UPC problems.

troyzer

Can anybody explain to me why UPC are able to get away with a blatant advertisement? I have UPC 120MB broadband plan and I've never seen even close to it.
I recently bought a custom made laptop with one of those centurino Intel cards that are supposedly really good, so I expected that my network card wouldn't be throttling the WiFi speeds. At around 3 in the morning last night I decided to run a speed test within three feet of the WiFi box and I got 10MB a second on UPC's own speed test. So that is literally the fastest it will ever be, 10MB when I'm right next to the box with a lethal WiFi card and off peak hours.
I realise that the 120MB is completely theoretical, but 10MB is just ridiculous and I suspect it's not even accurate. I closed every browser and turned off all of my other connected devices again sitting next to the box to see how fast the connection is on Steam. I've never broken 4MB a second on downloads.
When I connected my consoles to my box via Ethernet I've never gotten above 11MB, again in off peak hours.
I like to think I know my technology a bit, but this one has me really baffled. I do a lot of heavy gaming and downloading and it's gotten to the point where I'm waiting 9 or 10 hours for a PS4 game to download even via Ethernet. Is something wrong? Or are UPC just bastards?
Thanks!
Sean.

yoyo

troyzer wrote: »

Can anybody explain to me why UPC are able to get away with a blatant advertisement? I have UPC 120MB broadband plan and I've never seen even close to it.
I recently bought a custom made laptop with one of those centurino Intel cards that are supposedly really good, so I expected that my network card wouldn't be throttling the WiFi speeds. At around 3 in the morning last night I decided to run a speed test within three feet of the WiFi box and I got 10MB a second on UPC's own speed test. So that is literally the fastest it will ever be, 10MB when I'm right next to the box with a lethal WiFi card and off peak hours.
I realise that the 120MB is completely theoretical, but 10MB is just ridiculous and I suspect it's not even accurate. I closed every browser and turned off all of my other connected devices again sitting next to the box to see how fast the connection is on Steam. I've never broken 4MB a second on downloads.
When I connected my consoles to my box via Ethernet I've never gotten above 11MB, again in off peak hours.
I like to think I know my technology a bit, but this one has me really baffled. I do a lot of heavy gaming and downloading and it's gotten to the point where I'm waiting 9 or 10 hours for a PS4 game to download even via Ethernet. Is something wrong? Or are UPC just bastards?
Thanks!
Sean.

Wifi N will get you about 50Mb speeds~. The only way to get full 120MB is via Ethernet with Gigabit LAN card. 4MB (megabytes per second) sounds about right for wireless N speeds.
Your consoles NIC may not support high speeds i.e may not be a "gigabit" NIC. This would make sense if speeds were slow. You may also be pulling files from a server in the states or far away, or there could be slowdowns due to many others also downloading the same files. It might also be worth changing the wireless channel via the routers config page, to rule out channel congestion issues.
The best test would be to hook the laptop up via Ethernet and test via speedtest.net or UPCs own speed test. You should get better results then. If not I would ring up and complain, I'm on 100Mb UPC and do get the 100Mb consistently.

Nick

troyzer

yoyo wrote: »

Wifi N will get you about 50Mb speeds~. The only way to get full 120MB is via Ethernet with Gigabit LAN card. 4MB (megabytes per second) sounds about right for wireless N speeds.
Your consoles NIC may not support high speeds i.e may not be a "gigabit" NIC. This would make sense if speeds were slow. You may also be pulling files from a server in the states or far away, or there could be slowdowns due to many others also downloading the same files. It might also be worth changing the wireless channel via the routers config page, to rule out channel congestion issues.
The best test would be to hook the laptop up via Ethernet and test via speedtest.net or UPCs own speed test. You should get better results then. If not I would ring up and complain, I'm on 100Mb UPC and do get the 100Mb consistently.

Nick

I paid extra for a GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ULTIMATE N-6300 (450Mbps) in my laptop over the standard card, did I just piss money down the drain? I have no idea what the difference is, but it was a 16 euro upgrade and I decided to get it so I wouldn't have a throttled connection. So was I an idiot or not? How could 4MB be the maximum for an application on a 120MB connection? That's just unfair, nearly everybody uses WiFi, I didn't know there was THAT much disparity between WiFi and Ethernet. I thought it would be maybe 5 or 10mb difference, not over 90. I can't imagine Sony would install a network card into their PS4 which isn't Gigabit. Isn't Gigabit technology fairly standard now? It's hardly new. I would expect the odd slowdown with server overloads and that sort of thing, but the point is it NEVER exceeds 10mb even on Ethernet. Granted, I haven't tried ethernet in a while. I've seen it do 10mb on a PS3 but I know that the PS3 had a God awful card to begin with. I haven't tried ethernet with the PS4 yet, it's not practical where I have it in the house. Which lead me to think of getting a pair of homeplugs. But I'm not arsed if I'm not going to be able to get close to my 120mb anyway. I'm getting massive latency issues for online gaming even though my PS4 can't be more than 15 feet from the WiFi box in the same room. I have no idea how I would go about reconfiguring my router. Do you have any other advice or suggestions before I ring UPC and give them an earfull? It's been an issue for a long time. But previously I could just put it down to the PS3 having a **** card. Now that I've recently bought a PS4 and I've been going all digital on my laptop it's really obvious that something isn't right.
Cheers again! Much appreciated.

troyzer

yoyo wrote: »

Wifi N will get you about 50Mb speeds~. The only way to get full 120MB is via Ethernet with Gigabit LAN card. 4MB (megabytes per second) sounds about right for wireless N speeds.
Your consoles NIC may not support high speeds i.e may not be a "gigabit" NIC. This would make sense if speeds were slow. You may also be pulling files from a server in the states or far away, or there could be slowdowns due to many others also downloading the same files. It might also be worth changing the wireless channel via the routers config page, to rule out channel congestion issues.
The best test would be to hook the laptop up via Ethernet and test via speedtest.net or UPCs own speed test. You should get better results then. If not I would ring up and complain, I'm on 100Mb UPC and do get the 100Mb consistently.

Nick

Just as an aside, if Wireless N is capable of 50MB I'd be pretty happy with that. It's a tenfold increase on what I currently have. I wouldn't see the point of paying for 120mb but that's a different issue. Why do Intel say their card can support 450mb then? It can't refer to the ethernet speeds because it already states it's a gigabit card.
I'm extremely confused.

yoyo

troyzer wrote: »

Just as an aside, if Wireless N is capable of 50MB I'd be pretty happy with that. It's a tenfold increase on what I currently have. I wouldn't see the point of paying for 120mb but that's a different issue. Why do Intel say their card can support 450mb then? It can't refer to the ethernet speeds because it already states it's a gigabit card.
I'm extremely confused.

Gigabit LAN = Ethernet card i.e: NIC. wifi is Wireless LAN. Yes 40/50Mb should be achievable over Wifi standard N, but it depends on multiple factors such as interference from the likes of neighbours wifi connections, cordless phones etc. Changing the wireless channel may improve Wireless performance for you.
To do this login to the routers config page, usually http://192.168.100.1/ or http://192.168.1.1/ (note: neither of these may not be your routers config page, without knowing what router you have I can't advise you here). The channel settings will probably be set to a standard channel like 8 or auto. If multiple neighbours are also on the same channel, this will likely cause interference.
Try and pick a little used or free wireless channel. You can use the free inSSIDer to see a chart of channels in use around you.
The bottom line is though wifi sucks (I hate it :P ) so you may just have to put up with 30/40Mb speeds using it. The other option is to wire the house with CAT5 cabling from your computers location to where the router is.
Regarding the PS4, its probably would be a gigabit NIC alright, but it also may not be. I don't know the specs of it. If the PS4 doesn't have a strong wifi signal then that could well be part responsible for your lag/latency issues.
It could be (hopefully) something as simple as changing the wireless channel, but if not UPC are well within their rights to say what I mentioned above.

Nick

troyzer

yoyo wrote: »

Gigabit LAN = Ethernet card i.e: NIC. wifi is Wireless LAN. Yes 40/50Mb should be achievable over Wifi standard N, but it depends on multiple factors such as interference from the likes of neighbours wifi connections, cordless phones etc. Changing the wireless channel may improve Wireless performance for you.
To do this login to the routers config page, usually http://192.168.100.1/ or http://192.168.1.1/ (note: neither of these may not be your routers config page, without knowing what router you have I can't advise you here). The channel settings will probably be set to a standard channel like 8 or auto. If multiple neighbours are also on the same channel, this will likely cause interference.
Try and pick a little used or free wireless channel. You can use the free inSSIDer to see a chart of channels in use around you.
The bottom line is though wifi sucks (I hate it :P ) so you may just have to put up with 30/40Mb speeds using it. The other option is to wire the house with CAT5 cabling from your computers location to where the router is.
Regarding the PS4, its probably would be a gigabit NIC alright, but it also may not be. I don't know the specs of it. If the PS4 doesn't have a strong wifi signal then that could well be part responsible for your lag/latency issues.
It could be (hopefully) something as simple as changing the wireless channel, but if not UPC are well within their rights to say what I mentioned above.

Nick

I'd be happy with 50mb, I'll do what you said and see if it helps. So when Intel says the card is capable of 450mb, what does that mean? Apparentely there's a new WiFi standard, might invest in one of those. Rewiring isn't an option unfortunately, would you recommend home plugs? I googled PS4 and this came up: "The PlayStation 4 features 802.11 b/g/n WiFi connectivity, Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T)". I have no idea if that makes sense to you, but that's what it has apparentely!
So if I mess around with the channels like you say and I'm still getting awful speeds, UPC can basically just say tough titties? I should definitely get close to 100mb on Ethernet regardless though right? So if I don't get that, there's cause for complaint.

maki

Just to be clear, 120Mb (megabits) is not 120MB (megabytes). If you're getting 11MB per second download speeds on Steam or consoles you're pretty much getting the max speed possible from that connection.

yoyo

troyzer wrote: »

I'd be happy with 50mb, I'll do what you said and see if it helps. So when Intel says the card is capable of 450mb, what does that mean? Apparentely there's a new WiFi standard, might invest in one of those. Rewiring isn't an option unfortunately, would you recommend home plugs? I googled PS4 and this came up: "The PlayStation 4 features 802.11 b/g/n WiFi connectivity, Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T)". I have no idea if that makes sense to you, but that's what it has apparentely!
So if I mess around with the channels like you say and I'm still getting awful speeds, UPC can basically just say tough titties? I should definitely get close to 100mb on Ethernet regardless though right? So if I don't get that, there's cause for complaint.

The new Wifi standard (Wifi 802.11ac) will support higher transfer speeds than Wireless N. You would also need a Wireless 802.11ac router along with card to receive top speeds. UPC only offer Wireless N routers hence I didn't suggest this.
The PS4 does support Gigabit internet so. If you change the channel and your still not getting good speeds you should test the router by connecting directly to it with an ethernet cable. If you receive satisfactory results this way then UPC will just explain that Wifi is unpredictable and slow in comparison to wired networking

Nick

28064212

troyzer wrote: »

Just as an aside, if Wireless N is capable of 50MB I'd be pretty happy with that. It's a tenfold increase on what I currently have. I wouldn't see the point of paying for 120mb but that's a different issue. Why do Intel say their card can support 450mb then?

There's a difference between Mb and MB. 450MB is 450 MegaBytes. 450Mb is 450 Megabits. There are 8 bits in a byte. So 450Mbps means a theoretical maximum of ~56 Megabytes/second