

I have a favoutite utility for monitoring bandwidth usage/performance. It's a bit more accurate than the ZoneAlarm flashing light. Looky here :- http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm

Thanks Andy,

 

With a 576 Kbps connection, should I be expecting a peak figure similar to that ? Or is life more complicated than that ?!

 

I've currently got a peak of 67.1 KB.

 

Cheers !

Never have any problem like that.

Every now and then it suddenly dies for about 30 seconds then comes back. Its when they reset their servers and only happens once every few months.

 

Stuart

When they say you have a 578kbps connection they mean 578 kiloBITS, not kiloBYTES. As you probably know there are 8 bits in a byte so the max speed you would get is around 72 kilobytes per sec. If you are getting 67KBps that is pretty good. Pauses in connection could be a few things like server resets, max bandwidth capacity on the site you are visiting or just a lot of traffic on the shared connection.

Thanks for that - yes, I knew about 8 bits but hadnt made the connection (pun unintended!).

 

I feel happier !

AndyP - aha - that looks good - just downloaded it.

 

For work, we use http://www.bandwidthplace.com as a quick and easy test.

 

Hairsy - yes I get BT (ISDN) pausing at times. It is known that the BT DNS is *ahem* not what it should be. And their recent reduction of BT Anytime to BT Whenwefeellikeit is just another illustration of how you cannot have free bandwidth / unlimited bandwidth.

 

When ADSL is first connected in an exchange, the first few customers will get top performance - always assuming the rest of the network (both BT core and ROW) is hunky dory.

 

However, if a lot of punters sign up, there may not be enough fibre connecting the exchanges to the networks so although the DSLAM (the bit connecting your phone line in ADSL-stylee to BTs IP network) is OK, the DSLAM istelf does not have enough connectivity to the outside world.

 

Hey-ho - another case of marketing speak vs real world tech.

 

Cheers - Gio

Hairsy,

 

I've also got BT Broadband, and it's definitely not as quick as it used to be ... also sometimes takes ages to get on "always on" - yeah right ... and I have to kill the browser and re-start, then it seems to be OK.

 

Perhaps it's because they dropped the price from 40 quid a month to 30, after all, you get what you pay for!:D :D

 

If it gets any worse, I think I'll call BT ... hmmm, wonder if that'll help!

 

CheerZ,

John.

Many, many years ago, they said they were building this wonderful new road round London. It would have three or four lanes all the way, far more capacity than we would ever need. It's called the M25!

 

Now we are told broadband has far more capacity than we will ever need... ... ...

In order to keep a promise which I made to Freeserve just over a week ago, their service is crap and I strongly recommend that no-one uses them.

 

To start with they were helpful. However, using a utility recommended by them, I checked my connection over a week or so and this confirmed that the connection speed was terrible for broadband - at times it was slower than a modem.

 

Despite them continuing to take £28.99 per month from my credit card for the service, they have not made any contact with me since I supplied them with the evidence that the service was so bad. Not surprisingly, when I used their email address for 'new subscription' I got an almost immediate reply. However their suggestion was that I ring their premium rate support line to ask for a progress update - my previous experience is that I stay on hold for an average of around 20 minutes are premium rate and I'm not prepared to do that.

 

I gave them every chance to resolve the problem and inform me of progress but they have ignored me. I told them if they didn't resolve it that I would publicise the service levels.

 

In order to protect unfair accusations at the forum owners etc, I have sent Craig details of the emails between myself & Freeserve, including the relevant performance readings.

 

Obviously all in my experience only. But it's genuine experience.

 

Apologies if people aren't interested.

 

:mad:

:D Been reading articles on Satellite Broad band connections,getting cheaper and looks to be the way forward,have a few friends with BT broadband,there not to inpressed,still way better than NTL i believe(total crap apparently!):p as for freeserve,total shite,remember once them sending all me mail to some unknown person who got in touch with me,never a bloody apoligy,tossers,:mad:

Going for Satashite when I move next week:D

I have Satellite and it is no panacea believe me. However, it may be better than some of the cheap and nasty broadband options, of couse if you live in the middle of nowhere then there is currently no other option.

 

Talk to me or Gio before splashing out piles of cash.

Would be interested on how it realy performs MAC,one down side apparently was the upload speed,but there prob getting that sorted,will be after your views when you have played with it,;)

Will do Andy:cool:

Originally posted by Hairsy

I've Broadband via BT but sometimes it seems to pause for ages. I run Zonealarm which gives a visual indication of traffic and sometimes the connection just seems to stop for up to 10 or 20 seconds. When it starts again it seems quite quick.

 

I'm not sure if it's perception or reality but it seemed quicker when I got it. Could something have messed about with some registry settings or something ?

 

Would welcome any suggestions.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

 

Dave,

BTconnect (BT Satellite) have just released a utility which modifies the network config of your machine (increases the MTU to 1498 bytes) which may be useful to anyone with a fast AND reliable connection. You can either faff about through the network config or get ahold of the .exe which does it, or un-does it, for you. If you want to have a go let me know and I'll email it to you.

Thanks for the links Andy;)bloody hell that is cheap was looking at paying around a K:rolleyes:

Originally posted by TonyC

Would be interested on how it realy performs MAC,one down side apparently was the upload speed,but there prob getting that sorted,will be after your views when you have played with it,;)

 

http://www.btopenworld.com/satellite/

http://www.silvermead.net/broadband/satellite/

http://www.everywherebroadband.com/html/index.html

http://www.satdrive.com/

http://www.netcom.co.uk/

 

Check them out;)

Very interesting,cheers:)