How or what could have caused the speed and what are they doing on their end to fix it?
In: Technology
Lots of thing that could be happening here:
1. All the modems in your neighborhood use the same backhaul cabling but use different signal frequencies. If a signal is bad switching to a different frequency will fix the issue.
2. He rebooted the modem, if the modem had a fault rebooting could fix it. Rebooting also causes the modem to search for the best available frequency.
3. The modem’s speeds are restricted by a configuration file. Updating the config file from his end can change your maximum speed. You modem may have lost the file, or been using a temp one and rebooting pulled the new update.
It largely depends on the type of connection you have: cable, telephone (copper), or fiber. Each of these technologies has their own quirks and issues when it comes to speed. But there are a few things each of them has in common.
Firstly, they’re all managed by back-end software that optimizes your personal connection to their network. Small adjustments are being made all the time to ensure you get the best speed for the physical conditions leading up to your house.
For the most part, these connections transfer data by a method known as FDM, or Frequency Division Multiplexing. It isn’t a single channel coming in, it’s hundreds or thousands of them, each carrying a little bit of information on its own specific frequency.
Some of these frequencies (or ‘channels’ is they’re known) are more effective than others, and still other channels are being actively interfered with by EMI- ElectroMagnetic Interference. EMI is everywhere electricity is used. Power lines, microwaves, cellphones, flourecent lights, margarita blenders- all of these produce enough EMI to affect the data coming through to your modem and throw the very sensitive data channels off their game.
When this happens, the system- either your side, at the modem, or the ISP side at the back-end, notices that the channel is messed up, and drops it from active duty. Most of the larger EMI issues are always there, and so the weak channels are trimmed out in favour of the strong. This can affect speed, but it improves reliability. Besides, there are usually lots of extra channels that can be used as backups if a few of them aren’t working out.
Generally, these closed channels will come back up after a while, and be retested as they join back in. But sometimes theres a glitch, and they aren’t reopened- ever. They just stay closed, and when your neighbor fires up their Blendermax4000 at 3am, even good channels can struggle, adding them to the ‘closed’ list. Over time, *all* of the channels can become closed; reducing speed to the point where the connection is barely keeping itself alive, if at all, anymore.
When you reboot your modem (often combined mechanically with a router as a single unit) you are telling it to rebuild the active channel list from scratch. It reopens all of the channels, and waits for them to tap out from interference again. This is why rebooting a modem often works -at least temporarily- to restore dataflow, even if the connection itself is in rough shape.
This same process occurs on the back-end, and so when you call into your ISP, they can re-optimize your connection through the same process, and ensure that your account actually has the system permissions it needs to get you your proper speeds. Most accounts are throttled in some way (for reliability, and to make sure there an incentive to upgrade) and the ISP checks to make sure you haven’t been over throttled by accident (i.e. wrong account type on the back end) or intention (i.e you didn’t pay your bill and got throttled to almost nothing so that you would call in).
If it happens a lot, and you notice the issue clears for a bit before getting bad again, it means that your physical connection- the wires and such used for your internet- are in poor shape and need maintenance. If it happens sporadically (every few months or so and then clears after reboot) it’s likely a software issue in the modem itself, or in the ISP backend. Firmware updates are the goto in solving these kinds of software issues.
All in all, it’s probably nothing anyone is doing specifically, and is likely just a natural quirk of the technology. Most ISP’s are trying to address these issues all the time- reliability is a huge driver. If it happens a lot, it could be something physical, which requires a tech to fix. Otherwise, keep on keeping on.
There are a whole range of things they might have done.
– They might have just rebooted your router. Sometimes a simple reboot fixes things.
– They might have assigned you to a different IP segment. Maybe the router you were going through is having issues or is overloaded.
– Maybe they discovered that your router’s config was wrong, and you weren’t getting the speed you were suppose to be, so they re-sent down the router config and that made the speed faster.
There are probably a few other things that they could have done, but those are probably the most likely.
So, I’ve got a 100mbs fibre line with virgin media and I only get a maximum of 14mbs download on any device, PS4, pc, laptop, all connected via Ethernet cable. How do I increase this or am I missing something?
Can you edit the question to tell us what type of internet connection you have? Fiber? Cable? I guess it’s Fiber if you’re getting 500Mbps now but Cable can get to that speed too in some circumstances.
As per the other posters it’s most likely either that they had you on the wrong “tier” of service and they were accidentally rate limiting you to 5Mbps, or they found a signalling problem on your line (bad connection / faulty cabling) that they fixed. If the signal between you and the service provider is susceptible to interference/noise then it will run much more slowly due to all the errors that the noise causes on the line.
Worked as a Comcast tech support close to 15 years ago so what I say might not even be how it works anymore.
Your modem could’ve had a config file tied to slower tiers of service. Tech sees you’re suppose to be on a faster tier. Updates account. Modem needs a reset to download correct config files and off you go or your modem was just being slow and needed a reset.
I can’t say for other companies but for mine, the modem is provisioned for let’s say 100, but if your plan is supposed to be 200, the way I get it to actually be provisioned to be 200 is to give it brand new instructions, and doing that will reset the modem
Often times ISPs will temporarily boost your speed if you complain about slow internet. The signal literally instructed a network device to just remove an arbitrary and software-related speed cap. They have the ability to give you good internet but most ISP companies are corrupt and try to save money by giving substandard internet service
A friend who worked at a internet provider said they can change how muvh is going to a area maybe they changed that
They will often change it back later tho
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