Spotify was rubbish - Update
Posted by: solwisesteve on 21 January 2015
I previously reported how Spotify through my streamer was crap.... Well now it's NOT (crap I mean) :-)
After getting the run around by my old ISP I threw the towel in and moved provider... Fixed :-)
Issue before was 5meg speed in the morning but 0.7meg in the evening. Old ISP said it was due to water in my junction box and they would have to send an engineer out! Coblers I said. I even proved them wrong by doing the test on the BT Wholesale web site (which said speed direct to BT is 5meg so if the ISP shows 0.7 meg then it's their fault). Moved to new ISP and, at 6pm, it's reporting over 5meg speed and spotify streaming perfectly.
A result :-)
Assuming this is ordinary broadband and not fibre, get yourself a broadband accelerator via the BT website. For only a few £s, you can speed your internet up quite a bit. We have only standard EE broadband, but can stream Netflix perfectly, which uses far more bandwidth than Spotify.
Until you can turn water into wine, and make Spotify Premium into lossless, I'll keep drinking the water.
So Solwisesteve, who is your new ISP? Always good to know who's out there providing a reasonable service.
Solewisesteve, worth while advising what 'speed' measures you were referring to. BT Openreach of course provide the copper infrastructure, that assuming your exchange has been Local Loop Unbundled, and most are, your ISP will provide the service on top of that and the 'speed' will be down to the ISP. All Openreach can do is give an approximation of the expected speed based on thier wiring (assuming the wiring is not faulty which if it was I would expect to give consistent poor performance if any). further this speed is the synchronisation speed or port speed.. That is the data rate between your router and the ISP's MSAN / DSLAM at the BT exchange, (or cabinet if superfast 'fibre') this doesn't correspond to the ISP throughput and speed back hauled through to the actual Internet..Here the ISP can get quite congested.. You tend to pay for what you get ..all ISPs are definitely not equal. Which is perhaps what you found out.
Simon
So Solwisesteve, who is your new ISP? Always good to know who's out there providing a reasonable service.
Plusnet.... as expected a couple of hiccups getting moved across but the end results were worth the effort.
Solewisesteve, worth while advising what 'speed' measures you were referring to. BT Openreach of course provide the copper infrastructure, that assuming your exchange has been Local Loop Unbundled, and most are, your ISP will provide the service on top of that and the 'speed' will be down to the ISP. All Openreach can do is give an approximation of the expected speed based on thier wiring (assuming the wiring is not faulty which if it was I would expect to give consistent poor performance if any). further this speed is the synchronisation speed or port speed.. That is the data rate between your router and the ISP's MSAN / DSLAM at the BT exchange, (or cabinet if superfast 'fibre') this doesn't correspond to the ISP throughput and speed back hauled through to the actual Internet..Here the ISP can get quite congested.. You tend to pay for what you get ..all ISPs are definitely not equal. Which is perhaps what you found out.
Simon
If you goto
http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/
Then there are three levels of testing.
Stage one is how well does your line and ISP perform.
So this is using your ISPs routing infrastructure.
In this case I was seeing 0.7meg!
Stage two is much the same but this tests what the line and your connection
(last mile) can do - mine said 4.9meg.
Stage three you change the username and password on your router. So this does a speedtest
bypassing your ISP and any issues they might have with congestion and poor contention ratio.
So no ISP involved.
In my case this said 5meg!!
So the fault was clearly with the ISP, as you say congestion and ratio, however they couldn't be convinced.
In the end I said sod it and moved.
Ironically Plusnet say VDSL (fibre to the cabinet) is due in my area in about 3 months time
in which case I can have 38meg for less (money) than the 5meg I'm currently getting!
Why's my post/reply all funny? I can't seem to make it line wrap :-(
Ironically Plusnet say VDSL (fibre to the cabinet) is due in my area in about 3 months time
in which case I can have 38meg for less (money) than the 5meg I'm currently getting!
Not aways possible that you will get 38meg, it all depends how far your house is from the fibre cabinet.
From the cabinet to your house will be copper wire and this degrades the signal.
I have infinity but only get 10meg........
My cabinet's about a 100 yards away so speed should be reasonable. tbh though I'd be happy with the current 5meg it's just that the vdsl is cheaper; by a lot!
My cabinet's about a 100 yards away so speed should be reasonable. tbh though I'd be happy with the current 5meg it's just that the vdsl is cheaper; by a lot!
Yep that sounds good,
Although I only get 10 meg, the quality of the signal is very good so have no problems at all.
BTW, did you know that Plusnet is a BT company...........
My cabinet's about a 100 yards away so speed should be reasonable. tbh though I'd be happy with the current 5meg it's just that the vdsl is cheaper; by a lot!
Yep that sounds good,
Although I only get 10 meg, the quality of the signal is very good so have no problems at all.
BTW, did you know that Plusnet is a BT company...........
Yes... in fact, when they were independent, we used to sell DSL routers to them!
Good for you, I have to wait another 2 to 3 years before we get Superfast in our village.. Using state funding and the new small capacity 96 line cabinets.. But should be a good speed once it comes.
Yes I think I am correct VDSL will not typically be offered if the resultant down sync speed is less than 10 mbps.
Simon
Glad you're now sorted...
Phil
btw using the beta spotify Windows desktop now to 'push' to the streamer... so much easier than with the app. A proper screen that my 50 something eyes can see and I can choose music whilst posting and checking emails... e.g. like right now! :-)
btw using the beta spotify Windows desktop now to 'push' to the streamer... so much easier than with the app. A proper screen that my 50 something eyes can see and I can choose music whilst posting and checking emails... e.g. like right now! :-)
That's good news! The "zoo" of Spotify apps and desktop programs and their different behaviours and inconsistent feature set are driving me crazy. It is a big mess. I have a three month trial, but I probably won't renew because of the that.