Hi

I'm getting frustrated by speed dropping in the evenings. Trouble is BT broadband wholesale speed test is always showing up the same good speed.

9am - can stream tv iplayer/4od, download file from work at around 7Mbps. BT broadband wholesale speed test shows 6.84Mbps.

7pm - can't stream tv, downloading same file from work takes around 5-6 times longer. BT broadband wholesale speed test shows 6.84Mbps! Other online speed test show 0.9-1.3 Mbps.

Can anyone explain this specific inconsistency. I get the same results on different days (good speeds up until about 6pm), both wired (master socket all other devices off) and wireless.

BT aren't really listening as their test shows good speed. This slowdown in the evening happened some weeks ago as prior to that I could stream tv in the evening. I've not changed hardware.

The BT speed test is very very consistent 6.83-6.85Mbps, I'm on a rural exchange and I believe an exchange only line.
Thanks
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When you do the BT wholesale test, do you get the good speed test result on the first try?

I believe the test will first test your whole internet connection, then it asks you to reconfigure your router to try again (the reconfiguration eliminates your ISP as a problem and only tests the BT wholesale part of the network).

If you did get it on the first try, that's very odd, because it shows that the normal areas of trouble (connection from exchange to rest of the network) are fine and it's really a problem within your ISP (which happens to be BT, but it's a totally different part of the company to BT Wholesale). Since you get a good result on BT Wholesale's tester it isn't likely to be a problem with your line but a problem on a wider scale, like at the exchange or within BT.

If you're out of contract it may be worth looking at another provider if BT won't do anything about it

Do you know if any of your neighbours are having problems (whether they use BT or someone else)?

Thanks.

Yes first time, I've tried it about 30 or so times over the last 2 weeks and it has ALWAYS reported 6.83-6.85 Mbps.

Neighbours not with BT.

The slow speed I get in the evenings is within the spec anyhow but I know it used to be better. I recently upgraded to unlimited as I had started to stream. So suspect I'm locked in for 6 months or so and now unable to stream

Just had a callback from BT.

Seems like it's just heavy usage in the evening. Still don't really understand why that is not reflected in the whole speed test (as when run it seems to be downloading a file from somewhere) though they tried to explain that but I didn't really follow what they were saying.

Anyhow they say it's happening a lot now, though why they don't seem to know this when you first complain!
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It might be worth asking your neighbours anyway, just in case there's a problem with BT Wholesale that will affect anyone on your exchange.

What does "heavy usage" mean to them exactly? It sounds a bit like BS. Unless they're throttling you for downloading too many GBs per month while not throttling traffic to BT Wholesale so that the speedtest runs accurately.

It seems like something worth pushing. Do you have a "unlimited" plan or do you have a usage limit?