Joined: 12 Mar 2009Posts: 1Location: United Kingdom
I have 8mb broadband from Orange and am on a non-LLU exchange. During the morning and early afternoon I get a download speed of between 5.5 and 6.5mb - great! Late afternoon and evening, the speed has always dropped off - maybe down to 4mb - still quite acceptable.
Over the past few months however, it frequently drops much lower at these times - typically to about 1mb, but sometimes as low as 60 - 80kb - not much more that dial up speed. Orange have consistently blamed BT for this, and BT have run many tests and claim to have changed some equipment in the local exchange, all without effect. My feeling is that if BT were at fault, the speed would be low all the time, and the real problem must lie with Orange and their server capacity.
I have two questions.
1) Is my assumption reasonable and what if anything can I try and get Orange to do to solve the problem?
2) If I change to another ISP (PlusNet for instance) am I likely to have the same problems because the same BT equipment will still be used? Needless to say there are no LLU systems in my local exchange.
Orange buy-in BT's Ipstream and if they don't buy-in enough capacity (or their customer base increases on Ipstream) then there will be congestion during the popular times, i.e. 4pm to 12 midnight.
o2 (now Sky)'s customers are currently experiencing a severe problem because o2 (now Sky) have attracted a great number of new customers in a very short space of time and o2 (now Sky) cannot buy in more capacity quickly enough.
So if you do move, you will not necessarily suffer the same problems provided the new ISP has bought in enough capacity from BT......but you won't know until you get connected.
Zen and Fast are 2 ISPs that use Ipstream and currently have good reports re. no congestion.....but they are at the top end of the price scale.
When it's available then an ISP which has LLU capability at your exchange will be a better option.
You might have a few dedicated bittorrent fiends on your exchange, it doesn't take too many serious downloaders to soak up an awful lot of bandwidth. Of course when the ISPs take action by sending them letters and capping their speed they get flak on here with the old 'unlimited should mean unlimited' argument.
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