Broadband congestion slashes speeds by a third

Who'd'a thunk it?

A contended service slows down when a lot of people use it.

And it's taken them how many years to notice this?

In other news, there's more traffic in Central London at 9:00am than there is at 3:00am.

By qpw3141 on 16 Nov 2011

National Grid

National Grid have been dealing with contention for 50 years. Electric consumption goes through the roof 5pm to 10pm. But they manage to cope and we all live blissfully unaware.

By drummerbod on 16 Nov 2011

@drummerbod

Yes, but it's very easy to bring extra generating capacity on line when needed.

Making a 100MB/s line turn into a 200MB/s line is more taxing.

In much the same way that they cannot double the width of Oxford street during the rush hour. ;)

By qpw3141 on 16 Nov 2011

Mirrored in the business domain

These worrying trends are unfortunately also hitting the business domain as bandwidth-hungry services such as video conferencing and streaming become more popular in offices up and down the land. A survey of some of our 80,000 customers pre-empted this earlier this year with almost a quarter or respondents (23.9%) saying that managing bandwidth utilisation was the biggest challenge for corporate network management in 2011. On top of the increase in bandwidth sapping business applications, general employee internet surfing around this time of year is also having an effect on bandwidth use.
Steve Demianyk, Channel Manager, Ipswitch Network Management Division

By Ipswitch_WUG on 16 Nov 2011

@qpw3141

That doesn't work. The equivalent backbone for electriciity is provisioned to cater for the greatest amount of load possible at peak times without detriment to the service. That's what has to be done to make an electricity supply work. The ISPs and carriers on the other hand have chosen to use smaller backbones. I am not saying that this was the wrong thing to do, it's a business and it costs more money for larger pipes\backbones. It was a choice by the ISPs and carriers. Larger pipes could and can be put in to stop contention but that costs more money.

By drummerbod on 16 Nov 2011

@drummerbod

You're really just reiterating what I said.

Yes, the grid has a transmission capability greater than worse case requirements but you were talking about their handling of peak load which involves bringing extra generating capacity on line.

Of course if only the ISP's would adopt the obvious tactic of charging by the GB then the whole problem would fairly quickly disappear as enhancements to the infrastructure would automatically self finance in the medium/long term.

By qpw3141 on 16 Nov 2011

Next they will be telling us it also slows down when east coast USA wakes up in the morning and Asia in the evening.

By Duggie on 16 Nov 2011

Duggie, Yes it does slow down when the USA wakes up. Speed testing tends to be done between national sites and not global. When working, I used to do regular speed tests to the USA and it always use to slow down about midday. The problem was the cross atlantic cable(s) reached capacity.
'Speed' is the wrong word, 'datarate' is better.

By DGPowles on 17 Nov 2011

Try Virgin, I get 9.5 Mbps on average from my 10 Mbps connection, yeah its a little slower during the evening on sites like Facebook but I think that is the site rather than my internet speed as most sites work fine and fast 24/7 for me.

By Saetana on 17 Nov 2011

OFCOM

"
Regulator Ofcom has noted the disparity between what ISPs advertise and deliver, with advertised speeds averaging 15Mbits/sec - more than double the 6.8Mbits/sec that customers actually receive. "

...and are happy to stand back and do nothing about either the lies in Advertising or the Disparagingly bad service to the end user. OFCOM should be fined for being completely incompetent - I wonder what a mob of British Public would do to the Head of OFCOM if they met him up a dark alley?

A friend across town pays for an 8Mb line, gets 3-4Mb daytimes, and in the evenings it drops to 0.2/0.5Mb. It wouldn't even run a speed test it was so slow! Yet OFCOM are happy for BT to sell this as a competent service. I don't think he'll be trying to watch streamed TV anytime soon!

By Wilbert3 on 17 Nov 2011

These averages are amazing

The very best I can get around 6am on a saturday is 600Kbytes per sec. I regularly see the equivalent activity fall to 30-50Kbytes per sec between 6pm and 11pm every evening.

I'd love to be able to get 4.5 Mbits (approx 450Kbytes per sec) during peak periods!!!

By lrkija on 17 Nov 2011

And I thought Australia was slow.

Here in Australia (just outside of Melbourne I get 20 Mbits sync and download at 17 Mbits 24/7.
I still complain as video chat etc can be slow due to only having a 1Mbits upload.
This is on ADSL2+ from Bigpond (Owned by Telstra).

But after reading this site many times I realise it's much better here although congestion is still a problem in some areas but its not so widespread.

And we are getting the "NBN" National Broadband Network with will be ftth and a max speed of 100/5 upgradeable to 1g Although the rollout should take over ten years to complete.
So Ill quit complaining I think.
Kevin

By zoszos on 17 Nov 2011

National Grid Broadband

Why cant the national grid provide the broadband through the power lines, Other countrys do it and provide faster speeds.

By monge69 on 17 Nov 2011

National Grid Broadband

Why cant the national grid provide the broadband through the power lines, Other countrys do it and provide faster speeds.

By monge69 on 17 Nov 2011