No upload speed. Help!
Discussion
I'll preface this by saying I'm not in the slightest bit technical, so any advice will conveyed to 'HWMBO' who doesn't have an account here (unsure why that is actually but thats for another day...) This has been ongoing since November and honestly we are both at the end of our tethers.
Anyway, in his words not mine:
I've just switched from BT to TalkTalk for my FTTC broadband because BT couldn't rectify a slow upload speed that first started around mid-November last year despite 3 or 4 openreach engineer visits.
The final check carried out by BT was a 24-hour test with no devices connected. My line speed is showing as 7.5mbps at the router but the test showed a 2.5mbps result. BT told me the problem was as a result of me having 30 devices connected and this was affecting the bandwidth available to each device. There are two people in my household and these devices are two laptops, two mobile phones, two tablets, a kindle, several amazon echo devices, a main sky q box with 2 sky q receivers and several smart plugs. Only up to 2 of any of the laptops, mobiles and tablets would be used at any one time.
Regular (several times a day) speed test results show an upload speed of 0.11mbps to 0.76mbps and it's impossible to send an email with any attachment over 2mb in size. This is the same even with all devices disconnected and regardless of a wired or wireless connection. I've also noticed the speed dips even further from around lunchtime.
Since we've switched to TalkTalk there is no change (except for very occassionally I've managed to get an upload speed test result of 5.4mbps, but a test run straight after returns the normal slow upload), although I do appreciate we're only 5 days into the settling in period for the line.
Before I start to discuss the performance issue with TalkTalk I just want to see if there are any suggestions for me to try that might sort this issue without relying on my ISP or openreach?
Anyway, in his words not mine:
I've just switched from BT to TalkTalk for my FTTC broadband because BT couldn't rectify a slow upload speed that first started around mid-November last year despite 3 or 4 openreach engineer visits.
The final check carried out by BT was a 24-hour test with no devices connected. My line speed is showing as 7.5mbps at the router but the test showed a 2.5mbps result. BT told me the problem was as a result of me having 30 devices connected and this was affecting the bandwidth available to each device. There are two people in my household and these devices are two laptops, two mobile phones, two tablets, a kindle, several amazon echo devices, a main sky q box with 2 sky q receivers and several smart plugs. Only up to 2 of any of the laptops, mobiles and tablets would be used at any one time.
Regular (several times a day) speed test results show an upload speed of 0.11mbps to 0.76mbps and it's impossible to send an email with any attachment over 2mb in size. This is the same even with all devices disconnected and regardless of a wired or wireless connection. I've also noticed the speed dips even further from around lunchtime.
Since we've switched to TalkTalk there is no change (except for very occassionally I've managed to get an upload speed test result of 5.4mbps, but a test run straight after returns the normal slow upload), although I do appreciate we're only 5 days into the settling in period for the line.
Before I start to discuss the performance issue with TalkTalk I just want to see if there are any suggestions for me to try that might sort this issue without relying on my ISP or openreach?
What equipment have you got plugged in - i.e. what router is it? How is it connected?
Can you do a check on your line and connection? https://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk
I get 32ms ping
63MB download
14MB upload
So fairly standard values.
I would check the line - using the phone and check the connection to the internet, by plugging and unplugging it - do any wires look damaged or contacts look tarnished, etc.. check for the 'obvious'.
I guess Talk Talk provided new kit? So the BT kit and the Talk Talk kit was different stuff. Plus new cables used etc..
Can you do a check on your line and connection? https://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk
I get 32ms ping
63MB download
14MB upload
So fairly standard values.
I would check the line - using the phone and check the connection to the internet, by plugging and unplugging it - do any wires look damaged or contacts look tarnished, etc.. check for the 'obvious'.
I guess Talk Talk provided new kit? So the BT kit and the Talk Talk kit was different stuff. Plus new cables used etc..
megaphone said:
Sounds more like a line fault, probably a crap cable or bad junction somewhere. You'll need to escalate with Talk Talk, they will then contact Openreach to try and sort it.
And round and round you'll go until they actually get an engineer on it who cares.
I'd tend to agree. If there is an external fault it doesn't matter which ISP you use. Unless you are on full fibre (Virgin or Cityfibre), the infrastructure will be Openreach.And round and round you'll go until they actually get an engineer on it who cares.
Thanks all.
I tend to use testmy.net as I can isolate the upload test.
It’s just returned
36mbps Download
850kbps Upload
Some days it can be so bad it wont even run the test. It’s hit and miss, mostly miss, but occasionally it returns a reasonable speed. It’s so bad that none of our Alexa devices really work properly as they cant communicate. Tell them to turn on a light and it cant upload that data. Download isn’t too bad. I can watch Netflix etc without issue. Husband has been logging speeds throughout the last few weeks, when he finishes work I can show you his tests. He's even connected wired direct to the router with no change. Oddly, and I don't know if it's coincidental, but early morning tends to be reasonable and around 9pm we have dropouts and complete loss. None of this could be seen by BT.
We reached a point where BT just said it was our fault and they were unwilling to do anything further. We had 3 open reach visits, none could actually solve the problem. BT decided that it was our devices causing issue and really didn’t care to look into it any further. Yes we have smart bulbs, but they run through a hub. We have a few Alexa devices, most of which are unplugged at present along with the Sky Q mini boxes to see if reducing the load helps. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t make any difference. At one point BT had us not using the internet for 24 hours so they could monitor the line - they said they couldn’t see anything.
Router is the Talk Talk one and plugged directly into the master socket. We have no phone line extensions and the phone has a filter.
As you can imagine this is making WFH bloody hard when it’s almost impossible to send an email. Not helped by the fact we’re in a bit of a mobile dead zone as well so cant even rely on that. No cable etc in our area either.
I think it’s probably going to be seeing if Talk Talk are any more reasonable, I think other half just wants some reassurance that it’s really not us before we go back again.
I tend to use testmy.net as I can isolate the upload test.
It’s just returned
36mbps Download
850kbps Upload
Some days it can be so bad it wont even run the test. It’s hit and miss, mostly miss, but occasionally it returns a reasonable speed. It’s so bad that none of our Alexa devices really work properly as they cant communicate. Tell them to turn on a light and it cant upload that data. Download isn’t too bad. I can watch Netflix etc without issue. Husband has been logging speeds throughout the last few weeks, when he finishes work I can show you his tests. He's even connected wired direct to the router with no change. Oddly, and I don't know if it's coincidental, but early morning tends to be reasonable and around 9pm we have dropouts and complete loss. None of this could be seen by BT.
We reached a point where BT just said it was our fault and they were unwilling to do anything further. We had 3 open reach visits, none could actually solve the problem. BT decided that it was our devices causing issue and really didn’t care to look into it any further. Yes we have smart bulbs, but they run through a hub. We have a few Alexa devices, most of which are unplugged at present along with the Sky Q mini boxes to see if reducing the load helps. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t make any difference. At one point BT had us not using the internet for 24 hours so they could monitor the line - they said they couldn’t see anything.
Router is the Talk Talk one and plugged directly into the master socket. We have no phone line extensions and the phone has a filter.
As you can imagine this is making WFH bloody hard when it’s almost impossible to send an email. Not helped by the fact we’re in a bit of a mobile dead zone as well so cant even rely on that. No cable etc in our area either.
I think it’s probably going to be seeing if Talk Talk are any more reasonable, I think other half just wants some reassurance that it’s really not us before we go back again.
Edited by SistersofPercy on Wednesday 10th February 16:01
For reference our devices are:
1 x Macbook Pro
1x iPad
1x Laptop
1 Sky Q Box + 2 mini boxes
8 Hue bulbs into a hub
1 x kindle
1 x Ring Doorbell
1 Meross smart plug
2 x TP Link Smart plugs
1 x Nanoleaf Aurora
5 x Amazon Devices
2 x mobile phones
Worth noting that most of those are not always connected. I stripped out a lot of that to see if it was load making a difference but there was no change. I don't connect my phone or kindle anymore to try and reduce, again no change.
It happened in November, just seemingly overnight. I had added the Meross smart plug somewhere around that time, but removing it from the network hasn't changed anything so I can't see it would be that. It's only in use twice a day - turns on a light at 5 and turns it off at 10.
1 x Macbook Pro
1x iPad
1x Laptop
1 Sky Q Box + 2 mini boxes
8 Hue bulbs into a hub
1 x kindle
1 x Ring Doorbell
1 Meross smart plug
2 x TP Link Smart plugs
1 x Nanoleaf Aurora
5 x Amazon Devices
2 x mobile phones
Worth noting that most of those are not always connected. I stripped out a lot of that to see if it was load making a difference but there was no change. I don't connect my phone or kindle anymore to try and reduce, again no change.
It happened in November, just seemingly overnight. I had added the Meross smart plug somewhere around that time, but removing it from the network hasn't changed anything so I can't see it would be that. It's only in use twice a day - turns on a light at 5 and turns it off at 10.
Just out of interest what 'product' have you bought from Talk Talk?
I'm sure that if BT had an issue and Talk Talk had an issue that the problem is with the line between you and the cabinet, but...
Quite a few of the suppliers traffic throttle, so it may well be that slowdowns are 'expected'.
ETA : Fibre 35?
I'm sure that if BT had an issue and Talk Talk had an issue that the problem is with the line between you and the cabinet, but...
Quite a few of the suppliers traffic throttle, so it may well be that slowdowns are 'expected'.
ETA : Fibre 35?
eps said:
Just out of interest what 'product' have you bought from Talk Talk?
I'm sure that if BT had an issue and Talk Talk had an issue that the problem is with the line between you and the cabinet, but...
Quite a few of the suppliers traffic throttle, so it may well be that slowdowns are 'expected'.
We went with Talk Talk Fibre 65, specifically as they claimed to support up to 50 devices on the 5ghz band. A few of the older Amazon devices connected at 2.4, partly why I turned them off, but nothing changed.I'm sure that if BT had an issue and Talk Talk had an issue that the problem is with the line between you and the cabinet, but...
Quite a few of the suppliers traffic throttle, so it may well be that slowdowns are 'expected'.
BT were very much of the opinion this was us not them, we argued that we were not receiving the guaranteed speeds and managed to leave without penalty. It was also useful to see if moving providers cured the issues as we wondered if BT were throttling us, but although download was never stellar fast, the upload was always the bit we've struggled with and I couldn't find anything about them throttling an upload speed.
Husband argued something about a D Slam (this is where I need him to explain) and BT said that changing whatever that is in the cabinet was a last resort and wouldn't do it. I agree, I think it's something between us and the cabinet as well, but it's actually getting someone to listen thats that hard part.
The_Jackal said:
It does sound like an infrastructure problem. Or you are getting caned by contention issues in your area.
Are you definitely not in a Virgin area?
No virgin here no, and no plans looking at the website. I've spoken to a neighbour who has a few issues with download speeds, but she has a couple of teens and lots of devices connected. She doesn't have any issue with her upload speeds. She's with Sky.Are you definitely not in a Virgin area?
Short of persuading him to sign up to Elon Musk and his expensive satellites I don't know what to do really now.
Plug one wired device into the router (if needs be buy a USB-ethernet dongle .e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-3-0-Hub-Aluminum-Chro...
Turn the wifi off on the router.
Do a speed test.
Then complain to Talk-Talk with numbers that offer no scope for saying there are too many wireless devices?
Turn the wifi off on the router.
Do a speed test.
Then complain to Talk-Talk with numbers that offer no scope for saying there are too many wireless devices?
xeny said:
Plug one wired device into the router (if needs be buy a USB-ethernet dongle .e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-3-0-Hub-Aluminum-Chro...
Turn the wifi off on the router.
Do a speed test.
Then complain to Talk-Talk with numbers that offer no scope for saying there are too many wireless devices?
I think he's been doing wired speed tests, but will check. Thanks.Turn the wifi off on the router.
Do a speed test.
Then complain to Talk-Talk with numbers that offer no scope for saying there are too many wireless devices?
For the second time in 24 hours everything went down. Light on router went to orange, he was kicked out of a meeting. Down for a couple of minutes but exactly the same thing happened last night as well.
I'm assuming thats not normal either?
I've been with Talktalk for ages and have Fibre 35. Had a problem a couple of years ago, up/down speeds dropped dramatically to less than 5mb down and 1mb up. CS gave me the usual run around to avoid sending an engineer out and after a few days of try this, try that, leave it off overnight etc they said they would send an engineer and laid it on heavy that if the fault was within my property I would have to pay for the engineer visit. BT OR came out had a look and concluded it was probably the nearest cabinet, off he went and came back about 20 minutes later and said that someone hadn't put things back where they found them in the cabinet. He put it back as it should have been and my speeds were returned.
As someone said previously BT OR probably supply the fibre connections for a lot of ISP's in your area so changing your ISP probably wasn't going to solve it (assuming the problem lies outside of your property) if they couldn't solve it prior. If your speeds changed overnight rather than degrading over time it may be a similar problem that I had with something in the cabinet at fault.
(The BT engineer also upgraded my wall socket FOC too and came out the same day after I was told that BT would be in touch within 72 hours so excellent service considering)
As someone said previously BT OR probably supply the fibre connections for a lot of ISP's in your area so changing your ISP probably wasn't going to solve it (assuming the problem lies outside of your property) if they couldn't solve it prior. If your speeds changed overnight rather than degrading over time it may be a similar problem that I had with something in the cabinet at fault.
(The BT engineer also upgraded my wall socket FOC too and came out the same day after I was told that BT would be in touch within 72 hours so excellent service considering)
Mr-B said:
I've been with Talktalk for ages and have Fibre 35. Had a problem a couple of years ago, up/down speeds dropped dramatically to less than 5mb down and 1mb up. CS gave me the usual run around to avoid sending an engineer out and after a few days of try this, try that, leave it off overnight etc they said they would send an engineer and laid it on heavy that if the fault was within my property I would have to pay for the engineer visit. BT OR came out had a look and concluded it was probably the nearest cabinet, off he went and came back about 20 minutes later and said that someone hadn't put things back where they found them in the cabinet. He put it back as it should have been and my speeds were returned.
As someone said previously BT OR probably supply the fibre connections for a lot of ISP's in your area so changing your ISP probably wasn't going to solve it (assuming the problem lies outside of your property) if they couldn't solve it prior. If your speeds changed overnight rather than degrading over time it may be a similar problem that I had with something in the cabinet at fault.
(The BT engineer also upgraded my wall socket FOC too and came out the same day after I was told that BT would be in touch within 72 hours so excellent service considering)
We realised that it probably wasn't going to solve anything, but as we were at the point where BT only gave us the options of 1. Put up and shut up or 2. Leave, we were a bit stuck really.As someone said previously BT OR probably supply the fibre connections for a lot of ISP's in your area so changing your ISP probably wasn't going to solve it (assuming the problem lies outside of your property) if they couldn't solve it prior. If your speeds changed overnight rather than degrading over time it may be a similar problem that I had with something in the cabinet at fault.
(The BT engineer also upgraded my wall socket FOC too and came out the same day after I was told that BT would be in touch within 72 hours so excellent service considering)
One of the OR engineers changed the wall socket in the house, there was a fault with that anyway apparently so visit 2 was assumed it was that causing the issue. The OR engineer had literally turned out of the drive when it tanked again.
I was kind of hoping that another provider might be a bit more proactive and actually help us.
SistersofPercy said:
We realised that it probably wasn't going to solve anything, but as we were at the point where BT only gave us the options of 1. Put up and shut up or 2. Leave, we were a bit stuck really.
One of the OR engineers changed the wall socket in the house, there was a fault with that anyway apparently so visit 2 was assumed it was that causing the issue. The OR engineer had literally turned out of the drive when it tanked again.
I was kind of hoping that another provider might be a bit more proactive and actually help us.
You're between a rock and a hard place. All the ADSL infrastructure is fundamentally owned by BT/.Openreach, so all the other ISPs are forced to deal with them for cabling issued and it isn't going to be the friendliest arrangement.One of the OR engineers changed the wall socket in the house, there was a fault with that anyway apparently so visit 2 was assumed it was that causing the issue. The OR engineer had literally turned out of the drive when it tanked again.
I was kind of hoping that another provider might be a bit more proactive and actually help us.
You're not rural enough you can get a wISP offering WiMAX - e.g. https://www.vfast.co.uk/services/broadband ? I've used them at one place for a while and apart from heavy snow it works far better than the slow ADSL connection it replaced.
Alternatively is there a good enough mobile signal you could look at a 4G to wifi router arrangement?
SistersofPercy said:
We realised that it probably wasn't going to solve anything, but as we were at the point where BT only gave us the options of 1. Put up and shut up or 2. Leave, we were a bit stuck really.
One of the OR engineers changed the wall socket in the house, there was a fault with that anyway apparently so visit 2 was assumed it was that causing the issue. The OR engineer had literally turned out of the drive when it tanked again.
I was kind of hoping that another provider might be a bit more proactive and actually help us.
If you can get out of your TT contract then Andrews & Arnold will take on known problematic lines:One of the OR engineers changed the wall socket in the house, there was a fault with that anyway apparently so visit 2 was assumed it was that causing the issue. The OR engineer had literally turned out of the drive when it tanked again.
I was kind of hoping that another provider might be a bit more proactive and actually help us.
https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/we-will-fix-your-l...
They aren't a budget provider though but you could sign up for just 6 months.
https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/home1/
Ultimately if the cabling to your propoerty's master socket is poor, only BT Openreach can fix this. And only your ISP can talk to them...
Beyond the master socket is your responsibility, so make sure you've elieminated those issues before you demand they come out, else they can charge you for wasted time.
I had to do this when we moved ito our current house, and they were extremely good at fixing the issue (under street junction box full of water)
Beyond the master socket is your responsibility, so make sure you've elieminated those issues before you demand they come out, else they can charge you for wasted time.
I had to do this when we moved ito our current house, and they were extremely good at fixing the issue (under street junction box full of water)
Mr Pointy said:
If you can get out of your TT contract then Andrews & Arnold will take on known problematic lines:
https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/we-will-fix-your-l...
They aren't a budget provider though but you could sign up for just 6 months.
https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/home1/
I was going to suggest the same, A&A are excellent at troublesome lines and have saved me a couple of times over the years.https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/we-will-fix-your-l...
They aren't a budget provider though but you could sign up for just 6 months.
https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/home1/
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