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Odd behaviour with download speeds in the last few weeks

I have been a customer of BeFibre since February on their 900Mbps package and in the last few weeks I have noticed that my download speeds have been very slow, as low as 8Mbps on occasion. This happens at all times of the day and on every day of the week. Even at 7am on a Sunday morning, the speeds have been noticeably slow. Ping times also went up to 20ms but are now back to normal at 6ms.

Tonight I did a rudimentary speed test by downloading the Arch Linux ISO from the University of Kent's Mirror Service. On the BeFibre connection I got a steady 7MB/s while using one of the ProtonVPN's free Dutch server the speed only went as slow as 50MB/s.

The speed from a free VPN thrashing the speed from a pure ISP connection is not right. Could BeFibre be throttling speeds on its service or could this be a issue with one of their subnets?

(It's been a long time since I last posted, the last time I was here I was with the original BE ISP!)
 
Hi @tghe-retford your not alone from what I’ve seen on the BeFibre Discussion,Help & Support group.

Are you on CGNAT or a Static IP?

What you describe sounds like a peering issue if speeds to certain destinations are slow.

You could try running some traceroute to the destinations your seeing poor performance which may yield some clues as to what routes/peering their taking.

Have you tried running speed tests to BeFibre’s and Full Fibre Speedtest . net servers as these are on net should be able to max out your line.
 
Hi @tghe-retford your not alone from what I’ve seen on the BeFibre Discussion,Help & Support group.

Are you on CGNAT or a Static IP?

What you describe sounds like a peering issue if speeds to certain destinations are slow.

You could try running some traceroute to the destinations your seeing poor performance which may yield some clues as to what routes/peering their taking.

Have you tried running speed tests to BeFibre’s and Full Fibre Speedtest . net servers as these are on net should be able to max out your line.
Hi and thank you for responding. In answer to your question, I'm on CGNAT.

I have run a traceroute repeatedly in the last few days to Google UK and nothing seems out of the ordinary. It's 6ms all the way after my router to Google's server.

In terms of speedtests, if I do a multi-connection test to Full Fibre's London server then I get what I should normally get - this afternoon that's 750Mbps/940Mbps. If I do a single connection test, it slows down to 265Mbps/848Mbps. On BeFibre's Belper server it's 431/939 and 138/775 respectively. Out of curiosity I also used Speedtest's suggested server in Peterborough and got 939/892 on the multi-connection but it dropped dramatically to 175/528 on the single connection test. This also matches the slow speeds I have been getting with file downloads and Arch Linux updates regardless of whichever UK server that the Reflector mirrorlist service picks for speed.

I know people have stated that they've had issues with having their location show up as another country (when I first joined my Internet radio and PayPal assumed I was in Bosnia and Herzegovina) but as things stand, my geo-location is reported as Belper (some distance from my physical location). I know BeFibre must have something based at Belper because the BeFibre speedtest server is based there.
 
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It looks like you can max your line on some speed tests it’s fairly normal to get lower speeds on a single thread connection test you do need multi thread to max your line speed.

Have you tried doing a traceroute to the server you were downloading from and getting low speeds?

If you can do that and post the results here I can try the same on a BeFibre line and my Full Fibre Ltd line to compare.

BeFibre and Full Fibre Ltd share the same Layer 3 network now.
 
Have you tried doing a traceroute to the server you were downloading from and getting low speeds?

If you can do that and post the results here I can try the same on a BeFibre line and my Full Fibre Ltd line to compare.
As requested, the traceroute to the University of Kent Mirror Service as per the OP:
traceroute to mirrorservice.org (212.219.56.184), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
Code:
 1  Linksys06529 (192.168.1.1)  0.244 ms  0.229 ms  0.248 ms
 2  100.67.0.1 (100.67.0.1)  5.785 ms  5.756 ms  5.886 ms
 3  inet-01.thn.fullfibre.network (94.103.243.198)  6.035 ms  6.067 ms  6.083 ms
 4  * * *
 5  ae-7.edge7.London1.Level3.net (4.68.62.41)  13.370 ms  12.201 ms  13.359 ms
 6  * * *
 7  JANET.ear1.London1.Level3.net (212.187.216.254)  12.755 ms  12.913 ms  12.745 ms
 8  ae24.londhx-sbr1.ja.net (146.97.35.197)  12.805 ms  12.630 ms  12.616 ms
 9  ae29.londpg-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.33.2)  13.153 ms  13.409 ms  13.329 ms
10  ae30.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.33.6)  7.351 ms  7.205 ms  7.424 ms
11  kpsn.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.41.86)  8.884 ms  8.827 ms  8.821 ms
12  212.219.171.146 (212.219.171.146)  9.358 ms  8.856 ms  9.293 ms
13  * * *
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
17  * * *
18  * * *
19  * * *
20  * * *
21  * * *
22  * * *
23  * * *
24  * * *
25  * * *
26  * * *
27  * * *
28  * * *
29  * * *
30  * * *

And to Google UK:

traceroute to google.co.uk (172.217.16.227), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
Code:
 1  Linksys06529 (192.168.1.1)  0.254 ms  0.219 ms  0.182 ms
 2  100.67.0.1 (100.67.0.1)  6.185 ms  6.139 ms  6.194 ms
 3  inet-01.thn.fullfibre.network (94.103.243.198)  6.498 ms  6.467 ms  6.460 ms
 4  195.66.224.125 (195.66.224.125)  6.500 ms  6.449 ms  6.489 ms
 5  192.178.97.249 (192.178.97.249)  7.213 ms  7.207 ms  7.123 ms
 6  142.251.52.151 (142.251.52.151)  7.044 ms  6.911 ms  7.224 ms
7 lhr48s28-in-f3.1e100.net (172.217.16.227) 7.216 ms 7.225 ms 6.940 ms
 
Here are some trace routes from connections I have access to for comparison all located in Shrewsbury :

First is my Full Fibre Ltd line which also uses CGNAT and looks like the same route after CGNAT.:
1 100.66.32.1 (100.66.32.1) 10.044 ms 9.980 ms 9.983 ms
2 inet-01.thn.fullfibre.network (94.103.243.201) 10.047 ms 10.221 ms 10.016 ms
3 * * *
4 ae-7.edge7.London1.Level3.net (4.68.62.41) 30.689 ms * *
5 * * *
6 JANET.ear1.London1.Level3.net (212.187.216.254) 18.548 ms 18.508 ms 18.532 ms
7 ae24.londhx-sbr1.ja.net (146.97.35.197) 16.562 ms 16.536 ms 16.534 ms
8 ae29.londpg-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.33.2) 19.464 ms 17.375 ms 17.099 ms
9 ae30.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.33.6) 11.113 ms 11.211 ms 11.216 ms
10 kpsn.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.41.86) 12.800 ms 12.751 ms 12.715 ms
11 212.219.171.138 (212.219.171.138) 13.216 ms 13.294 ms 13.098 ms

Next is my parents BeFibre connection which has a static ip and goes via Manchester:

1 154.61.155.4 (154.61.155.4) 3.207 ms 3.952 ms 3.965 ms
2 inet-01.ma1.fullfibre.network (94.103.243.196) 4.181 ms 4.137 ms 4.044 ms
3 ae4-1231.cr1-man1.ip4.gtt.net (212.222.180.109) 3.714 ms 4.697 ms 5.561 ms
4 ae1.cr12-lon1.ip4.gtt.net (141.136.107.6) 10.223 ms 9.633 ms 9.795 ms
5 ae-11.edge7.London1.Level3.net (4.68.72.201) 10.235 ms 8.458 ms 10.300 ms
6 * * *
7 JANET.ear1.London1.Level3.net (212.187.216.254) 11.122 ms 10.808 ms 9.965 ms
8 ae24.londhx-sbr1.ja.net (146.97.35.197) 10.099 ms 10.473 ms 9.358 ms
9 ae29.londpg-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.33.2) 10.761 ms 10.004 ms 11.874 ms
10 ae30.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.33.6) 10.617 ms 10.977 ms 11.972 ms
11 kpsn.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.41.86) 13.691 ms 13.206 ms 11.682 ms
12 212.219.171.138 (212.219.171.138) 12.378 ms 12.747 ms 13.680 ms

Finally my VM XGSPON connection:

1 cpc1-nrwh14-0-0-gw.4-4.cable.virginm.net (86.2.32.1) 2.451 ms 3.058 ms 2.725 ms
2 perr-core-2a-ae22-11.network.virginmedia.net (86.0.108.0) 3.053 ms 2.906 ms 2.905 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 212.187.216.238 (212.187.216.238) 9.563 ms 8.970 ms 9.358 ms
8 ae24.londtt-sbr1.ja.net (146.97.35.193) 9.456 ms 9.237 ms 9.360 ms
9 ae28.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.33.62) 10.151 ms 9.991 ms 9.423 ms
10 kpsn.londtw-sbr2.ja.net (146.97.41.86) 11.230 ms 11.833 ms 11.122 ms
11 212.219.171.146 (212.219.171.146) 11.439 ms 11.260 ms 11.243 ms

I’m not at home currently but when I’m back I can test a download from that server to see what speeds I get from both my Full Fibre line and VM line.
 
I've been experiencing this alongside much higher pings than usual. The tech support bloke my request got given to told me to get closer to my wifi router, because I measured the speed direct to my router on the admin panel, but using my phone when I was upstairs. It is very frustrating.

My ping when gaming or using discord is often 30ms, it used to be around 8! Also, when using google maps and similar things it has suddenly decided that my current location is miles away from what it actually is.

I'm glad someone else is having these problems, are there any other befibre forums people recommend joining other than this one?
 
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Ive just tried downloading the Arch Linux ISO from Kent Uni via my VM XGSPON line (Gig1) and was getting 100-300mbps
On my FF line which is same Layer 3 as BeFibre getting 300-600mbps.

If your still getting lower than that on your BeFibre line and in other speed tests then I would log a support call with BeFibre it is most likely their CGNAT box playing up.
 
IP address changed tonight and all of a sudden the speed tests are back to 900mbps for both download and upload even on a single download speed test. Nothing has changed in terms of the traceroute or the geo-location.

I have the feeling it will come back at some point.
 
I've been experiencing this alongside much higher pings than usual. The tech support bloke my request got given to told me to get closer to my wifi router, because I measured the speed direct to my router on the admin panel, but using my phone when I was upstairs. It is very frustrating.

My ping when gaming or using discord is often 30ms, it used to be around 8! Also, when using google maps and similar things it has suddenly decided that my current location is miles away from what it actually is.

I'm glad someone else is having these problems, are there any other befibre forums people recommend joining other than this one?
I've had no improvement on these issues, I'm loathed to get back in touch with them after the last bloke I dealt with being useless but I guess it might be worth doing. Might think about getting a static IP, would this be worthwhile?
 
I've had no improvement on these issues, I'm loathed to get back in touch with them after the last bloke I dealt with being useless but I guess it might be worth doing. Might think about getting a static IP, would this be worthwhile?
It’s worth trying and see if you can get it free due to the issues your facing
 
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I've had no improvement on these issues, I'm loathed to get back in touch with them after the last bloke I dealt with being useless but I guess it might be worth doing. Might think about getting a static IP, would this be worthwhile?
I saw somebody on Facebook mention about restarting the router a few times so you are assigned a new IP and sure enough, it works. Not quite as good ping as I was getting before but more than good enough. Annoyingly though, google maps still can't work out my location on my PC, but oh well.
 
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