Single thread connection less than half of line speed.

[Brian_R]

I was wondering if someone could shed light on an issue I have with my line speed tests.

This issue has been going on ever since I have been with TalkTalk FTTP and I was just wondering what could be causing it.

Recently I was going to switch to Fibrus FTTP but TalkTalk gave me a great offer and I decided to stay. While the Fibrus line was still active I did some speed tests on a few sites, one of the sites being thinkbroadband.com

With Fibrus both the single thread tests and the multiple thread tests gave me the full line speed of 150Mbps.

With TalkTalk though the single thread tests are always less than half the full line speed.

TalkTalk - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1724278418441557555

Fibrus    - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1723628014800997555

I have also done some tests using axel in a terminal on some other sites setting the threads to 1 or 6 and these tests show similar results.

When I do tests on speed.cloudflare.com I get a Poor online gaming / Good video streaming / Average Video Chatting ratings.

I have a 150Mbps FTTP connection and I am next to the router connected via Ethernet.

I used my own router with both the TalkTalk and Fibrus tests, so different hardware could not be the issue.

I am just wondering if the line has some kind of throttling happening on single thread connections or is this some other issue that could be fixed?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Brian_R]

Okay but all of what you just said does not explain how I can connect my machine using the same setup and router to the Fibrus network and do speed tests on the same sites and get my full line speed when testing Single Thread but on TalkTalk I consistently get less than half of my total line speed.

I do not see how this is possible unless there is either an issue with the TalkTalk network or single threading is traffic shaped / capped?

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

This is usually how data transmission works, I think it is important to stress that there is a difference between speed and bandwith.  For example , you could have a very large pipe and a very small pipe,  Water can flow through both pipes at the same speed, but the larger pipe would fill the bathtub much faster.   

A single thread connection utilising TCP can be subject to packet loss, so more re transmissions,  latency, firewalls and other traffic and server load / location.  the correct server setup would use more threads to maximise the use of bandwidth.  A single thread would not always use the full bandwidth of the connection.

Thanks  

Karl. 

[Brian_R]

Not that I notice. Normal browsing and usage seems fine.

I only notice it when downloading and it is a single thread connection.

Really I am just wanting some kind of explanation of why Single Thread connections are below half of my full line speed.

As I tested Fibrus and got full speed on both there must be some reason I am getting less than half with TalkTalk.

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

The trace does not show an issue or high hop times.

Besides what the speed test showed, do you experience any issues with any browsing or connecting to any servers in your day to day internet usage ?

Thanks  

Karl. 

[Brian_R]

traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 _gateway (192.168.1.1) 0.284 ms 0.417 ms 0.405 ms
2 host-92-22-0-1.as13285.net (92.22.0.1) 12.449 ms 12.406 ms 12.494 ms
3 ae50-ner001.msp.as13285.net (78.144.1.33) 14.172 ms 11.836 ms 11.825 ms
4 ae50-scr001-msp.as13285.net (78.144.1.32) 12.142 ms 11.944 ms 11.932 ms
5 ae63-scr102.thw.as13285.net (78.144.1.128) 17.247 ms 38.903 ms 17.261 ms
6 74.125.51.108 (74.125.51.108) 19.957 ms 74.125.51.110 (74.125.51.110) 18.015 ms 17.951 ms
7 * * *
8 dns.google (8.8.8.8) 17.343 ms 17.412 ms 17.161 ms

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

Can you run a trace to google and see what the results are.

Thanks  

Karl. 

[Brian_R]

Does the TalkTalk speed test also do checks for single connections as well as multiple?

A lot of sites online say single connection can help find faults that would normally be negated by multiple connection tests.

When I try it in my account it does not give me a choice of selecting single connection test.

In my account the speed test shows that is uses Ookla Speedtest and when I run it in my account I get the full line speed.

I just ran a test from speedtest.net with single selected and got 44.38Mbps.

There has to be some kind of underlying issue even if it is congestion. I would just like some kind of explanation on why single connection is so much slower than multiple.

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

Our network teas will only accept the results of the TalkTalk sped test as this is within our network.  If speeds via the TalkTalk speed test are correct for your line, then they would not escalate to Openreach etc.

Thanks  

Karl. 

[Brian_R]

It does mean that if I am downloading a large file and my connection to a server is only using a single connection my speed will be limited. I notice this in some areas when downloads are taking a lot longer than they should.

Is there is no reason why this would be happening? There must be some reason why single thread is consistently less than half the speed of my line .

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

Tests are clear and profile settings are correct.  No active throttling is in place, and as long as the overall speed of the connection is where t should be, your applications should work as expected.

Thanks  

Karl.