Whom Should I Blame For Low Internet Speed?

[H.O.D 0]

i have a 2mbps connection at home and though i mostly use it only for browsing, sometimes i download linux distos and stuff like that. yesterday i was trying to download fedora 13 and noticed that i was getting a download speed of 20kpbs, while i remembered that i used to get around 150-200kbps earlier. i had noticed no difference in the browsing speed - only the download was slow. thinking it to be the fedora server's fault, i decided to test with some other download. i went to ubuntu's website and tried to download their image - once again the speed was 20kbps! so it was not just one website but my connection was giving me 20kbps when it was supposed to give 150-200kbps. i called up my isp and asked what the matter was and the customer care person said it was some problem of "international latency" or something like that. it seemed he had rehearsed this one line well and when i asked him to explain what it meant he couldn't give a satisfactory answer at all. what i could decipher from his answer was that it wasn't the isp's fault that my speed is low. so what is that international latency and whose fault is it really, and more importantly, how do i fix this problem?

[mahesh2k 0]

I think this is the issue with line and they're not giving you exact download speed. They're setting you on typical shared line of 512kbps perhaps. Cause most of the 2mbps or higher are on dedicated lines. Not sure what is the situation at your place and how people are managing it over there. But i found that most ISP charge a lot for 2MBPS and higher connection and so the lines are dedicated. Though the line is at the same repeater points but because of it's dedicated nature you're not supposed to get lower speed like this. Not sure what this company done foryou. But if i;m not wrong most of the companies all over the world have latency /8. That mean divide by 8 speed, can't get into more details. Will check if this applies everywhere. Most of the time low speed issues are related to ISP. Unless there is issue with underground fiber line that happened in 2008.

[H.O.D 0]

well my ISP is a government managed one - BSNL - and their way of functioning is a deep mystery. I don't think they are giving dedicated lines to all users with plans of 2mbps. In fact, their unlimited plans with less speed cost much more than the limited plans with more speed. Obviously more people prefer unlimited so this old 2mbps plan is getting neglected. Their response is not so good and they think if they hurl a few tech terms people will be quiet about it! I checked again today morning and the speed was 50kbps. I checked my connection speed at speedtest and it was 0.7mbps. I think the speed is varying a lot and is decreasing and increasing at random. Hopefully it will increase for a few days so that I can finish my fedora download.

[yordan 10]

Most of ISP's give you some private space for storing pictures, small movies and private documents. Usually these fileservers or webservers are in your own country. Then, have a look at your download speed from your site, put a file which is some megs large, and see how fast you dowload it. This indicates the speed you can imagine reach. If this speed is slow, only your ISP is involved and he has to fix this.

[vhortex 1]

Sometime the international latency is at fault. Have you tried downloading from a local distro area.. I used to have that same problem when I still don't know the latency problem on international connections.I use to download from USA sites and I am at Asia, Philippines to be exact. For the first 6 hours, the download speed was at 250kbps which is high for me (I normally get 150kbps as download speed). Then the speed drop to mere 10kbps, I called my ISP and do some discussions with the speed.. They keep on denying about the speed problem and points me to diagnose my connection using a canned approach which was suppose to be issued on people with problems on connecting.In frustration I use Germany as the download source having my connection travel 3/4 of the globe and it sucks thinking it will be so slow. To my surprise I keep on getting 255kbps on the speed on any server that was on Germany that I select. :)Since most people have servers located on US specially game servers, I am on tight competition with this guys on accessing and having a pie slice of the latency going to US server.You will know when to scold your local ISP if you can't even have a decent ping rate or speed from local connections on your country.. this also includes same state/province for larger countries.

[mahesh2k 0]

well my ISP is a government managed one - BSNL - and their way of functioning is a deep mystery. I don't think they are giving dedicated lines to all users with plans of 2mbps. In fact, their unlimited plans with less speed cost much more than the limited plans with more speed. Obviously more people prefer unlimited so this old 2mbps plan is getting neglected. Their response is not so good and they think if they hurl a few tech terms people will be quiet about it! I checked again today morning and the speed was 50kbps. I checked my connection speed at speedtest and it was 0.7mbps. I think the speed is varying a lot and is decreasing and increasing at random. Hopefully it will increase for a few days so that I can finish my fedora download.

If i'm not wrong BSNL offers DSL connection which makes use of their existing telephone lines. BSNL is not investing money on fiber optics in most of the region. DSL connection are faster but there are some issues with it during contention and shared connection issue. As voice and data is shared on same line besides that on single telephone line at switch there are multiple users fighting for bandwidth so this is one problem with DSL connections. There are many users in Xisto and asta using BSNL claiming that they get good speed at varying time in day/night. This is because of DSL. I'm sure in rainy seasons these repeaters often pose issues. These issues are related to noise and connection failure at switch/repeaters. I hope i cleared few things. The stuff that i mentioned here was applicable when i studied DSL connections and ISP in way back in 2007. I don't know how much DSL is improved these days.

[H.O.D 0]

well i didn't manage to find out why the speed was getting decreased but for now i've switched to an unlimited plan. it doesn't affect my browsing speed in any way; just the download speed gets reduced a great deal. anyway since i don't download much it should be fine. still, i tested the download speed and found that i was getting the correct speed as mentioned in the plan. so maybe the ISP has no worry about giving speed to unlimited plan owners because the promised speed is less anyway, and since the limited plan owners will download cautiously the ISP saves bandwidth there also by giving less speed and then saying its not their fault. this is simply too idiotic and silly and the ISP is coolly pocketing our money without fulfilling the promise entirely.

[yordan 10]

wthis is simply too idiotic and silly and the ISP is coolly pocketing our money without fulfilling the promise entirely.

Do you mean that you pay for download time?With most of ISP's, for limited plan, you pay for the megs you download. So, no matter the download time, if you download 100 megs you will pay the same money whether your download time is ten seconds or ten hours.

[H.O.D 0]

Do you mean that you pay for download time?With most of ISP's, for limited plan, you pay for the megs you download. So, no matter the download time, if you download 100 megs you will pay the same money whether your download time is ten seconds or ten hours.

no no i wasn't saying that i pay for download time. what is the use of downloading 100mb in 1 hour when it should have been finished in 10 minutes (according to the plan). in this unlimited plan there is less speed so the ISP knows less bandwidth will be consumed even if used extensively so i'm getting the mentioned speed without any problem. in the limited plan the speed is high so the ISP is trying to conserve bandwidth by choking the speed and then trying to put the blame on someone else

[mahesh2k 0]

Some people do pay for the amount of downloaded data if they didn't download in time specified(Those Night surfing free type of plans). I mean some ISP offers free browsing at time 10pm to 8am and they call it night unlimited or free. You'll not be charged if you download in this time. For example, if you download 900MB and your plan offers 700MB free then you'll be charged for those 200 MB extra if you didn't download it in night time or the specific free hour plan. They charge about 2 bucks per MB. Not sure if this is the correct price but as per ISP this price varies. Feel good that you're not on these plans, these plans are waste seriously.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Hi!I think the night unlimited plans are quite inexpensive and you can use them to run Windows updates and updates for any other software that you use during the off-peak hours. If you have to make a large download, you can download it at night. I'm not sure if you get the 2Mbps speed during the night unlimited period too - I'm guessing they might reduce the speed to 512kbps, as in the unlimited plan.Some Internet connectivity plans offer you a higher speed till you reach a certain bandwidth, which is when they would drop you down to a lower speed for the rest of the month. It's unlimited, but you only get half the speed if you are using it for extensive downloading.

[8ennett 0]

there are several key points to remember with download speed. The most important is your distance from the exchange you are using, distance really does matter with any network connection. Also, the exchange relay may be tied in to many different homes all using broadband. This affects speed as only so much can be 'pumped' through each relay, so the more people around you that are online the slower your connection speed will be.

If you continue experiencing slower bandwidth than your service provider is telling you you should get then get in touch with them and tell them. It may just be they have overlooked useage issues and not installed a second relay to cope with the influx of additional users.

Also, another handy way of testing between the server you are downloading from and your current ISP's line is using a speedtest service. Just type in 'speedtest' to google and you will find loads of them, they will give you a current upload and download speed of your connection. If your upload stays the relatively the same but your download is significantly reduced then it is definately too many users using the same relay and a second is needed.

also, i'm not even going to get started on the problems with wireless networks. there are many benefits and many problems, even coming down to cordless phones and tower blocks.

If none of the above apply to you but you are using a wireless network, make sure it's secure by following my simple instructions listed in this post! http://forums.xisto.com/topic/97576-topic/?findpost=1064407800 (I didn't mention using mac address filtering in this post by the way which will increase the security of your wireless network but not make it infalible)

Edited July 7, 2010 by 8ennett (see edit history)

[zzj 0]

My experience is moden will affect the Internet speed. Maybe you should try to replace Moden.

[yordan 10]

My experience is moden will affect the Internet speed. Maybe you should try to replace Moden.

What do you name "moden"? Are you talking about the ADSL Modem ?
In that case, you are wrong. The modem speed is related to the ADSL line speed : if the line speed is slow, replacing the modem will change nothing.

[HarrisonHill 0]

ISP They provide limit your speed and you have to BUY new package.. They need money from you for high speed