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]

I don't think it's the router or anything in your home, to be honest I don't know what the cause of the issue is. I've checked the authentications logs and they aren't showing any recent authentication so we really need to do the 30 minute shutdown. If the shutdown doesn't resolve the problem then I'll pass it to our network team to see if there's anything they can see that could be causing the problem

Chris

[nophead]

How can it possibly be a problem with my router or connection? It only slows down when the internet is busy, not when my house is busy. It only affects some sites and not others, so the basic connection to the first server upstream, must be solid.

My current download speed from fast.com is 46 Mbps but according to Which it is only 11.7 Mbps. The speed Which shows seems correct for Dornas videos but any other video service I use still works when Which says it is very slow.  Fast.com is related to Netflix and Netflix always works in HD. When which says it is only 0.2Mbps Dorna videos are useless but Netflix still works fine and I can play Youtube at the same time.

I first noticed this problem in early spring when Dorna increased the data rate needed to watch their videos. I am sure my router has started new sessions since then. I originally assumed the Dorna servers where not up to the job of serving the higher data rate but now that Which's speed test also sees the bottleneck it must affect other sites as well. Just not the common ones I play video from, or if it does it doesn't often drop below the normal speed needed for HD, which is less than 2Mbps for everything other than Dorna, which needs about 6Mbps. Not sure what they changed but for a month or so Chromecast stopped working for their videos.  Now they say my version of Chromecast is not supported but it does still work.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks for running the tests. I've run another line test and been checking authentication logs and there's one thing we could try, could you switch your router off and leave it off for at least 30 minutes then switch back on. This will force the start of a new session and generally does fix a number of issue. I think it's certainly worth a try.

Chris

[nophead]

My Google alarm for 8 didn't work!  At 9pm Which's download was only 1.7 Mbps. 

Traceroute to Which.

Ping to Which.

Ping to Which

Ping to google.co.uk.

Google

Although the pings are slower than in the morning the times don't look too bad and neither does the traceroute. The only noticeable thing is the packet loss, which I don't get during the day.

Whatever Which's download is actually testing seems to perfectly match the data rate I get from Dorna's servers. I could not play HD resolution at this time but I could get 720p. When Which shows really slow download speeds, less than 1 Mbps sometimes,  I get potato vision videos from Dorna.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Yes, I'll give it a try if I can remember 🙂

Chris

[nophead]

Yes I am happy to run any test. Perhaps you could run Which's speed test at 8pm and see if you get a similar slow down and if not a traceroute to see if you get a different route to it.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

I think it's worth running the tests as they may help to identify what's causing the issue. 

Chris

[nophead]

I can, in the evening, but the slow speed tests don't show poor latency and the traceroute's don't show slow hop times, so I doubt ping will be affected. It just seems to be data streaming that is slow.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Could you then try the ping -t to google.co.uk and to one of the servers that gives a slow connection so that we can compare the results

Chris

[nophead]

When measured by Google or Fast.com I always have speeds in the range 38-55 Mbps but when measured by Which or speedtest.net my download speed drops to very low levels around 8pm and this coincides with when I can't watch videos from Dorna but I can still watch youtube and Netflix, etc. There seems to be some bottle neck along the route to some parts of the internet but not others.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

So throughput speeds are always OK in general regardless of time of day?

Chris

[nophead]

Isn't Openreach just concerned with the link to my home? There is no problem with that or with the link to Google because Google always shows a fast download speed. It is the connection between your servers and Which's server that could only sustain 4 Mbps last evening. The traceroute showed the hops were not slow but the asterisks show packet loss between some servers according to what I read about traceroute .

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks for running the test. I've checked the real time data on the Openreach website for the last 6 days and the error count is pretty much zero every hour. 

When it's slow again could you try running ping -t google.co.uk at the command prompt. This will run a continuous ping, to stop it press ctrl+c 

Could you leave the ping running for about 30 seconds to a minute and let us know how your get on

Thanks
Chris

[nophead]

Not quite what you requested but at 21:20 this evening Which's test only gave 4 Mbps. Here is a traceroute from my desktop to Which's server. 

tracert 78.129.223.26

Tracing route to 78.129.223.26 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.2.1
3 6 ms 6 ms 9 ms host-2-98-32-1.as13285.net [2.98.32.1]
4 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms ae51-ner001.irl.as13285.net [78.144.1.5]
5 * 13 ms 12 ms ae51-scr101.thw.as13285.net [78.144.1.4]
6 * * 15 ms ae60-scr102.thw.as13285.net [78.144.1.111]
7 15 ms 19 ms 18 ms host-78-144-3-151.as13285.net [78.144.3.151]
8 17 ms 18 ms 17 ms be500.ncs5500-1.dc5.as20860.net [130.180.202.81]
9 * 15 ms 17 ms 620.b.dc5.as20860.net [87.117.211.42]
10 15 ms 17 ms 14 ms 78.129.223.26

I think perhaps the problem is packet loss because I only see these asterisks when there is a low datarate.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Ok, could you run one more wired ping and trace route the next time this happens when connected wired directly at the router and also make a note of the date and time and we can ask our Network Team to take a look at this.

Run a Ping or Traceroute - TalkTalk Help & Support

Thanks

[nophead]

During the post race interviews it went back to potatovison. So it is hard to watch these videos in the evenings and as they are not live I doubt the Dorna servers are particularly busy. There must be a bottleneck in Talktalk's connection to parts of the internet.

[nophead]

At about 8pm this evening it went to low res again. My laptop directly connected to an Ethernet port on the Talktalk router gave a which speed test of just 0.8 Mbps.  Ten minutes later it recovered to 6 Mbps and that is just enough for Dorna HD videos, so I was able to watch the rest of the race in HD on my desktop PC.

[nophead]

I will give it a try when it next goes slow but I very much doubt my 1 Gbit switches slow down to 0.2 Mbits only for Dorna  videos and Which's broadband test in the evenings. I am sure the problem is upstream of my ADSL connection.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

I think it's worth trying with a direct connection if possible, just to see if it does make any difference

Chris

[nophead]

I could perhaps connect an old laptop but I doubt it is a problem in my home because it fails when the internet is busy, not when I am doing anything. I also tried using my phone as a hotspot. It is Tesco 4g from O2 with reasonable signal strength but I only got about 5 Mbps and that was only enough for 720p.