Has anyone noticed broadband speeds dropping in the evenings recently? Last night, for instance, it was incredibly slow just to load up web pages. I am with TalkTalk.
Martin
Previously when this problem has been raised before it was a matter of which service provider you used. Have other readers noticed any change in their broadband?
(Note. I am using AOL TalkTalk at present but receive a very variable download speed, it varies by a factor of 1,000, between aprox. 2 or 3am, when there is a good speed and 8 or 9pm when it is virtually unusable. I plan to change providers when I move. It does seem to have got worse recently. Peter T)
PARWICH.ORG 
Yes I have noticed that during the evening and weekends that the speeds are terrible. Part of the problem I believe is people leaving their computers logged on when they are not using them. Our exchange is very old and uses old technology and when a lot of people are logged on it takes up all the available band width, thus slowing everything to a virtual stand still
Some time during the next millennium open reach will get round to updating us to a fibre optic service.
Merry Christmas to all you frustrated surfers out thier
try living at Pikehall….Merry Christmas, and a happy 2015!
As a BT customer, I’ve literally never had this problem; even the streaming services on our TV, all of which use broadband, (e.g. iPlayer, Netflix, Lovefilm, BT Vision On Demand) work fine at evenings/weekends.
We’re with BT and although it’s ok most of the time, you can usually gauge when the bandwidths going to take a hammering. We tend to download rather than stream where we can with viewing but general computering – you just have to bear with
Been with AOL for many years, although the AOL service and prices deteriorated when taken over by TalkTalk. Evenings and weekends were terrible, with iPlayer unusable at these times. After having several engineers to check the inside equipment and outside line, they said there were 8MB coming into the house and quite often only speeds of 1/2MB download speed, which is about the old dial-up speed! Once recorded 41KB!! Changed to BT after much deliberation and now never drops below 5.5MB. What a difference! AOL/Talk Talk £25 pm, BT £16 pm. Web and iPlayer perfect.
A TalkTalk engineer, who would not want to be quoted, did say that there is little they can do to improve our speed at busy times, because BT and Sky have the exchange set up to give their customers priority over others. His advice in Parwich is to switch to Sky or BT or one of their subsidiaries.
That is interesting Peter. I have just checked comparative speeds with my neighbour, who uses BT, and BT is 5 times faster than TalkTalk using an online speed checker.
Has anyone done any comparisons with Sky?
Just checked mine at 9.48 this morning (Saturday) and it is 5MB. I am with Plusnet. Maybe a number of us with different providers should try a trial at a prearranged time and see who wins?
At. 10.20am with AOL TalkTalk I am only getting 0.25MB on wi-fi. The best I have ever recorded is 11MB in the early hours of the morning, but the worst I have recorded is 11KB.
Try W3Z from Ripley whose radio broadband is available in Parwich. You get 10mb uncontested download speed, plus a very good 24hr backup service.