In that case I’ve no idea what the BT chap did . My max was 30MB/s before he came and was 55 after he left. Only thing he did was to receive my old socket and fit a BT Openreach master with integrated filter. Puzzling.
Speaking of length of line. The cable exits the ground at the front of my house into a plastic box on the wall. From there the cable goes quite a distance up the front wall of the house, 2 storeys, along the side of the house around the rear then back down to where it enters the room and connects to hub TiVo etc. Maybe that could be causing a drop in speed, nevertheless if my understanding is correct, the speed quoted is what should be recieved at the hub/modem?
I tested my broadband speed periodically over a number of weeks using Which, Ofcom and other internet based speed checkers. I connected a laptop directly to the hub with ethernet, in fact I unplugged the ethernet at the TiVo and connected the laptop to that. Cabes are those supplied by Virgin. I made sure everything else with an internet connection was switched off. From what I’ve read on internet searches I understand this is the most accurate way in lay terms to do the test. The Virgin chap tried to say that my laptop could be slowing the speed, not 100% sure but think I was correct in telling him that was nonsense, a computer processor may run slow for various reasons giving perhaps a perception that the speed was slow but the laptop cannot in itself affect the broadband speed being recieved.
Would be good to be in a better informed position in case “engineer” tows the company line and trys to baffle me with BS
1 Like
Not really puzzling at all. If you were introducing high RFI or other issues into your DSL from your house without having a functioning filter and correctly wired master socket or subsequent sockets - you might have found you had a very high noise level that was knocking back your sync level - and so the cabinet would then try and manage the sync rate on your line to get the best from a bad situation - this is an automatic system. (DLM)
A reset can be requested by your ISP and a trigger can be the source of the noise having been removed by an Openreach engineer. It will adapt back over a long period of time on its own as well.
We were talking about ISP ‘throttling’ though - not error recovery from a badly terminated noisy digital line. Think of terminating your ethernet lead from your streamer using crocodile clips
2 Likes
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated.
I’ll get back in my hole 
1 Like
So, Virgin “engineer” came. Had a look at cabling etc no real issues, replaced some corroded connectors outside and put some new ones on the indoor cabling.
Checked the router/hub was outputing 5G, the Virgin Hub3 is a dual frequency 2.4 & 5Ghz in any case and is supposed to auto optimise.
Now, before I continue I have found that different “Speed Checkers” seem to give widely differing results which is peculiar and makes an objective test difficult. Using Which, Ofcom & speedtest.net, the latter shows a much higher reading and unsurprisingly is the one Virgin recognise. Which checker consistently shows a much lower figure than both Ofcom & speedtest.net.
So, engineer wipped out his phone and showed me a speedtest.net WiFi reading of 218mbps. I still couldnt get above about 74mbps with wired ethernet connection and still as low as 30mbps over WiFi.
He said my HP laptop and Samsung phone needed to be on 5Ghz to achieve the 218mbps he demonstrated. Fair enough I said, but that doesn’t explain the sub par speed via ethernet to which he didnt offer a plausible explanation.
After some messing around with my phone & laptop to confirm whether or not they supported 5Ghz WiFi which was inconclusive, we tried my wifes iPhone 6 which clearly displayed 5Ghz in its WiFi settings. With a few attempts on speedtest.net we managed to get 166mbps, pretty good but still not the 218 he was demonstrating. Then using Which & Ofcom checkers the readings ranged widely from about 60 on Which to 120 Ofcom to 166 at best on speedtest.net . He continued to insist that his 218mbps was correct and there was nothing more he could do.
Pragmatically I started to think that 2 out of 3 of those readings are above my “guaranteed minimum speed of 100mbps” and should be happy with that.
Well, I think something very funny was going on because the minute the “engineer” left the speed on all the devices and speed checkers used plummeted back to what they were before.
I’m left scratching my head and wondering if there was some attempt here to pull the wool.
To add to my puzzlement and further my suspicion that Virgin are pulling the wool, according to Ofcom the highest speed available for my area is 80mbps
Virgin have their own network & don’t piggyback on Ofcom
… err … der … Doh
1 Like
Much confusion of terms here I fear. 5G and 5Ghz router frequency are very different things. An iPhone 6 will not be on 5G given that the iPhone 12 is the first to feature 5G. It may access the wi-fi on either router frequency but most times the two frequencies are combined rather than separate. I’m not sure anyone is trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.
Sorry guys, I dont know what either of those comments mean
I was referring to 5ghz router frequency sorry, I’ve edited to clarify. I was also meaning pulling the wool over the broadband speeds if you read my post
I get different line speeds depending on the wireless band the test devise (tablet or laptop) is on.
My BT service is 76mb/s (FTTC & aprx 250m of copper to the house)
I get around 74mb/s on an ethernet connection & the same on the 5GHz wireless band, whereas on 2.4GHz its around the 55mb/s mark
Hi Mike,
That sounds similar to my speeds BUT I’m paying for 213mbps with a minimum guarantee of 100, so that’s my issue with Virgin.
Anyway I’ve already cancelled this was their attempt at an olive branch to stay with them
1 Like
Why do different speed checkers give such widely differing figures?
Anyway, wasted enough on this today. Going to put some ointment on the scratches on my bonce and get on with some music
One reason is that often the speed available from a particular server is limited by the route it takes to get to you. Speedtest.net allows you to select the server. For example I could do a test from a server in Helsinki, which is over 1000 miles from the UK. Here are the results!
The WiFi performance can be affected by all sorts of things. But if your Virgin engineer showed you the result on his phone, he really was getting that performance.
The ping isn’t very good, but not bad considering the distance involved.
Best
David
Thanks Dave, but why do different speed checkers give such widely differing results and speedtestdotnet always reads much higher than the others
I refer you to my earlier answer!
Best
David
1 Like
Thanks David. Still cant get my head around why not one device in my house under the same conditions over both wired and WiFi could get the same results as the engineer. Better yes, but still nowhere near.
Then the strange drop in speed the moment the engineer left. I’ve tested several times since and it hasn’t improved