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Speed test results completely different

@Buggerlugz The OP is talking about EE here, not Three.

@rik130 (pretty much) all network providers use 'traffic management' to one extent or another, to ensure that the service they are provided with maintained and the type of traffic is generally what gets prioritised depending on how urgent they deem it to be e.g. P2P = low priority, VOIP = highest, etc.
They probably throw in some of the popular speed test sites into the higher categories so as you say, when someone tests their speed (or when speed test reports get publicly published) it looks good.

It might be in the wake of the coronavirus that EE have altered their management policies to reduce the strain on their network and ensure voice calls/VOIP/VoLTE as the highest priority, and as a result you're seeing reduced speeds as everything else is much lower priority.

Combine that with the potential that your local area is seeing a higher population since no-one is moving around during the day. The serving masts in your area might now be handling more connections/users than usual - that too could result in each device now getting a smaller slice of the limited pie. Though, saying that, I'd have thought mobile data usage would be reduced, rather than increased, since more people would be on their home wifi.

If you had a VPN to connect to, I'd expect you'd see speeds increase again (though how much would depend on the speed of the VPN), as VPN traffic is usually high priority and the tunnel created would avoid any traffic management policies of the network provider.

Hi Gavin, that is a particularly useful post! Especially your final paragraph. I've just blitzed through a bunch of VPN extensions for Chrome and had just about given up as 80% of them require a sign-up and the other 20% were giving me woeful speeds. Just tried a Russian VPN service and selected their UK VPN. Oh look :




Yeah the ping is gnarly, but I don't care for ping when I'm downloading a 20+ GB files.

Just to prove that it definitely works, here's my speed direct to EE just a few moments ago. :



What a farce ! So would I be right in thinking that despite it allegedly being an 'unlimited' connection, EE are doing some behind-the-scenes shaping/restricting here but at the same time making sure that st.net get given the full beans in the hope that we won't notice and think we're imagining the slowness because st.net shows all is well. Would that be a fair analysis?
 
As I said before, I think you'd find any provider would actively manage traffic to ensure that their resources were used to the optimum while still providing services that are expected.
With mobile (phone) that possibly applies even more-so - if all data was deemed the same priority then I'd not want to be in EE's shoes if an emergency call was denied/dropped because someone was watching a show on Netflix.

While you might be on an 'unlimited' contract in terms of data quantity, I highly doubt that there is anything in your contract that stipulates anything about (minimum) data speeds.

I guess you'd be happier if EE didn't include speedtest.net in their higher priority management tiers?
 
I guess you'd be happier if EE didn't include speedtest.net in their higher priority management tiers?

Either the Regulator puts legislation in place to prevent them from doing it or st.net puts a big warning on the test page telling people what the ISPs are doing and that the speed stats should be taken with a pinch of salt. I'm not bothered which one but this shizzle really needs maximum exposure so that 'normies' like myself know we're essentially being duped. This stuff is probably well known and old news to your techies but today is the first time I've become aware of it.
 
There is the EU Net Neutrality rules (...oh wait, EU?) around blocking sites/services

but probes into potential breaches of that for zero-rating certain data/services have tended not to find much as they seem to focus on whether there has been a restricting of consumer choice, rather than checking what traffic managment policies a provider is using.

Mobile providers generally get around it by saying they manage their network so that a service is maintained for users (with no mention of speeds or even the technology used to provide that service) which I always read as lower priority/non-time critical data will be slower.

EE's latest Ts&Cs:
you can use mobile internet on your phone for peer to peer file sharing but your speed will be slower than usual as we monitor our network to protect it for all customers.


Edit: I forgot that the Net Neutrality laws did work seem to work for Three's limited roaming speeds being removed
 
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LOL I'm on Leeds Road between J26 & J27 😂
Connect to the robinhood sports mast which was just upgraded to CA but hasn't stopped these annoying stalls.

Good news just in! Just had this back from EE :

Network update: Our engineers have found a problem in BD19 6** and are fixing it, your service should be back to normal within 3 hours. Your Report ID is 2844442.​

You might see yours fixed as well.
 
Good news just in! Just had this back from EE :

Network update: Our engineers have found a problem in BD19 6** and are fixing it, your service should be back to normal within 3 hours. Your Report ID is 2844442.​

You might see yours fixed as well.
Actually we had a text last week advising the same not that I noticed a specific issue. My mast is different to yours, it's a bit further up the motorway towards ikea.
 
A guy I'm talking to on another forum is reporting his speed (same network and set-up as me) has now dropped down to under 10 Mbps on TB and fast.com, but st.net reporting a 'fake' 100 Mbps for him too. He's at the other end of the country to me so evidently not a localised issue. My TB speed is now back up to normal levels at 100 Mbps without explanation so it's clear that EE are up to some shenanigans throttling their 4G network by 90% right now. Hopefully only a temporary measure for CV19 as I've not experienced any throttling on my connection over the past 12 months until just recently; it's always sat somewhere between 80-125 Mbps 99% of the time.

You folks also on EE 4G might want to run some test comparisons on TB and fast.com and compare with speedtest.net to see how it looks.
 
And to think I was actually considering EE....
EE have been at this for a long time. I've not been with EE for years but this is something I experienced. Depending on what you're doing things get throttled. Big name speed tests always perform extremely well but if I was downloading a file it would be a different picture.

They don't seem to admit that they do this but it is very evident. I don't even know if this classes as necessary traffic management because if the network can handle a speedtest at full speed it can clearly download a file at the same speed.
 
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Its an obvious tactic to make your network appear much better than it actually is. I suppose if OFCOM had the teeth we all wish they had, they'd have put a stop to it a long time ago. Sadly the regulator remains a toothless quango with no real use to ISP's customers.
 
Its an obvious tactic to make your network appear much better than it actually is. I suppose if OFCOM had the teeth we all wish they had, they'd have put a stop to it a long time ago. Sadly the regulator remains a toothless quango with no real use to ISP's customers.
Well said. They're very lax sometimes when it comes to the rules. It's almost like the ASA. They have these rules in place but don't do anything about it until it's too late and the ad has already run it's course.
 
Just to update again, there are some weird games going on. My speed was back to normal (100 Mbps or so) when I posted yesterday morning, but in the afternoon it went back down to just under 10 Mbps. Same thing for the guy I know at the other end of the country.

This morning, speed back at 100 Mbps, but once into this afternoon, back down to under 10 Mbps. Same again for the other guy. Seems to be a network wide thing as he's 250 miles away but is seeing the same thing happening. I've not doing anything in terms of network load to warrant it. Prior to all this starting I hadn't downloaded a VOD since January and there were no speed pegs in place then. My use is generally light with the most load being watching a few 1080p youtube videos so there must be another reason for these 90% speed pegs in the afternoons which can be relatively easily circumvented by firing up a VPN tunnel.
 
Hi Gavin, that is a particularly useful post! Especially your final paragraph. I've just blitzed through a bunch of VPN extensions for Chrome and had just about given up as 80% of them require a sign-up and the other 20% were giving me woeful speeds. Just tried a Relaska VPN service and selected their EU VPN. Oh look :




Yeah the ping is gnarly, but I don't care for ping when I'm downloading a 20+ GB files.

Just to prove that it definitely works, here's my speed direct to EE just a few moments ago. :



What a farce ! So would I be right in thinking that despite it allegedly being an 'unlimited' connection, EE are doing some behind-the-scenes shaping/restricting here but at the same time making sure that st.net get given the full beans in the hope that we won't notice and think we're imagining the slowness because st.net shows all is well. Would that be a fair analysis?

EE is throttling such kind of traffic :(
I mean big files downloading.
 
I haven't been with EE for years but it was the same back then. Using a VPN always gets around the throttling in my experience.
 
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