Eh...
Maybe just maybe having everyone using Internet at the same time may make the Internet connection slow?
A chunk of the UK's broadband users claim their connections worsened in the days following lockdown, according to a YouGov survey of 2,301 adults. This contradicts an earlier study from Ofcom in partnership with SamKnows, which found an almost negligible decline in performance. The YouGov poll shows that 28 per cent of …
Not really. We've seen a largish increase in traffic in the so-called "Internet backbone", but that bandwidth wasn't anywhere near saturated, so end-users should have seen no difference. Local nodes might see saturation due to lack of planning by providers, though.
Here in Sonoma (for example) they lit up some spare dark fiber in preparation & all is well with Hoi Polloi. The same is true over most of the San Francisco Bay Area ... although there are a few places where end-users can measure a little slow-down, if they care enough to check. This is being rectified as I type, even though $TELCO isn't fielding (m)any complaints about it. (Per friends in low places.)
Or the websites.
"Internet" is a loaded word. I can be your local wifi used by everyone in the house. It could be the local phone/fibre lines and the local switch/cabs/routing. It could be the backbone and peering, software/purchased or hardware/physical limits. It could be the server/game/website you are connected to.
A LOT can affect it, but the article seems to apply "internet" to ISP. That generally has not slowed down, as people are using the internet throughout the day, not as much all at the same time (as they did anyhow at 6pm previously etc). With the exception of ISPs that always have had, and will have, trouble due to poor management.
tbf, the standard "support" offered by various data flingers is to go through a checklist that involves blaming your PC, blaming your AV software, blaming you, blaming your router and when all else fails, blaming your ISP. Even though it's nearly always them. Thinking of certain games publishers and their "must surely be a Spectrum with a wobbly RamPak" approach to servers, but certainly not exclusive to them.
LOL you have not seen some on QUORA!!! examples...
"When was the last time all living humans were on Earth simultaneously?" HUH???
"Does a voice recorder record my real voice?"
"where can I get a yoda plush toy?" - cannot just type that into google????
"What standard is used to measure the signals of the human mind?"
"Is there possibility that we're inside of a Matrix? As shown in Matrix movies?"
there was an answer to this, but I think they may be on drugs... :O
Those amazon reviews could be fake. Some fake reviewers will also provide negative reviews so it isn't obvious. For example, they will comment on things that are obvious in the description, so someone will think the reviewer was an idiot and ignore it, but on average the fake reviews will give mark it as highly-rated.
Unless you are talking about those reviews that highly-rate Amazon's delivery and ease of use on a product that sounds like it does what you want, but the quality is shit.
I have a VerminMedia link. It should be 100Mbit/s.
I also have a SamKnows box. When I first acquired it, my internet connection improved immensely.
Now however, the reports are showing virtually 100% 100Mbit/s all the time. At various points during the day, I run a speed test (using testmy.net, Speedtest.net is also gimped). And guess what? I get rates as little a 1-2MBit/s.
So, quite plainly, VM are prioritising the routes that SamKnows is using to fake the reports.
Who do I report this fraud to?
Please note that speed test website use a special connection, so will only show your 'independent speed' .. if it is less that your rated speed, their are line prblems, so you can get an engineer...
there are some good tools here https://www.thinkbroadband.com/tools
'Broadband Quality Monitoring' is very good, it continuously monitors your boadband..
TBB's speed test is more complex than most!! many websites only use one 'thread' TBBx1) to access, giving lackluster results..
the 6 thread gives more the proper figure..
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1591442449141907255
Well I get 63Mbps down/ 11Mbps up on that test.
Which means that my link is over-contended (down is full of content, for most people up is just the ACKs). It gets worse at peak Netflix times, of course.
The poor test results are reflected in real buffering and poor video call performance.
My complaint about the popular speed test sites and SamKnows, is that those results get used in league tables, get quoted in news articles and such. Fixing the results is cheaper than fixing the problems. Plus, if I try to navigate the maze of twisty passages that is the customer care system, they can say "no fault found".
And yes, It was only a few weeks after I got a SamKnows box that the performance (which had becore poor) suddenly stepped up to the advertised rate.
"Who do I report this fraud to?"
No idea, and I don't care. I'm also on VM and rarely see any issues at all. On rare occasions, late evening especially, ie after 11PM, I've seen download speeds drop significantly for up to 5-10 minutes. Other than that, a variety of speed tests show 90+Mb/s on a nominal 100Mb/s connection other than the short "off" periods where I've seen it go as low as 2Mb/s. All is back to normal very quickly though. The issues are short enough that I've not been able to identify where it's happening yet. It might even by in my own network.
I've also had great broadband service from VM in the six years I've had them. I doubt I've had 48 hours of downtime total over that time, speed is usually just over the 100Mbps that I'm paying for, and their status checker actually reports issues when there are issues (unlike 100% of the cloud providers I've ever used).
I must say however that they have the direst of websites. They sent me an email four years ago offering a free upgrade to 250Mbps. I had to log in to activate it.
I thought I'd created an account on their website, but couldn't seem to log in. The password box helpfully reminded me that passwords are six to ten characters, must contain a number and start with a letter. That advice sets off all of the alarm bells you'd expect, but I tried to reset my password. Enter email address, hit button, 404. Consistently 404. A 404 *after* a form submission isn't something I see often, but whatever.
Tried signing up for a new account instead (noting that the password "complexity" requirements aren't stated on the screen but are in the HTML for the page, and bizarrely the password box has a max length of 15 with a message to tell you it's "too long" when you hit 11 characters). It looked up the correct email address from my account number and area code, and didn't state I already had an account, so that looked promising. Filled the form in, submit the form…404. Also consistently. Obviously no way of contacting them without signing in or phoning but I acquired their web team's email address and told them about all of these things (including the fact that their public forums indicated these had been happening for some time and their password storage had been flagged as concerning).
This week I noticed I was now paying the same price as a six-year customer as a new customer would for 200Mbps, and not much less than 350. So I opened the email I sent them four years ago to get the plus-addressed email I'd used for my account, tried all of the above, and allof it's still broken in the exact same way. Forwarded my old email to the web team asking if they were thinking of replying to it any time soon, or fixing any of the site, and it got bounced because the mailbox is full.
At this point I'm resigning myself to phoning them, despite the "urgent calls only pls" notice that they and so many other companies have plastered their websites with as a free new excuse for being shit at customer service.
do you mean the 'SamKnows white box' ??
https://samknows.one/hc/en-gb/articles/360000451757-What-is-the-Whitebox-
quote "The Whitebox does not directly improve your internet. It provides you with the data to help you improve your internet performance."
It is version 8 now, and needs the right software etc... maybe you need to call samknows??
or try https://www.thinkbroadband.com/tools and try the 'Broadband Quality Monitoring'
I've barely noticed any dips, but then when I did I'd be seeing around 80-90mbps... Nominally though I've been hovering at 700-800mbps. On a BT FttP connection.
I may have been on their gigabit trial programme.....
Annoyingly it ended last month so I've been back to 300Mbps and it normally hovers around 270 but drops to 90 if the kids and missus is streaming stuff.
Anon because let the hate flow through you (like the 6th home beer evening).
" it normally hovers around 270 but drops to 90 if the kids and missus is streaming stuff."
Assuming 1 missus and 3 kids that's 45Mbps per stream! Do they each run their own full size cinema with ultra-super-future-proofed-HD multiple screens??
"Annoyingly it ended last month so I've been back to 300Mbps"
What a whinging douchebag ha ha!! Honestly it's like a piddling competition for some people who I assume are lacking in other areas. Anything over 40Mbps is a luxury and mostly pointless. This "need for speed" is why the more rural areas are lacking in services while the cities are being flooded with pointless bandwidth.
Devices, not all of them but most of them, in my parents home have lost DNS and DCHP quite often since the lockdown. It's not a matter of false perception because I've been locked down for much longer so know what to expect. Reasonably good security before you ask.
I'm not that bothered (most of the time) so please don't call this paranoia, but I assume my ISP is knocking us off to prioritise other users.
Alternative explanation, they are just short of staff now.
Also, I know everyone will doubt this testimony because I've been spamming this forum, but perseverance and nothing else to do.
If your losing DHCP it's a problem with your router, as that's local.
Not necessarily - this could be the ISP's DHCP failing to renew the router's own WAN address on their network - I have seen this happen regularly in my VirginMedia Hub (but it happened outside the current lockdown too) via the logs when the service has gone to pot.
When I switched to Vodafone Fibre last year I got about 36Mbits; then upgraded it to about 64Mbits for a very reasonable --- compared to 3Mbits from Sky etc. for around £18 --- £23 a month.
I mostly got that until the early Spring : now I get 18Mbits. Plus extra-bonus random drops in service.
So, yeah I do think the virus had a detrimental effect --- with no doubt a few other reasons like Brexit and general governmental inefficiency, and even the providers deciding to provide less... --- but it seems caviling to complain whilst people are dying, and it's still adequate... just disappointing.
My life is exactly the same as it was pre-COVID, and the internet has gotten worse. Hell they dropped the speed a good chunk, from 60mbit down to 40mbit on a good day. But I put it down to them slowing down speeds to maintain better performance across the board with everyone at home. But ya, the internet is way WAY worse (I get dropped connections several times a week now, instead of the weeks on end with no drops like previous)
Sorry for shouting. An unwanted Windows update yesterday took out half the keys on my mum's HP. Not for the first time, last time I just waited and the next update fixed it.
I'm getting more used to the virtual keyboard - it sucks. I now get why a touchscreen could be useful. Everyone thinks that disabled folk have it easy, sitting around in bed or a wheelchair all day, but their computer access sucks.
I checked PC World and they don't stock brain control helmets yet. And the price of a replacement laptop has doubled since I last looked. I assumed Moore's law implied they would get cheaper.
I'm on EE - copper from cabinet to the house (c100m). 3/4 mile from exchange.
Only on 50Mb (which is fast enough for me). No chance of faster as no VM here and exchange is on opposite of Victorian town centre
Speed and latency haven't moved - unlike friends on VM cable and Sky connections
Pretty much every video call I'm on has at least one person complaining about the problems they're suddenly having with their internet. Pretty much every time the problem is that they keep moving around and facing away from the microphone so it starts trying to filter them out as background noise. Oddly enough, no amount of disabling video, faffing around with settings, or turning it off and on again ever seems to help. It's hardly surprising that most people fall back on blaming "the internet" for their problems when even some of the supposedly more intelligent and technically competent people can't figure out how to make a simple VOIP call work.
It's also likely a lot of households will be having issues with wifi congestion. Having four or so people scattered around a house all with poor wifi signals will grind things to a halt even if the raw bandwidth needed is far less than that available. Getting better coverage with a mesh setup, or even just a better non-ISP-provided router would likely solve a lot of problems people stuck at home are having with "the internet". Or using actual wires like some kind of savage of course.