Can someone explain to me how cable internet companies work and relate this to my situation?

[omonoiatis9]

First relevant piece of information: I live in a block of flats.
2nd: My ISP provides internet to the entire building (only subscribers of course however) through cable.
3rd: I'm using a wired connection. Not wifi.

DISCLAIMER: As you're reading this you might think "This sounds like issues with your ISP. Why do you just not call them instead". Because I know if I just call they'll lead me around instead of address the issue and give me the typical "restart your router" type of stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem. So first I want to get a bit educated on the subject so the tech support knows they can't mislead me.

Now I never usually have problems with the internet (been a subscriber to this ISP for at least 5 years), but lately (by lately i mean the last couple of days) I get decreased service during NON-PEAK hours, at random times for random durations, ping jumps up by 250ms from the usual value, my download speed from speedtest peaks at 13mbits instead of 50, upload at 3 instead of 5, etc. In other words, the symptoms are exactly the same as when my brother is downloading a torrent on his computer that eats up all the bandwith, except noone in our home is using the internet and the router wifi is secure (we changed passwords). Which means some new tenants in the building who recently got a connection with the same ISP download torrents and stream netflix all day and the network operator who is supposed to be monitoring this didn't scale the network appropriately yet.

So my question is (without an understanding of how internet distribution from ISPs work), is it safe to assume that new tenants have moved into the building that are more internet-active than the current subscribers who live here, and the line that goes to the building can no longer handle the e.g. 20 50Mbit connections?

Assuming that is the case (which I'm pretty sure it is), shouldn't the ISP be taking care of that to accommodate all the tenants in the building/neighborhood/area by scaling the network? We're not even talking about peak hours here. I understand that during peak hours things might sometimes get a bit shaky. This is just their line to our building not being able to handle the few connections that it has. I am paying for 50mbit and I should not be getting 13 and 300 ping during NON-PEAK hours.

So, can someone explain to me if I have the right idea, or how internet providers work, so I can call them up and tell them how to do their job (because I know if I just call they'll mislead me instead of address the issue and give me the typical "restart your router" type of stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem)

Thanks a lot in advance.

Mod Edit for Language

 

[getochkn]

First, are your speeds over WIFI? If it's WIFI, it's all moot as anything can cause that. Maybe during the non-peak hours, someone is using their cheap-overseas unregulated electronic muscle stimulator machine and it creates interference, so before going any further, you can't judge any speed issues or ISP issues or anything over WIFI. Too many factors to create interference that can't be calculated for.

 

[omonoiatis9]

First, are your speeds over WIFI? If it's WIFI, it's all moot as anything can cause that. Maybe during the non-peak hours, someone is using their cheap-overseas unregulated electronic muscle stimulator machine and it creates interference, so before going any further, you can't judge any speed issues or ISP issues or anything over WIFI. Too many factors to create interference that can't be calculated for.

Thanks for the quick reply, and no, this has nothing to do with wifi. I've never in my life used wifi for serious operations because I'm very well aware anything happens with wifi. It's all cables. Forgot to add that in the original post because I thought it's implied. I added it now

 

[bill001g]

You will have to get very well versed at ping and tracert commands so you can convince the ISP it really is their issue.

Pretty much you run tracert to some common location like 8.8.8.8. Then run constant ping to each hop in the trace. You are looking for the hop in the trace where the ping increases to this very high amount. Still it tends to be tricky since intermediate hops can have poor performance but latter ones are good so you have to learn which to ignore and which represent real issues.

If you are very lucky it will be in hop 2 or hop 3. If it is between ISP then you have almost no chance to get it fixed...its not like you can call up some unknown ISP and they will even talk to you.

 

[omonoiatis9]

You will have to get very well versed at ping and tracert commands so you can convince the ISP it really is their issue.

Pretty much you run tracert to some common location like 8.8.8.8. Then run constant ping to each hop in the trace. You are looking for the hop in the trace where the ping increases to this very high amount. Still it tends to be tricky since intermediate hops can have poor performance but latter ones are good so you have to learn which to ignore and which represent real issues.

If you are very lucky it will be in hop 2 or hop 3. If it is between ISP then you have almost no chance to get it fixed...its not like you can call up some unknown ISP and they will even talk to you.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the issue I described. Tenants in the building using their maximum internet capacity at the same time causes MY connection to throttle. The service is otherwise fine. ISPs that do their jobs properly monitor how many subscribers and what internet plans they have at each area, including usage patterns and then scale the network appropriately, to ensure that customers receive adequate service even during peak-usage times. What is most likely happening here is the network operator is slacking off and didn't notice that the last "5 new 50mbit connections in this building" for example are active users that constantly use bandwith and the network needs to be scaled upwards because the last configuration is no longer appropriate.

The question is how do i tell tech support to tell the network operator to do their job.

 

[bill001g]

I am so glad you already know what the problem is then why bother posting.

In most cases its not like the ISP can just magically increase the bandwidth. They only have so much connectivity to a location and its not like you are paying them enough to dig up the streets to run more.

Now I suspect if you offer them a lot more money per month they will limit all your neighbors to less so you can have more.

 

[omonoiatis9]

I am so glad you already know what the problem is then why bother posting.

If you bothered reading any of my posts (or the very title of the thread itself), you'd know the reason I'm posting. If you have nothing better to do than act like a sarcastic twat and attempt to answer questions I didn't ask to problems I don't have, don't bother commenting.

 

[bill001g]

I did read you post. You are complaining that all your neighbors are using too much and you feel that is not fair. Read you contract. It says nothing about minimum guaranteed bandwidth.

Just because you discovered this scam that ISP over sell does not mean it is a new problem. You want better service pay more money it is that simple.

 

[jsmithepa]

We've told with cable connections, the more user, the more adverse impact, but if the ISP sold you a "product" what they deliver should be pretty close to what they describe. Your next move should be getting together with all the other tenants and find out whether they have the same problem as you do and go from there.

The ISP, knowing there are so many flats in your building, should build a backbone thick enough to handle all connections simultaneously. I said "should," businesses are always cutting corners.

I don't have a technical reply, never worked for an ISP. Sounds like you are in the U.K,. they have very strict consumer law?

 

[omonoiatis9]

Just because you discovered this scam that ISP over sell does not mean it is a new problem. You want better service pay more money it is that simple.

What a bright person you are aren't you mate. It's cause of sheep like you that certain scummy ISPs continue to scam people. "You aren't giving me the 50 that i paid for? No worries, let me pay you some more so you give me the 50 that i already paid for!"

 

[omonoiatis9]

We've told with cable connections, the more user, the more adverse impact, but if the ISP sold you a "product" what they deliver should be pretty close to what they describe. Your next move should be getting together with all the other tenants and find out whether they have the same problem as you do and go from there.

The ISP, knowing there are so many flats in your building, should build a backbone thick enough to handle all connections simultaneously. I said "should," businesses are always cutting corners.

I don't have a technical reply, never worked for an ISP. Sounds like you are in the U.K,. they have very strict consumer law?

I'm not actually from or in the UK but you do have a point. Thanks for the input

 

[little_me]

The big thing with cable is that while top speed is high, the total bandwidth is shared between everyone.
This can easily lead to situations where, if most use half of their bandwidth, rest get nothing. Since cable companies assume no one will stream/p2p 24/7 so everyone in theory uses short bursts of high speed and thus total bandwidth is less than sum of subscribers.

This same issue hounds LTE, and 4G and phone networks too, first to come gets as much as their agreement max speed is for as long as they are using it, rest? tough luck.

Solution for it, if above problem is the actual problem. Convince your cable company to get faster connection to your apartment or.. switch providers or go dsl (yes, expensive and slower but you get the agreed on speed 24/7) Or fibre (ethernet traffic uses better load balancing so no one gets 100% of bandwidth but it slowly equals to everyone gets their share in cases of bandwith being overshot)
or.. as Bill001g said, slap ISP with fat wads of cash and see if they are more willing to sort it out. Besides paying more for better service, you are most likely out of luck since it is quite likely some small print in the terms that says that this can happen.
It is after all one of the features of cable, they'd be stupid to not write something about it in the terms.

 

[Pooneil]

Tenants in the building using their maximum internet capacity at the same time causes MY connection to throttle.

You have simply asserted this based on an assumption. You don't know this and there are many other potential causes that can produce the symptoms you have. For instance your brothers torrenting can cause the problem even if he is not in the apartment and actively torrenting. The ISP could also be deliberately throttling the connection because of the torrenting. Real investigations consider the myriad of possibilities so don't assume blame can be readily placed on one cause or actor.

This is what the people responding to you request for help are trying to get you to consider.

And the first place I'd look to is gaining a complete understanding the torrenting activity occurring in your home.

 

[omonoiatis9]

Tenants in the building using their maximum internet capacity at the same time causes MY connection to throttle.

You have simply asserted this based on an assumption. You don't know this and there are many other potential causes that can produce the symptoms you have. For instance your brothers torrenting can cause the problem even if he is not in the apartment and actively torrenting. The ISP could also be deliberately throttling the connection because of the torrenting. Real investigations consider the myriad of possibilities so don't assume blame can be readily placed on one cause or actor.

This is what the people responding to you request for help are trying to get you to consider.

And the first place I'd look to is gaining a complete understanding the torrenting activity occurring in your home.

There is absolutely 0 torrenting activity in my home. Bandwidth isn't consumed by black holes. If there's no torrent programs open, nothing being seeded/uploaded, nothing being downloaded, and the network monitoring programs we have installed on each computer show no download or upload being consumed, there's no bandwidth being consumed.

I don't understand where you get the idea that I don't know how torrents or bandwidth usage works. When in my original post I clearly mention there is no internet activity in our house when these problems occur, it is kind of either ignorant or condescending to insist implying the contrary.

 

[COLGeek]

Since this thread has become a list of insults, I am closing it. The answers to the issue have been provided.