Are internet services becoming less reliable ?

[yorksrob]

Is anyone else finding that broadband and internet services seem to have deteriorated over the last week ?

First of all, we had all that doings with the forum internet address not directing properly. What was that all about !

Also more generally at around the same time, my broadband has been going down at the drop of a hat. Barely a night goes by without having to re-boot it, often more than once.

Thirdly, my large public employer can't seem to string together a working i.t.system of late - it was never particularly good in the first place, but again it seems to have gotten worse in the last week (it all relies on this dreadful cloud now, which slows everything up).

 

[Darandio]

No issues here on Virgin Media, touch wood.

Saying that, for all the bad press they sometimes get I could count on less than two hands the amount of downtime i've had in 14 years with them.

 

[yorksrob]

No issues here on Virgin Media, touch wood.

Saying that, for all the bad press they sometimes get I could count on less than two hands the amount of downtime i've had in 14 years with them.

I seem to have less luck with Virgin media, but then perhaps I'm nearer the end of their cable !

 

[najaB]

Is anyone else finding that broadband and internet services seem to have deteriorated over the last week ?

Not noticeably, no. But then it can depend very much on both the ISP and your geographical area. Could be as simple as an oversubscribed POP meaning additional contention on the backhaul network.

First of all, we had all that doings with the forum internet address not directing properly. What was that all about !

That was entirely on the site admins - they made some changes that didn't quite take and made a mistake backing them back out.

 

[yorksrob]

Not noticeably, no. But then it can depend very much on both the ISP and your geographical area. Could be as simple as an oversubscribed POP meaning additional contention on the backhaul network.

That wouldn't surprise me to be honest.

 

[GS250]

No problems at all with my Plusnet Fibre to Cabinet connection. Regularly delivers 50-60mb down and 10-15mb up.

Sometimes get wireless reception issues in the house but that's totally out of control of my ISP.

 

[westv]

No issues here with my Fibre to the home 300 Mbs

 

[GusB]

Is anyone else finding that broadband and internet services seem to have deteriorated over the last week ?

Recent events have probably caused more internet traffic than normal. Lots of people trying to access the internet at the same time is going to have a significant effect on the bits and bobs that connect us to the wider world.

Not noticeably, no. But then it can depend very much on both the ISP and your geographical area. Could be as simple as an oversubscribed POP meaning additional contention on the backhaul network.

This could have been simplified a bit

 

[Bantamzen]

Is anyone else finding that broadband and internet services seem to have deteriorated over the last week ?

First of all, we had all that doings with the forum internet address not directing properly. What was that all about !

Also more generally at around the same time, my broadband has been going down at the drop of a hat. Barely a night goes by without having to re-boot it, often more than once.

Thirdly, my large public employer can't seem to string together a working i.t.system of late - it was never particularly good in the first place, but again it seems to have gotten worse in the last week (it all relies on this dreadful cloud now, which slows everything up).

As far as BB (Virgin Media) goes, I've found no issues. Public sector networks however have definitely been getting worse for months, and yes, cloud services are involved!

 

[Snow1964]

Not noticed any internet problems (use EE fibre to street cabinet, as fibre to home not yet in my town).

But trying to look at files stored on the cloud for school I help out has been very slow. Cloud is lot worse (much slower) than having them saved on company server, upto 20 seconds to get 1 page word document. So clearly Cloud seems like being store on opposite side of world

Perhaps GCHQ are scanning everybody‘s data to spot terrorists ahead of Queens funeral

 

[birchesgreen]

Not noticed any internet problems (use EE fibre to street cabinet, as fibre to home not yet in my town).

But trying to look at files stored on the cloud for school I help out has been very slow. Cloud is lot worse (much slower) than having them saved on company server, upto 20 seconds to get 1 page word document. So clearly Cloud seems like being store on oppo side of world

Perhaps GCHQ are scanning everybody‘s data to spot terrorists ahead of Queens funeral

What cloud service is it? My college uses the Microsoft one and i've found that slowing down lately, sometimes taking hours to update a document i've placed there so a colleague can see it!

 

[yorksrob]

Recent events have probably caused more internet traffic than normal. Lots of people trying to access the internet at the same time is going to have a significant effect on the bits and bobs that connect us to the wider world.

Maybe - but I would have assumed that most would be watching events on the good old telly !

Public sector networks however have definitely been getting worse for months, and yes, cloud services are involved!

Not noticed any internet problems (use EE fibre to street cabinet, as fibre to home not yet in my town).

But trying to look at files stored on the cloud for school I help out has been very slow. Cloud is lot worse (much slower) than having them saved on company server, upto 20 seconds to get 1 page word document. So clearly Cloud seems like being store on opposite side of world

I knew it !

I'd like to know what snake oil salesman got my lot lumbered with it.

 

[dosxuk]

The cloud is nothing special, it's just using somebody else's hardware to do what traditionally you'd do yourself. There's no reason it should be slower (or faster) than an company owned bit of hardware.

 

[yorksrob]

Like all digital technology, it promises the earth and falls significantly short.

 

[kristiang85]

I've definitely felt a slowdown in the last week or so, and local friends said the same. This was before the events of last Thursday too.

 

[DelayRepay]

I'm with BT and over the last couple of weeks I have experienced regular but brief drop-outs. Strangely they seem to occur at around 11:30 and 16:30 each day. My feeling is that it may not actually be BT but 'something' in my house or area. I have no idea what, though. Strangely these drop outs happen on weekdays but not at weekends. They are not actually annoying enough to prompt me to report this as a fault.

 

[roversfan2001]

I'm currently having to use my mobile hotspot for everything as my new broadband provider have cocked things up. Getting 27mb download/14.7mb upload though which is decent enough - that's on my laptop with my work PC connected too.

 

[Butts]

BT Fibre okay in Falkirk.

 

[Bantamzen]

The cloud is nothing special, it's just using somebody else's hardware to do what traditionally you'd do yourself. There's no reason it should be slower (or faster) than an company owned bit of hardware.

The problem exists when many of the servers are located thousands of miles away, for example the US. Normally this wouldn't result in much lag, but if there is additional demand on the lines under the Atlantic because of, say a Royal passing, it has the potential to cause lag. And we have definitely seen lag in the last week.

 

[dosxuk]

Then that is a problem not caused by "the cloud" but by your IT staff / supplier for not choosing servers that are more geographically convenient. All the main cloud suppliers have data centres spread around the world, almost all of them have centres in the UK. Organisations just using the default US options is just poor configuration, something that is plenty common enough in self-hosted infrastructure too.

 

[Broucek]

I have experienced regular but brief drop-outs. .... My feeling is that it may not actually be BT but 'something' in my house or area. I have no idea what, though.

Same for me (TalkTalk)

And it keeps happening when I'm on Zoom or Teams for work

It MAY be a new network music player I've acquired

 

[RichJF]

Love I stumbled upon this thread today just as Plusnet are experiencing a nationwide outage so had to go into the office Complete radio silence on their side!

 

[jfollows]

I've been with BT ADSL since the green frog in 2000. I'm now on FTTC nominally 80/20Mbps. It's very reliable, I run my own mail server and it doesn't block ports, and the latest report is it's been up for 22 days, 8 hours and 30+ minutes.

So no issues in any way recently. In due course I might upgrade to fibre to the house when it's available, but for now the fibre-to-the-cabinet service has been very good and reliable.

EDIT I've no plans to move away from BT because although they're not the cheapest they are reliable and don't do silly things like blocking ports, and the one occasion the service went a bit wonky I got an engineer out and had it fixed pretty quickly. Better the devil you know.

 

[GS250]

Love I stumbled upon this thread today just as Plusnet are experiencing a nationwide outage so had to go into the office Complete radio silence on their side!

Mine has been fine all day. So far......

I've been with BT ADSL since the green frog in 2000. I'm now on FTTC nominally 80/20Mbps. It's very reliable, I run my own mail server and it doesn't block ports, and the latest report is it's been up for 22 days, 8 hours and 30+ minutes.

So no issues in any way recently. In due course I might upgrade to fibre to the house when it's available, but for now the fibre-to-the-cabinet service has been very good and reliable.

EDIT I've no plans to move away from BT because although they're not the cheapest they are reliable and don't do silly things like blocking ports, and the one occasion the service went a bit wonky I got an engineer out and had it fixed pretty quickly. Better the devil you know.

This is sensible. Those ISP's that are very good at selling stuff will constantly bombard impressive looking figures at Joe Public. Realistically, how much speed or bandwidth do most customers actually need? I think if you want good solid coverage all over the house then invest in a few cable runs directly to any well used streaming devices and add a wireless repeater or so for general wifi access. For all the benefits of wifi 6 etc.....you still can't beat a copper cable if you want stable coverage. Even an older standard 100mb cable connection is more than enough for 99% of peoples needs. Example true 4k streaming requires around 25mbps.

 

[MotCO]

I had Virgin for 20 years and had very few problems. I moved house and Virgin is not in the local area. I use Sky broadband, and after initial problems (I was only getting download speeds of around 1 mbps!) I have had a stable connection (fingers crossed!) at around 45 mbps.

On a similar note, over the last month or so I've noticed mobile phone connections seem to be more sporadic when I'm out and about in the car. I'm sure I used to get good signals most of the time, now there are times when I can't get a signal.

 

[Bantamzen]

As mentioned earlier I'm with Virgin Media and have been for years. Recently got my down speed upped to 500Mbs with up at 50Mbs although it usually gets closer to 75Mbs, for free. I rarely have any issues so I'm a happy customer.

This is sensible. Those ISP's that are very good at selling stuff will constantly bombard impressive looking figures at Joe Public. Realistically, how much speed or bandwidth do most customers actually need? I think if you want good solid coverage all over the house then invest in a few cable runs directly to any well used streaming devices and add a wireless repeater or so for general wifi access. For all the benefits of wifi 6 etc.....you still can't beat a copper cable if you want stable coverage. Even an older standard 100mb cable connection is more than enough for 99% of peoples needs. Example true 4k streaming requires around 25mbps.

I play a lot of online games, as well as download a lot of content. So having a lightening fast down connection, and fast up for the games is a big bonus. Instead of waiting hours for multi-Gig downloads, I get them in minutes. Job, as we say here, is a good 'un?

 

[DelayRepay]

Same for me (TalkTalk)

And it keeps happening when I'm on Zoom or Teams for work

It MAY be a new network music player I've acquired

My problem also seems to happen when using Teams for work, although it might just be more noticeable then.

It does sometimes happen when I'm out of the house; the only way I notice is that my wireless thermostat sends me a push notification when it re-connects.

 

[Broucek]

My problem also seems to happen when using Teams for work, although it might just be more noticeable then.

It does sometimes happen when I'm out of the house; the only way I notice is that my wireless thermostat sends me a push notification when it re-connects.

Part of the problem is that Teams is such an appalling piece of bloatware AND the PC version doesn't cope well with momentary dropouts (whereas the IOS version does)

 

[Typhoon]

Mine has been fine all day. So far......

Ditto!

 

[najaB]

Part of the problem is that Teams is such an appalling piece of bloatware...

Could have stopped there, really.