all of a sudden nothing downloads

[kaotik]

i got home from work today and started downloading, everything was fine getting my usual 1mb/s, after about 2hrs it dropped to less than 20kb/s. i havent changed any settings and this is the first time ive had slow speeds, my isp is aol so not sure if they limit my band width, thanks for any help in advance.

[techfuzz]

I can't locate their AUP or FUP anywhere on their site. Usually these documents can give you a good idea whether they are actively limiting bandwidth of their users. Unfortunately, I cannot locate them to examine them for the necessary language.

You could call AOL tech support and inquire, but you're not likely to get in touch with anyone who knows if they're using network traffic shaping or quality of service devices on their network. AOL tech support is typically a bunch of idiots who know next to nothing about networking and only a little about the AOL software itself.

Try changing the port # which you connect to your news server to something else. Many news providers also support connections on ports 80, 21, and 23 in addition to the usual port 119.

techfuzz
_________________
"The greatest risk in life is not taking one."

www.techfuzz.com

[Red Dwarf]

If the FUP of AOL UK is similar to the one in the US, this is what it says:

A fair use policy means that we may introduce some form of network management against specific individuals, if we feel that they are abusing their broadband usage beyond a level that would be considered reasonable.

For example, using AOL Broadband 24 hours a day, every day, to continuously download large files is not a reasonable use for a residential service.

As another example, we might also manage the AOL Broadband service at peak times (which vary but are currently every evening except Fridays and Saturdays) to ensure everyone is getting a stable, reliable connection across the whole network.
_________________
Grtz RD

If I had a really good tagline, I would put it here.

[steptoe]

Yes, AOL DO have 'traffic shaping', but getting them to admit it is far from easy, if you can get them to admit it. Which they won't


I have a friend still on AOL and eventually somebody changed something at AOL after proving his case on forums and also getting evidence via screenshoits and data capture and complaining on various tech forums and his speeds went up between the times he was having serious slowdown, but still not as fast as it was a few months ago

Complaining to AOL customer service will do nothing, you need to sign up to tech forums that AOL check (unofficially) and start the ball rolling like he did and eventually they will contact you, which they did with him when they realised he wasn't going to go away and wasn't just Joe Bloggs who accepted their feeble excuses that there wasn't any problems and it was him imagining things


Numerous calls to AOL had all sorts of stupid reasons why his speeds dropped between set times, he had answers that it was his Sky interferring with the phone line (errrr, how ??) (he's on ADSL via BT), his phone line was interferring with his internet so should unplug it (well then how does the 'net work) , there was a problem with his phone line (err, no)

Loads of rubbish answers, but nobody would freely admit that between certain times they were throttling his bandwidth as they would then have to admit to capping which AOL claim they don't

He wasn't the only one, in their latest terms and conditions they DO state that to allow others to have their fair share of bandwidth they WILL reduce the speeds of heavy users to allow bandwidth to be shared. Its called fair useage

The fact that he is on their top pacakge doesn't make the slighest difference. His argument being if he pays a premium for the package then he should be given a priority compared to others on the lowest packages

Nope, comes under fair useage. They can and WILL reduce your speed as and when they feel like if they consider you are using too much. But that was why he pays a premium to get that deal