Ways to improve internet speed - Eircom broadband

DrPhilG

Just trying to figure out if my issue is with the connection, the modem or the laptop I'm using.

I got Eircom broadband just after Christmas. Everything is up and running and the wireless option is also fine. I usually connect by the wireless on my laptop and also connect with my PS3.

The wife, (who is phenomenally impatient) is always griping that the internet is slow on the laptop. When you point to the wireless icon in the tray, it says 54Mbps and says that the signal is excellent. I haven't noticed much difference in speed between the wireless and the wired connection.

Is Eircom not that fast? Or is it just my pokey wee laptop, (Advent atom N270) is not a very good machine? We're not talking about downloading stuff etc, just browsing, viewing emails, watching youtube vids etc.

Also, will the internet connection of the laptop or the PS3 be affected if both are connecting at the same time? Or is it no difference.

Excuse the possible techno-stupidity of the above questions!

jor el

First off, what speed is your broadband? The 54Mbps on the wireless icon means very little, as that's just your wifi network speed. Connecting more than one device to the network at a time will slow things down, how much will depend on what they're doing. That netbook might just be slow too, or your wife has elevated expectations.

Do a speed test on www.speedtest.net to see what things look like.

DrPhilG

jor el wrote: »

First off, what speed is your broadband? The 54Mbps on the wireless icon means very little, as that's just your wifi network speed. Connecting more than one device to the network at a time will slow things down, how much will depend on what they're doing. That netbook might just be slow too, or your wife has elevated expectations.

Do a speed test on www.speedtest.net to see what things look like.

Speed of broadband, good question. It's the €30 a month eircom package. I'll try that speedtest when I get home.

Just did the speed test at work and got this;

Download - 2.46 Mb/s
Upload - 1.12 Mb/s
Ping - 74ms

Are those results good or bad? The wife works in the same place so if the results at home are better, then she's mad.

Doing 2 things at a time means she's checking emails, or shopping on Next or ebay, and I'm playing Fifa online.

Johnboy1951

I have had to change from the Eircom DNS servers to another within the last week because the response was woeful from Eircom.

My speed is OK, it was just making the initial connection that was delayed.

You need to check if that is the problem or is it a general slowness of transfer speed that is the problem.

Shammy

DrPhilG wrote: »

Speed of broadband, good question. It's the €30 a month eircom package. I'll try that speedtest when I get home.

Just did the speed test at work and got this;

Download - 2.46 Mb/s
Upload - 1.12 Mb/s
Ping - 74ms

Are those results good or bad? The wife works in the same place so if the results at home are better, then she's mad.

Doing 2 things at a time means she's checking emails, or shopping on Next or ebay, and I'm playing Fifa online.

Download isnt great , your upload is surprisingly good, your ping is bad , dont go trying to play online with that ping.It should be below 50 (which still isnt great)

DrPhilG

OK, just did the speed test at home on my own laptop, this was upstairs using the wireless connection.

Download - 2.64 Mb/s
Upload - 0.32 Mb/s
Ping - 57ms

PS, this was with the PS3 off so no other devices were connecting.

I have had very few problems playing online on the PS3.

So any tips for improving my speed? And are the test results above average for Eircom? Should I look for ways to improve the laptop or is this as good as Eircom can give me?

jor el

I'm guessing you're on the 3M/384k package, in which case those speeds are about bang on. You're not going to improve on that. Any issues are either on your Wifi network, or the computer itself.

DrPhilG

jor el wrote: »

Any issues are either on your Wifi network, or the computer itself.

Well it's the same speeds when I do the test with the laptop plugged in ethernet.

What do I need to try to upgrade on the laptop then? Or do I just need a better laptop?

Marlow

DrPhilG wrote: »

Well it's the same speeds when I do the test with the laptop plugged in ethernet.

What do I need to try to upgrade on the laptop then? Or do I just need a better laptop?

Neither. If you have the 3m/300 kbit and that's 24:1 contention, then that's what you're going to see. If you want more, you need a faster internet connection. Mind you though, that if you go for 7 mbit DSL, your ping might increase, because then they stick you on high interleave.

/M

DrPhilG

Marlow wrote: »

Neither. If you have the 3m/300 kbit and that's 24:1 contention, then that's what you're going to see. If you want more, you need a faster internet connection. Mind you though, that if you go for 7 mbit DSL, your ping might increase, because then they stick you on high interleave.

/M

Thanks for the info, but can you break that down into idiot speak?

Do I need to change my package with Eircom?

Sorry...

Marlow

DrPhilG wrote: »

Thanks for the info, but can you break that down into idiot speak?

Do I need to change my package with Eircom?

Sorry...

First of all, the speeds you are getting aren't slow. They are pretty much very decent.

So when you're wife says the internet is slow, you need to be a bit more specific. Is it websites not loading quick enough, can't she listen to webradio and it's breaking up, what's wrong in here opinion and what does she compare it to ?

If there is an issue with for example websites taking a wee bit to load sometimes, that could be eircoms DNS servers, it could be your eircom router or it could be the specific website that she's trying to load. It can be many things and getting a faster connection won't fix that.

I think your best approach is to get her to be more patient. I'd say it'll solve more things in live

/M

DrPhilG

Marlow wrote: »

First of all, the speeds you are getting aren't slow. They are pretty much very decent.

So when you're wife says the internet is slow, you need to be a bit more specific. Is it websites not loading quick enough, can't she listen to webradio and it's breaking up, what's wrong in here opinion and what does she compare it to ?

If there is an issue with for example websites taking a wee bit to load sometimes, that could be eircoms DNS servers, it could be your eircom router or it could be the specific website that she's trying to load. It can be many things and getting a faster connection won't fix that.

I think your best approach is to get her to be more patient. I'd say it'll solve more things in live

/M

No doubt about it, impatience is the main issue. She expects technology to be instant. Like when she clicks on a link and it takes a few seconds to load, so she clicks it again and again! :P:confused:

She is talking about websites taking too long to load. She is comparing it to work but as the speedtest showed, there isn't a huge difference between the results from work and home.

Marlow

DrPhilG wrote: »

She is talking about websites taking too long to load. She is comparing it to work but as the speedtest showed, there isn't a huge difference between the results from work and home.

Every time she clicks on the link, the page load process starts from new. The WHOLE process. So no wonder it'll take for ages.

You can tell her, that if she wants speeds like in work, she needs to pay money, like what work is paying for their internet. I reckon they've got a big fat fiber connection and that starts at 1000-1500 eur/month for 10 mbit, depending on where you are Make sure it goes out of her budget, not yours

/M

DrPhilG

Marlow wrote: »

Every time she clicks on the link, the page load process starts from new. The WHOLE process. So no wonder it'll take for ages.

Tried explaining that to her, she still does it...

Marlow

DrPhilG wrote: »

Tried explaining that to her, she still does it...

Time to let her pay the broadband bill and decide how much she wants to spend

/M

MickyJoe

Have you checked that the laptop is clean of malware ?
Would suggest try running malwarebytes & spybot (not at same time! particularly on an atom based machine)
Is your antivirus software slowing the internet down ?
Have you tried accessing your internet connection on another machine to compare them ?

Sarn

I reckon part of the issue is down to the fact that you are using a netbook. Netbooks don't have the highest specification and could be slowing down large pages, especially if you have other programmes running at the same time in the background.

Ideally you'd want to test your connection using a laptop to see if that is the case before you fork out more money on a better connection (there's a subtle difference between what is classed as a netbook and a laptop, but essentially comes down to processing and graphical power).

kmick

Those download/upload speeds are more than adequate for surfing. Does the netbook have an ethernet port? Is it quicker when its plugged in there?

Blazer

I had the same problem with my brother and old lady...
no patience and kept just on clicking it on the web..
was very easy to resolve...every time they called me (and i have to travel 52km to go there) if I saw then doing it I'd hit em a light smack on the head..
I'd then show them (yet again) how to do it and it would work fine...
I compared it to like those electric collars for dogs...if they ran outside the fence they would get a shock...same analogy..

Feidhlim

jor el wrote: »

That netbook might just be slow too, or your wife has elevated expectations.

Is it not normal for wives to have elevated expectations? :rolleyes:

Pinkfoot1

For the record my Eircom Broadband Speeds are:

Download: 0.17
Upload: 0.11
Ping: 234

This is with 1 MB (I signed for 3MB but was told the line won't carry 3MB - Strange as I changed from BT because speeds were low - the best I got was 1.6 on the same line although the average was 0.6).

So 2.4 is good...

ella11

can anyone please tell me if this is bad/ok/very good

download 6.99mb/s
upload 0.43mb/s
ping 48ms

Im am with eircom 3mb package

FlawedGenius

ella11 wrote: »

can anyone please tell me if this is bad/ok/very good

download 6.99mb/s
upload 0.43mb/s
ping 48ms

Im am with eircom 3mb package

Your on 3mb package and your getting 6.99 download:eek: You sure your not on 7/8MBs??? The ping is good for eircom standards too.

KennyLegend

ella11 wrote: »

can anyone please tell me if this is bad/ok/very good

download 6.99mb/s
upload 0.43mb/s
ping 48ms

Im am with eircom 3mb package

You're def on a 7 or 8Mb package and those are good results !

ella11

well i signed up for 3mb package few years back, would the speed be anything got to do with the new eircom next generation??

KennyLegend

ella11 wrote: »

well i signed up for 3mb package few years back, would the speed be anything got to do with the new eircom next generation??

Ya u were probably upgraded

sh1tg1bbon

I just moved into a new house which has eircom broadband. The landlord says he doesn't know which package he has, so I do a speed test to find out. The first one I did came up with just under 7mbps which rocks right? but evertime I do another speed test I get anything in the region of 2.6mb and 6 or 7mb.

Whichever speed it happens to be on thought, I can never watch youtube vids at more than 360p without running into major buffering issues. Which makes no sense. I can download something in utorrent at 400, 500, or even 600kbps, but can't stream a youtube video at 720p??!??! Stupid. It's got to be something wrong with eircom's service. Or maybe the wireless router. I know when watching youtube videos on the college wireless with the same laptop, I can stream them at 1080p or whichever is higher that 720

Has anyone has similar problems to this? I'd love to know.