Slow download speed from some services despite fast connection

[nophead]

Hello,

   I have a solid ADSL connection speed of 55.37 Mbps and I can play youtube videos,  watch HD TV catchup services and Netflix without any problems. However at some times of day near race weekends I can't watch MotoGP and WorldSBK at HD resolution.  Sometimes it is low res which looks like an impressionist oil painting! 

When I investigate actual download speeds I get widely varying results depending on the test provider.  Google home says I have a lightning fast connection and reports 50.2 Mbps. Fast.com powered by Netflix always reports a reasonable speed as well, currently 53 Mbps. It varies between about 40 and 55.

However when I have a problems with MotoGP Which's speed test can be as  lows as 2 Mbps to 5 Mbps and www.speedtest.net can show similar slow speeds as well, although on good days they show much higher speeds, closer to the actual line rate.

I have been in contact with Dorna and after a long email conversation they offered a refund but no fix. They say only a small number of their customers have this problem. I have looked at the bandwidth used by Dorna videos and it is about 6 Mbps, so about 4 times other HD video services but that should not be a problem for a 55M bps connection.  I can watch other HD services at the same time and it doesn't make the Dorna feed any worse. So I do have plenty of bandwidth, just not to Dorna.

So what is Which's speed test doing that sees such slow download speeds, that only affect Dorna's videos? It seems like some part of the internet has a slow connection to Talktalk but other parts are always fast.

A traceroute shows the Dorna videos come from an Amazon server in Seattle via 19 hops, lots taking around 100ms. 

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi nophead,

Are you able to test on a device connected directly to the router by Ethernet cable bipassing the switches?

Chris

[nophead]

No it usually drops to low resolution which looks like this.

Sometimes it stops completely and I have to start the video again.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hi,

Can I just confirm, is it only HD which is affected? Are you able to view this in standard definition?

Thanks

[nophead]

The Google Home app shows me which devices are using bandwidth and I can give priority a specified device.  I don't see any big consumers of data while I have the problem. The device playing the video is generally at the top of the list.

It affects both my desktop PC and my Chromecast devices, and the latter for sure are not running other applications. And it doesn't get any worse if I play multiple youtube videos at the same time. There is always plenty of bandwidth to Youtube, Netflix and IPlayer, etc. It only affects Dorna videos and which's and speedtest.net's broadband speed tests. 

Fast.com and Google's own speed tests do slow a bit during the problem, for example from 55 Mbps to say 38 Mbps but that is still plenty fast enough for HD videos. For some reason the other two speed tests slow down dramatically and they reflect the bandwidth I get to Dorna's servers.  I wonder what which's speed test does differently. Does it use a different protocol for the test perhaps? Are different protocols given different priority? I am not a member of which, so I can't see their review of Talktalk.

Dorna's HD video is different in some way to others, because it does need more bandwidth for no obvious reason as it is still just 1080p resolution on my devices.

My upload speed remains pretty constant. Oddly Google shows a higher upload speed than my router's connection, so that seems a bit optimistic.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hello,

Can I just confirm, when this happens do you have any other applications running at the same time or any devices possibly uploading or running updates?

Thanks

[nophead]

After about 50 minutes it seemed to recover. The res went back to HD and the speed tests all improved to 11.1, 19.1 and 47.

[nophead]

I spoke too soon. Watching world supersport this evening at 8pm it switched to low res. 

https://broadbandtest.which.co.uk/ 0.4 Mbps!

https://www.speedtest.net/ 2.43 Mbps

https://fast.com/ 38Mbps.

I tried the ping and traceroute tests built into the router.

The traceroute said it failed.

[nophead]

My connection has always been solid. It is just the wider connection to some servers but not others on the internet that gets very slow.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Thanks for the update and we will check back in with you in a few days to see if the connection has remained consistent.

Thanks

[nophead]

I haven't had the normal slowdown this weekend and was able to watch World SBK videos without problems. Maybe something has been fixed.

[nophead]

Well sort of. It was produced by who.is web page in Chrome on my desktop PC that is connected via ethernet and a couple of switches to my Google Nest router and that is connected via ethernet to the router provided by TalkTalk. I only use that as an ADSL modem. Wifi is disabled because I have a Google Mesh system to cover my house and four switches that provide about 40 wired ethernet ports.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi nophead,

Sorry, the traceroute was misidentified as spam, I've recovered it now. Did you run the traceroute on a device connected to your router by Ethernet cable?

Chris

[nophead]

I don't seem to be able to post a traceroute. My post keeps vanishing.

[nophead]

Here is a traceroute 


traceroute to server-13-33-52-4.man50.r.cloudfront.net (13.33.52.4), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 ip-10-0-0-14.ec2.internal (10.0.0.14) 7.115 ms 7.113 ms 7.113 ms
2 216.182.226.52 (216.182.226.52) 31.122 ms 216.182.226.40 (216.182.226.40) 26.768 ms 216.182.229.172 (216.182.229.172) 49.608 ms
3 100.66.36.12 (100.66.36.12) 8.771 ms 100.65.81.0 (100.65.81.0) 13.293 ms 100.66.36.210 (100.66.36.210) 39.961 ms
4 100.66.15.8 (100.66.15.8) 26.692 ms 100.66.38.38 (100.66.38.38) 31.002 ms 100.66.60.204 (100.66.60.204) 17.702 ms
5 241.0.4.201 (241.0.4.201) 7.757 ms 100.66.63.118 (100.66.63.118) 22.391 ms 241.0.4.222 (241.0.4.222) 7.748 ms
6 240.0.40.17 (240.0.40.17) 7.774 ms 240.0.40.20 (240.0.40.20) 1.187 ms 240.0.40.21 (240.0.40.21) 1.132 ms
7 240.0.40.22 (240.0.40.22) 1.142 ms 240.0.40.25 (240.0.40.25) 5.172 ms 240.0.40.23 (240.0.40.23) 5.239 ms
8 242.0.170.129 (242.0.170.129) 5.156 ms 240.0.40.30 (240.0.40.30) 8.935 ms 242.0.170.129 (242.0.170.129) 8.940 ms
9 242.0.171.17 (242.0.171.17) 8.949 ms 52.93.28.185 (52.93.28.185) 13.553 ms 52.93.28.169 (52.93.28.169) 9.255 ms
10 52.93.28.183 (52.93.28.183) 9.295 ms 100.100.8.84 (100.100.8.84) 9.165 ms 52.93.28.197 (52.93.28.197) 9.642 ms
11 52.93.128.37 (52.93.128.37) 111.351 ms 52.93.128.97 (52.93.128.97) 107.182 ms 52.93.128.35 (52.93.128.35) 93.043 ms
12 52.93.80.76 (52.93.80.76) 88.616 ms 52.93.80.50 (52.93.80.50) 88.276 ms 52.93.80.44 (52.93.80.44) 96.611 ms
13 52.93.80.197 (52.93.80.197) 97.960 ms 52.93.80.48 (52.93.80.48) 88.272 ms 52.93.80.185 (52.93.80.185) 102.072 ms
14 52.93.80.191 (52.93.80.191) 97.355 ms 52.93.80.193 (52.93.80.193) 97.732 ms 52.93.80.195 (52.93.80.195) 97.712 ms
15 100.64.50.59 (100.64.50.59) 97.921 ms 100.64.50.53 (100.64.50.53) 94.288 ms 100.64.50.93 (100.64.50.93) 102.078 ms
16 100.64.50.254 (100.64.50.254) 84.117 ms 81.256 ms 100.64.50.67 (100.64.50.67) 95.242 ms
17 100.93.4.70 (100.93.4.70) 86.062 ms 100.64.50.254 (100.64.50.254) 81.499 ms 81.475 ms
18 100.93.4.5 (100.93.4.5) 140.017 ms 100.93.4.67 (100.93.4.67) 87.064 ms 100.93.4.70 (100.93.4.70) 85.975 ms
19 server-13-33-52-4.man50.r.cloudfront.net (13.33.52.4) 81.765 ms 81.644 ms 81.805 ms

---

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi nophead

Ok, please can you run some pings and trace routes when you experience this issue and post the results on this thread?

Thanks

Debbie

[nophead]

It seems like classic contention in that some speed tests slow right down in the evenings and particularly at weekends but it must be not local to me as other tests continue to be fast. It must be somewhere higher up in the connection to the wider internet. With the speedtest.net test I can specify different servers. I live in Greater Manchester so this is what it looks like to a local server last evening.

And this is what it looks like to the same server this morning.

So it is 21 times faster in the morning than the evening. It seems to me that there is a bottleneck somewhere in TalkTalk's infrastructure but not local to my line.

It would be interesting if other Talktalk users could try speedtest.net or which's speedtest and see if they get similar results.

[nophead]

Not explicitly. After 30 emails I think they just wanted to get rid of me and offered a full refund to cancel my subscription. Since I still want to watch the rest of the season I declined.

They changed something earlier this year and this is when the problems started. Their video stream now needs more data than other HD streams but that should not be a problem. And it works fine in our apartment in Tenerife, which has a 40 Mbit connection.

I thought it was totally their problem until I noticed two of four speed tests show the issue. broadbandtest.which.co.uk is currently saying 43.3 Mbps but it will go as low as 2 Mbps and so does www.speedtest.net when I have the problem but Google Home and fast.com always report good download rates.

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi nophead

Did Dorna advise if this was an issue on their side? (affecting a small number of customers)

[nophead]

I am connected via wired Ethernet to my desktop PC. It also affects my Chromecast, which is wireless. Does anybody else here have Dorna subscriptions?

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi nophead

Are you connected wireless? Does this also happen if you connect wired?