Ethernet download speed issue in the evenings, Edinburgh.

[Doddie]

I'm in Edinburgh and my Windows 10 PC is connected to the Ultrahub via ethernet cable (it doesn't have wireless capability), the FTTP cabling was laid by Cityfibre.
For around a week now i've had terrible download speeds on my PC from around 17:00 through to midnight, either side of those times there is no issue with regular sustained speeds of around 940Mbps down and 840Mbps up.

Right now i'm seeing again, speeds of between 7-15Mbps down and 840Mbps up.

The odd things is that wireless speeds don't seem to be effected as confirmed on 2 mobile phones and a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet, i don't understand how the Ultrahub is able to maintain it's wireless speed yet the LAN port is somehow slowing to a crawl.
e.g. if it is simply a network demand issue then surely it would effect a wireless connection as well?

All the speed tests above were using Ookla Speedtest.

Below are two tracert's, one to bbc.com, the other to bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.com [151.101.64.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms vodafone.ultrahub [192.168.1.1]
2 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms 84.65.128.1
3 9 ms 9 ms 10 ms 63.130.172.37
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 90.255.251.117
5 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms 151.101.64.81

Trace complete.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [151.101.64.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms vodafone.ultrahub [192.168.1.1]
2 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms 84.65.128.1
3 10 ms * 9 ms 63.130.172.37
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 90.255.251.117
5 9 ms 9 ms * 151.101.64.81
6 10 ms * * 151.101.64.81
7 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms 151.101.64.81

Trace complete.

Both tracert's were taken within 15 minutes of each other at about 9pm tonight, any insight into what's happening and why, and if there's anything i can do at my end, would be greatly appreciated.

[Doddie]

I may have got my hopes up too soon, at around 8pm tonight my download speed had dropped back down to 180Mbps, at 9pm it recovered a quite a bit to 870Mbps and as i type this out it's 633Mbps, far removed from the normal 940'ish i've been seeing the past couple of nights and what i'm used to seeing.

[F4rthay]

@Doddie  Coincidentally My downloads have dropped to 40Mb this evening after 4 days without any issues. 

[LuckyLlama]

They are 100% capping the speeds during peak evening times. What other explanation fits? They claim they dont do "traffic shaping" in this regard but they clearly do. I am experiencing the same.

They have oversubscribed the areas in sales and to cope with the load on their server equipment they just slow down everyones connection and hope nobody notices. Unfortunately theres very little guile to it when your SLT of 1 GIG DL drops to 5 meg.

Atleast drop it down to something manageable where people will unlikely notice.

For context. Aberdeen FTTP City Fibre Vodafone.

[Jayach]

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@LuckyLlama wrote:

They are 100% capping the speeds during peak evening times. What other explanation fits?

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It's not capping/traffic shaping (which would be a deliberate act), it is simply likely that pats of their network can't take the load at peak times. which is why using a VPN can make such a difference.

Quite why @RebelRose and her dad, (in the other thread) get such different results despite being so close is perplexing, as presumably they will be using very much the same routing through Vodafone's network.

[LuckyLlama]

That's exactly what would be used to suggest its capping too. Because they cannot interpret exactly what type of traffic it is, they cannot traffic shape. Its often only people who are trying to game and download that end up noticing because streaming packets will be given enough priority to ensure that your average user doesn't pick up on it.

I've already escalated this problem 2 years ago quite high up with faults in the past and haven't experienced it again until now. Never received a proper explanation to the problem or how it was resolved. Just the "we totally don't traffic shape" rhetoric.

[Jayach]

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@LuckyLlama wrote:

That's exactly what would be used to suggest its capping too. Because they cannot interpret exactly what type of traffic it is, they cannot traffic shape.

---

I think we will have to agree to disagree.

I'd say it's because the traffic traverses the majority of the routing via the VPN's network, and just uses Vodafone for the local link.

However, the effect is the same for the users, and Vodafone should be resolving the problems quicker.

[Doddie]

@LuckyLlama 

It's been just over a week now since CityFibre carried out some repairs in my local area, Edinburgh (i have no idea what the issue was).
Apart from about a 4 hour period on the 5th when download speed dropped, at it's slowest to around 180Mbps down, it's been pretty stable with the slowest download speed seen on the 6th @ 816Mbps.
All speedtests i've carried out since have recorded download speeds of 900+Mbps.
-----------------------------------------
For example, tonight i recorded:
19:09 - DL 940Mbps  UL 845Mbps
19:44 - DL 940Mbps  UL 824Mbps
20:26 - DL 926Mbps  UL 744Mbps
22:39 - DL 940Mbps  UL 851Mbps

If it is traffic shaping/capping i'm certainly not seeing it in Edinburgh.
Whatever the issue is in and around Aberdeen, i too agree Vodafone should be doing more to resolve it.

[LuckyLlama]

I'm on 6.79 meg as of 7pm tonight on the same SLT as you of 1gig/1gig 

[RebelRose]

Did you just experience a brief outage, then suddenly get switched to a gateway in England? Now my IP is in London instead of Glasgow. Speed about 400Mbps. Seems to be these brief outages most nights that juggle you somewhere else. Wonder what that's about.

[LuckyLlama]

Never really notice any outages - just slow speeds like clockwork whenever ive had this issue. Its textbook peak time. 6pm to 12am. My ips are never in scotland, we get sent down to manchester pretty much most of the time.

Now im back to 

Contrast to 7pm

Guarantee ill get 900 come the morning