bm said:
For a number of years my connection speed has been 2.2mbps
In the last two months this has progressively been reduced to 1.9, then 1.7
and now stands at 1.5
What is causing this and can I do anything about it?
In one of your replies, you say you have a telephone connection. Okay, but
dial-up also works over a telephone line. Not likely you have dial-up
access and are getting 2.2 Mbps, though. So we'll have to assume you have
an aDSL connection.
The further you are from the trunk station, the slower DSL gets. Although
you and the trunk station haven't physically moved doesn't mean your telco
hasn't changed its wiring to effectively make the line's path longer to you.
Also, their lines and/or equipment in that line will degrade over time or
become defective enough to affect DSL connections but not interfere with
voice communications (and the telco only cares about the voice quality for
which they are getting paid for, and "Orange" doesn't sound like you are
leasing a DSL connect from your telco).
Call your ISP (Orange) and ask them what your contracted bandwidth actually
is. Could be you've been getting more than what your contract with them
stipulates. Sometimes you'll have to push on the call to them because the
1st-level reps don't seem to know or almost appear that they don't want to
divulge that info. You might have to call the accounts department to find
out for what you are paying. When you call your ISP, have them test the
line between them and your DSL modem for signal strength. If all tests okay
(as far as they are concerned and for what they can do), you might even ask
them to re-provision the modem. I haven't use DSL but cable modems need to
be provisioned (a config file gets downloaded into them) that specifies what
will be their performance parameters with use with that ISP. I have seen
where some maintenance at the ISP results in the wrong config file getting
downloaded to the modem which reduced its performance, so re-provisioning
the modem brought it back up to the contracted service level.
Some kid downloading tons of porn will impact your bandwidth. They could
even have a ton of the crap scheduled in a download manager so they are
downloading it all day and all night long even when they aren't at their
computer(s). Some folks discover watching online movies (e.g., Hulu). Some
folks start visiting sites with lots of streamed video. The customers get
more hungry and start gobbling up bandwidth which impacts them and everyone
else sharing the same network segment. That's why some ISPs have
implemented bandwidth caps (both in peak and monthly caps) to throttle the
most abusive customers. Your ISP might not implement caps (aka QOS [quality
of service] or network shaping, and which is also often used in corporate
networks). That means it's a free-for-all conflict amongst the customers.
If you have a NAT router between your problematic host and your DSL model,
test with it out of the circuit. That is, bypass the router. Connect your
host directly to the modem (and use a wired connection, if possible, if you
are currently using a wifi connect). If the speed goes back up, it could be
a defect in your router. You could first try disabling any firewall inside
the router to see if that significantly impacts bandwidth through that
router. I've had routers that start to go bad over time showing reduced
bandwidth and/or lack of connection through them that gets progressively
worse until I can't get connected through it at all. Most routers rely on
convection cooling (i.e., no fans) but their ventilation holes are misplaced
or too small, or users pile multiple routers atop each other or smother the
holes or otherwise prevent free air flow through the router. So the router
eventually just burns up. Excessive heat is destructive to electronics.
Quality also determines longitivity. The Dlink routers that I've used at
home and in our labs burned up after about 3 years (several of them just
outside the 1-year warranty period). The Netgears went south after about
4-5 years, and the Linksys'es are still going strong after 6 years. So see
if bypassing the router suddenly improves your bandwidth.
