ADSL line speed drops off at ~5:00pm every night, then comes back around 6:00am every day

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › ADSL line speed drops off at ~5:00pm every night, then comes back around 6:00am every day

dstove

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#270185 27-Apr-2020 15:47

Hi,

I know this has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find any recent ones. Every night my ADSL line speed on my modem drops from ~3mbps to ~850kbps. I queried this with Spark and they told me that it was because of a: I have an old modem, b: a lot more people are online now with people working from home, and c: there's probably some update that's taking all my bandwidth.

My opinion is that a: my modem is 2 years old - it should last longer than that. b: I can understand that it might be busy during the day, but why is it busier at night? Since when does network congestion cause my connection to reset and change the line speed - at around the same time every night? and c: My rogue windows updates would also not change the line speed on the modem. I have a website monitoring my connection so I can tell when it's actually disconnecting every night and morning.

So I agreed to have them send me a new modem to try - same issue, but the new modem was worse than the existing one and I was lucky to get 2mbps during the day, so I ditched it.

I posted something about it on the local facebook page, and it turns out that just about everyone in the area that is on ADSL has the same issue, at about the same time every night. It doesn't matter what provider they were on.

It's pointless trying to stream anything at night, although I can use 4G as a backup.

Can anyone give me some idea of what may be causing this - seemingly across the board for ADSL connections?

Thanks

Dominic.

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#2472156 27-Apr-2020 15:50

Are you rural? Sounds like you could be connected to a Conklin cabinet and around 5pm more people are coming online and BOOM slow down

No way a modem would cause this if it's fine off-peak for speed

dstove

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#2472157 27-Apr-2020 15:52

Yes, Oxford. although some of the people getting the same result are in the town ares - but it's probably the same cabinet.

Linux

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#2472161 27-Apr-2020 15:55

No modem is going to help your issue! I would say you are connected to a Conklin cabinet so you will have to live with it

Linux

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#2472163 27-Apr-2020 15:56

dstove:

Yes, Oxford. although some of the people getting the same result are in the town ares - but it's probably the same cabinet.

They could be on shorter runs of copper so will get better speed but peak time congestion will still be crap!

snnet

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#2472164 27-Apr-2020 15:58

You could always try and get in touch with Spark, though as @Linux says it's very doubtful that it's going to be the modem connecting and disconnecting itself at specific times. Faulty modems do exist but I'd doubt this would be the cause. In saying that, it won't hurt your situation to try another one?

Linux

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#2472170 27-Apr-2020 16:00

@dstove Do the modem xDSL SYNC rates remain the same 24/7 but the speed just drops?

dstove

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#2472171 27-Apr-2020 16:04

Already tried another modem, and there are at least a dozen people in the area with the same issue.

Fibre is never going to be an option, and I doubt chorus will upgrade any ADSL cabinets.

It just seem strange that it's only got worse in the last few months.

Thanks for your responses. Seems I'll just have to live with it.

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RunningMan

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#2472172 27-Apr-2020 16:04

dstove: [snip] Every night my ADSL line speed on my modem drops from ~3mbps to ~850kbps.

Are you talking about the actual ADSL sync rate, or just doing a speedtest?

dstove

20 posts

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#2472173 27-Apr-2020 16:05

Linux:

@dstove Do the modem xDSL SYNC rates remain the same 24/7 but the speed just drops?

Good question - I'll check that tonight.

dstove

20 posts

Geek

#2472177 27-Apr-2020 16:09

RunningMan:

dstove: [snip] Every night my ADSL line speed on my modem drops from ~3mbps to ~850kbps.

Are you talking about the actual ADSL sync rate, or just doing a speedtest?

Rate:

3123 kbs

731 kbs

Max Rate:

3573 kbs

776 kbs

Noise Margin:

15.6 dB

12.8 dB

Attenuation:

63.0 dB

30.2 dB

Output Power:

16.1 dBm

12.3 dBm

This is my current rate. I imagine in an hour it will drop to about 900kbs

RunningMan

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#2472179 27-Apr-2020 16:13

Two things there.

1) Does that sync rate actually change in an hour, or is just your throughput that drops.

2) At 63dB downstream attenuation, you are lucky to get any sort of connection at all. @hio77 may be interested in looking at this.

snnet

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#2472181 27-Apr-2020 16:14

dstove:

Already tried another modem, and there are at least a dozen people in the area with the same issue.

Fibre is never going to be an option, and I doubt chorus will upgrade any ADSL cabinets.

It just seem strange that it's only got worse in the last few months.

Thanks for your responses. Seems I'll just have to live with it.

If you lose service for that long a period and a lot of other people do too, you should all be letting your ISPs know - Chorus will HAVE to do something if everyone is having a problem like this from 6pm - 6am continuously. They seem to be deeming internet an essential service to have as they are connecting families who have no access to internet (partnering with ISPs) during the lockdown so kids can learn remotely

cyril7

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#2472183 27-Apr-2020 16:16

Hi, is that 63dB attenuation the down or up, regardless attenuation directly relates to cable length (assuming no faults) and downstream attenuation is 13.8dB/km, so if the down is 63 then that would imply 4.5km of cable from the cabinet, if this is correct then your doomed.

Edit: if 4.5km is correct then there is really nothing that can be done by your ISP or Chorus, you are way down the slippery slope to nothing, any minor noise move in the line will just make a bad line worse, I suggest you look at an RBI or WISP connection.

Cyril

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#2472189 27-Apr-2020 16:29

snnet:

dstove:

Already tried another modem, and there are at least a dozen people in the area with the same issue.

Fibre is never going to be an option, and I doubt chorus will upgrade any ADSL cabinets.

It just seem strange that it's only got worse in the last few months.

Thanks for your responses. Seems I'll just have to live with it.

If you lose service for that long a period and a lot of other people do too, you should all be letting your ISPs know - Chorus will HAVE to do something if everyone is having a problem like this from 6pm - 6am continuously. They seem to be deeming internet an essential service to have as they are connecting families who have no access to internet (partnering with ISPs) during the lockdown so kids can learn remotely

@snnet Chours does not have to do anything if it's overloading on the Chorus hardware IE Conklin Cabinet

dstove

20 posts

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#2472196 27-Apr-2020 16:32

cyril7:

Hi, is that 63dB attenuation the down or up, regardless attenuation directly relates to cable length (assuming no faults) and downstream attenuation is 13.8dB/km, so if the down is 63 then that would imply 4.5km of cable from the cabinet, if this is correct then your doomed.

Edit: if 4.5km is correct then there is really nothing that can be done by your ISP or Chorus, you are way down the slippery slope to nothing, any minor noise move in the line will just make a bad line worse, I suggest you look at an RBI or WISP connection.

Cyril

Yes - I'm the last one on the road to get ADSL - my neighbour doesn't get anything! Others I know getting the same issue are much closer to the cabinet though. I'm also right on the edge of 4G. I get fine mobile 4G but RBI is way more expensive and there's no flat-rate.

Dominic

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