New ISP, slow connection, what to do next?

Don
Joined
23 Oct 2005
Posts
43,994
Location
North Yorkshire
Hi All,

After some advice. I cancelled my subscription with Sky broadband after a year with them, slow connection and an unreliable connection were my reasons. I'm in an area where our exchange is yet to be upgraded so the best package I can go for is 8mb.

I opted for o2 Internet after some decent reviews and I get two months free and a reduced rate for havign an o2 mobile contract.

Anyway, after a month with them I have found them just to be as poor as Sky in terms of speed, especially gaming wise I see a large amount of lag.

The router I am using is a Netgear DG834GT (I was advised not to use the o2 jobby that came with the package)

The router displays the following as my connection "speed", hope this can help.

mod.jpg


mod2.jpg


At first I thought on my Xbox 360 it might be wireless that was causing lag so I used a network cable for connection and no improvements.

Just pinging www.localwebsite.com I get an average of around 170ms reply, I was told it should be around 50ms?!

Not sure what to do next, first thing is to rule out that this might just be the best I can hope for? If not, what can o2 do? And lastly is there anything I can at home, try the o2 router for example, change microfilters etc etc?

Any help greatly appreciated.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2004
Posts
20,599
Location
England
sorry but you've been mis-informed. i don't know where you idea that o2 were any good - well at least for the non-LLU service you are on. their LLU service is excellent but their "normal" service - "o2 access" has always been poor. if you've been with them less than 30 days you might be able to get out with no penalty. i suggest doing that if you can.
 
Don
OP
Joined
23 Oct 2005
Posts
43,994
Location
North Yorkshire
So they are worse than the other 8mb ISP's, Sky, BT, etc? The reason? They haven't been any better than Sky but not worse neither which leads me to believe this is the best I can do for where I live.
 

wij

wij

Associate
Joined
27 Dec 2006
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1,422
Location
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Try an Enta reseller, likely be a damn sight better and certainly can't be any worse.

Also Zen, AAISP and a few other business grade providers are certainly a cut above just about all the other BTW ISP's (and all the LLU ones tbqfh when it comes to quality of service and customer support) but you will pay a premium.
 

wij

wij

Associate
Joined
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1,422
Location
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Oh, and if you're going to ping a website for a rough idea of latency try not using one based in the US, even I'm seeing 150Ms to that.

Try using something fast, UK based and reliable OpenDNS IP's are often a good to try, as are things like the BBC.

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Code:
Ping has started ...

PING 208.67.222.222 (208.67.222.222): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=15.089 ms
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=14.579 ms
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=14.220 ms
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=16.279 ms
64 bytes from 208.67.222.222: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=16.322 ms

--- 208.67.222.222 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 14.220/15.298/16.322/0.864 ms

Code:
Ping has started ...

PING bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.224.138: icmp_seq=0 ttl=118 time=14.109 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.224.138: icmp_seq=1 ttl=118 time=13.795 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.224.138: icmp_seq=2 ttl=118 time=17.594 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.224.138: icmp_seq=3 ttl=118 time=15.183 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.224.138: icmp_seq=4 ttl=118 time=15.262 ms

--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 13.795/15.189/17.594/1.334 ms
 
Last edited:
Caporegime
Joined
16 May 2003
Posts
25,368
Location
::1
So they are worse than the other 8mb ISP's, Sky, BT, etc? The reason?

They're pretty poor for a BT Wholesale ISP but as said there are better.
The reason: selling "unlimited" without charging the sort of money that you can keep adding bandwidth without going bust. That's why they're going to start using traffic management - so you should see some improvement soon if you're stuck.
 
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