Broadband Woes

I am currently experiencing a rather severe speed issue with my broadband connection. Normally I connect at about 8000kbps Downstream and 448kbps Upstream which works out to an exceptionally good 8mb connection. I'm lucky and live within a couple of hundred yards of the exchange.

Anyway, since Thursday evening I've been experiencing some really awful download speeds; sort of in the realms of old ISDN speeds. After changing numerous router settings, cycling the power on the router and the PC I ended up checking the BT forums. It had been reported that a lot of people were experiencing problems across the network and a problem in one of BT's main network hubs had been identified as a possible cause. I went to bed on Thursday thinking it'll get sorted sooner rather than later.

I got up Friday morning and discovered the problem was still persisting. A check on the forums indicated that the problem most people had been experiencing had been resolved. Obviously, my problem was unrelated. Further changes to router settings and other tests carried out and all to no avail.

Checking the BT Speed Tester website; which I didn't even know existed until yesterday morning, gave me an indication of the problem:

The Performance Tester is now testing Broadband connection. Your configured download throughput speed for this service is 135 k.

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 7968 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 83 kbps

Digging around a bit I discovered that this figure should usually be about 500 less than your normal Downstream. 135k works out just under 17k/sec and is about 2% of where it should be. 7968k works out at a theoretical maximum of 996k/sec; although in practice I've only rarely seen over 800k/sec a few times.

BT's support site states that the IP Profile is set at the local exchange level and is used to help manage data coming down your line to ensure that it doesn't try to deliver too fast for you to handle. Further reading in the forums also suggested that this was a method that BT employed to cap users that had fallen foul of the Fair Usage Policy (FUP). Although this tended just to be managed during Peak Hours.

I could understand if I had fallen foul of the FUP. I do a fair bit of downloading; mainly TV shows form the US that I hate waiting to watch in the UK. Other people in the house also use the internet and I have an XBox 360 that is also connected to the net.

What I can't understand however is that if I have fallen foul of the FUP then BT never gave any indication that I had and may have just capped my service without informing me first. It seems a bit harsh that if they have capped me then they've done so very severely. I've seen posts on their forums that suggest caps ranging from 750 kbps to just under 2000 kbps but none as low as a permanent 135kbps cap.

I've sent an email to their Tech Support people and will await their response.