Broadband performance issues in the evening

[MarkE]

So, joined Sky BBand unlimited a month or so ago and the Sagem routers has trained in at a good stable 16Mb connection with an attenuation of 17.5dB.

Speed lately has been great until you get to 8pm, then all of a sudden it is like being on dialup again.

Running stats through speedtest.net shows during the day and early evening, ping response of ~46ms with 13.6mb up and 1mb down.

After 8pm (until about 9.30pm) ping is 220ms with 0.33mbdown and 0.12mb up.

No difference in usage or devices on my end and the router even with a reboot re-trains at 16Mb.

Really annoying as I tend to us the Xbox in the evening for a little downtime, but now seriously considering cancelling my sky connection and go back to O2.

Any ideas?

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

You using WiFi at these times? If so, try using Ethernet. If that helps then you've got a reception issue so try changing channel on the router (although you should always game on Ethernet for a reliable connection)

[MarkE]

Using both ethernet and wireless connections and this is definitely on the outside of the router.
Have even gone through disconnecting all of the wired an testing, connecting the wired and turning off wireless.

Gaming platform is wired, only devices on wireless are two iphones, ipad and Apple TV.

Experience as a network designer, tells me this is an upstream problem and not local.

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Perhaps that information should have been added to the OP

I'm out of ideas, best calling Sky but one last thing you can try is moving the router to your master socket if it's not already there or (if it is) try the test socket. Sky will only ask you to do it anyway

[MarkE]

So here is the update. Spoke to Sky and they tested their end and found no issues, so all fingers point at the router and its inability to cope under load. This can be clearly seen when trying to log on to the router itself when there are more than 3 devices connected.

So new router inbound from Sky (hopefully this one works!), and down to shutting down any other device if I want to use the XBox or download a film.

I'll wait and see what the new router does and whether it copes, if not it will be cancellation territory and back to O2!

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Why not just use a router with QoS? Would be a lot easier as you're also gonna have to move your line back to BT (if you're on the SVBN now)

[MarkE]

If I could use any router other than the Sky supplied one because of the damned silly implementation of MER I would.

However if I move back I will be going back to my faithful Draytek!

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Sky router as a dumb modem, 2nd router with QoS to handle networking?

[MarkE]

Hmm, good point. I shall investigate................

Good thinking!