Broadband near unusably slow the past several days since "working on improvements" was "fixed"

[Midnight54]

I've had a super frustrating past few days with our broadband, especially whilst being ill currently, resulting in the service being unusable for me for anything other than very light youtubing which is low bitrate and web browsing.  Unable to download large game updates (my main game currently has a 200gb update to do before I can play!), cloud stream gaming, nor any type of better quality bitrate full HD and 4k steaming services, kids are giving me hell as they cant video chat etc, nor my work vpn having a strong enough connection.  Long story short, my speed has dropped from around 600mbps+ to 20mbps (BUT......with an interesting caveat on multi files which may be misleading them to think there are no issues with the service).  Now it supposedly has now been logged with the networks team, but for reasons I'll get into later, I worry they will look at it, and think we get 250+mbps.

The error is not just for my hardware, my neighbors have the exact same issue about 20meters away, as does a family member about 1km away, so multiple routers and other hardware.  I've had this router for 2+ years now without issues for the most part apart from a couple of cell tower faults that at least were acknowledged to be faulty a few month back.

I am about 250-300meters from the connected tower, and the router shows as being 5g connected still.  I've had several runarounds (including where they terminate the chat randomly from not replying within about 20 seconds (maybe the person had finished his shift?) and being told there is no reported faults).  My house address is 1 postcode but it faces a different postcode at the intersection, so ie, I could leave front door, walk 3 steps and I'm in the next postcode

On/around the 1st of October (maybe the day prior as I was ill) the Network status page said "Our systems haven't reported any network problems", while the adjacend postcode was  "We're working on the network in this area at the moment.....etc".  By the end of the day, they both said "Our systems haven't reported any network problems", yet the issue was still there.  Obviously time dragged on then started trying to check for updates and look at issues

Historically when the 5g tower goes down, it would revert to the distant tower on a 4g connection (which is too weak to even load webpages 95% of the time but.....thats a different tale), however the router still reports as being on a 5g connection, with signal strength of -81 to -85dBm

Things done (and also neighbours and relatives have done "some" of the less technical steps that also have the issue too - they connect to the same tower:

1. Rebooted router (many times)
2. Alternative APN of three.co.uk, with/without ipv6
3. Only connecting a single device to the router (obv via ethernet) - both pc/linux and also other devices (by default I use it connected to my personal router so its own wifi etc is disabled)
4. Several browsers (as requested by chat) Opera, Chrome, Brave, Firefox, Edge, Safari, etc
5. Full factory reset of the Three router and then direct tests
6. whatever else obvious that I've forgotten to hand

Obviously some of these steps pointless as I can go to my neighbours house and replicate the exact same issues, its not specific to me, but did all the obvious steps

Speed tests are always generally around 15-20mbps, which tallies up with downloading any file getting around 1.9megabytes/sec.

Multiple different speed test sites, googles own, speedtest.net, speedsmart etc also report the same ballpark speeds (obv with the expected variances)

eg

and downloading actual files from test sites eg

So the reality is, for just about everything, I'm getting a usable speed of 15-20mbps

Now - where it gets a little more interesting, and this makes me concerned that the engineers could look at the total speed being sent out and be "thats not too bad?".  When you go to a site like speedtest.net, it defaults to a multi file/stream test.  This reports higher, for example

So....of course that itself is still also way lower than I would normally receive, but that potential speed is not usable speed to me when trying to stream a movie, or download a file or update, only 20mbps is!! And I hope this isn't going to result in the engineers closing the ticket as no issue when there clearly is, its easily replicated.

The saving grace, I can get by with low bitrate youtube.....but I cant watch any movies etc, which is especially frustrating while off work sick too to pass the time unless I'm willing to watch at SD resolution levels

Has something been deliberately changed to cap single connections?

Frustratingly, the postcodes even a few days on are still saying no issues found on the network status checker, when there is clearly a fault, and I know I'm not the only one to log it (sadly been unable to log it in the 3rd location yet for the relatives account as the account owner is currently out of town)

[Midnight54]

Sigh, I had high hopes seeing that the local mast appeared to be temp turned off and seeing that the network status page finally updated to saying working in the area.

However, the network came back up, we are back to the no issues detected message on the status page and the speeds are equally bad 2-15mbps variable.....thats it beyond frustrated, I'll see what happens if by some miracle overnight it's resolved but 16days so far, most of which I've been bedbound and off work due to illness but unable to watch anything other than YouTube in SD, losing sanity, kids frustrated they can't play anything either

Didn't want the hassle of switching but no option now can't continue with what could be another 2 weeks+ if they already think theyve fixed the problem

[Midnight54]

And now not even 3mbps and over 2 weeks now, getting beyond a joke yet status STILL claims no issues!!!!

[Midnight54]

Even multistream speedtests are horrendous now, at  20mbps, and less than 10mbps single stream!!! I got a phone call from them, unfortunately I struggled to understand the language barrier a little bit, but ultimately she said along lines of "theres a problem, we dont know how long its going to be to be fixed, do you want to cancel?"

So - yous acknowledge there are problems.  So why are your network status pages saying for the past 2 weeks that there are no issues at all?!

Still off work sick, so I have some flexibility however crippling the house not being able to watch anything other than low res youtube, but I guess no option but to investigate it if not sorted in the next few days, or at least some real acknowledgement and timeframes of whats going on

[Midnight54]

7 days on since logged it, and no updates despite being told it would be within 7 days, doesnt look like its been looked at by the networks team.  After going in circles a few times on the chat, got told to wait another 7 days (how many times is this 7 days going to happen 😞 ) - This is the biggest frustration I have, faults are inevitable at some point, but with other Providers usually when things go down its for hours or minutes, and not days/weeks, and that the network status pages are still saying there is no faults, some 9 days on from when it started.  I guess if nothing sorted by the next week, may have no option but to look at changing provider, especially if when I return to work from sick leave if the work VPN isnt fast enough to cope.  Tho the competition do offer 900down/900 up for very little extra money, so I guess every cloud.....

[PeteG]

Hey, Midnight. 

That's really interesting, it seems like the system isn't able to go any faster when working with a single stream. I'm unsure why that would be. I'll make sure to bring it up with the right team to ensure something small hasn't been missed that might be causing that. 

Could you connect to a VPN service, and then complete a Ukla speed test with a single connection, and then also complete a multi connected test as well and post the results for me? 

Pete.

[Midnight54]

Hi Pete,

Current test just on phone as still ill, sonobv subject to WiFi/phone limits but even so trying with VPN yields similar relative results

Without VPN

 

 and with VPN

 

 

[PeteG]

Thanks for sending that over. I'll forward that over to the right team to see if they can figure out what's causing that. 

Pete. 

[Midnight54]

Thanks, neighbour also reports exact same too trying PC.  Prior to these seemingly capping issue, speeds have generally always been well above 500mbps sustained, often up to 800, due to close proximity, so really hope it can be restored as so frustrating being unable to stream any movies without constant buffering, cloud gaming is a big no right now for me

[Midnight54]

To add to this too, re the individual capping, obviously every file I'm downloading is capped at sub 20mbps, but I can start several downloads all at once as a test and they all get the same speed each

[Midnight54]

Just to quick add too, while in head, another reason they may eg see our connections as no issue, due to multi files being a little better, eg if more than 1 person in the house is using youtube, facebook etc, then because there are multiple files involved, it could give impression there is no real issue, when there sure is when can't do anything above that 15mbps per action limit

Hopefully the observations about single/vs multi file could be passed on to any network engineer checking the connection to be more thorough (but of course I'm sure there will be significantly more enhanced checks that they're capable of doing)