Really bad download and upload speeds, lower than promised. Even slower browser DL speeds.

[Anonymous User]

Hi guys,

wondering if anyone can help.

Brand new NowTV Brilliant Broadband customer, which is sadly the best promised internet in my building. I used to have Virgin Fibre, so maybe I'm just out of touch with what kind of speeds you get on broadband!

Anyway, seemed to be going okay, i get decent enough download speeds of around 12mb/s when i run a speed test. But it's in constant flux. It was 12mb 5 minutes ago, 10 mins ago it's 7mb/s, and it was 2mb/s half an hour ago. It's 5.87mb/s as of writing this post.

However even more annoying is that even if a speed test is saying I have 12mb/s download speed, anything I download on Chrome (via Macbook) seems to be capped at 1 to 2mb/s. Can this be increased? Bit confused as to why it's such low actual download speeds. 

Similarly my upload speeds seem to be really low too. I've never seen them above 1mb/s, they tend to be around 0.5mb/s. I was estimated to have 1-1.1mb/s upload speed, which would be a huge difference tbh. I WFM and rely on downloading and uploading from our work Dropbox folder all day. Can this be increased with any router settings? Is there a problem in the box or am i literally just stuck with these?

FWIW the package advertised much higher speeds, estimated 14.2-19.7mb/s DL, guaranteed 10mb/s and at least 1mb upload — and unless they can be increased then it's pretty unfair to claim this. Whether or not another provider could beat these speeds, changing internet is a huge hassle, especially if you work from home.

I don't know if ethernet would help, but sadly I can't wire up my Macbook at present, but I am only 6/7ft from the router. 

Sorry if it's a bit ranty, the patchy speeds are just doing my head in!

Hope someone can help.

Thanks,
Sammy

[gavs82008]

@Anonymous User 

Can I ask what speeds were you previously receiving with Virgin?

If I were you I would consider going with BT, as they are the main supplier off the OpenReach network and most times, Sky or Talk Talk, might slow the speed down. 

[Anonymous User]

@gavs82008 

Ah I couldn't say for sure. That was in our old place, but Virgin Fibre was really fast. Could resync a 1GB file to dropbox in minutes. Speed tests hit like 80mb/s or something similar, very consistent. Although still got less than was advertised but it was still so fast it didn't matter!

Yeah, we definitely considered BT but you do pay almost £10 more a month with BT, and we weren't sure if they'd actually be any faster. We worked out it was a saving of £150 over a 2 year contract with NOWtv vs BT. On the BT website when were looking for contract quotes, they actually estimated the max download speed they could provide in our area to be something like 3-7mb download speed, which is another reason why NOWTvs '14.2-19.7 Mb/s' was a no brainer.

I have been wondering if they're throttling the network. 

[gavs82008]

@Anonymous User 
What I can say is that I’m paying BT £33 a month for the 250MB which is silly quick, whereas advertised online it costs about £52.99.

When I signed up to BT it was a phone call that I made. Then when I was in EE getting my mobile phone sorted they offered me an even cheaper deal for the broadband I had at the time. 

So if you can either call BT to see what they can offer or even head into an EE store as they all have the ability to deal with BT customers too. 

[gavs82008]

@Anonymous User 

Another option is dependant on your mobile phone signal. If you get a good strong 4G signal in your property you could actually get a router that provides a slot for a SIM card. 

Then you could go with EE or Vodafone with unlimited data.