PrePaidGSM.net Forum (Archived) - View Single Post - Tchibo/O2 selectively throttling download speeds?

RobF · 31-05-2012, 15:15

Thanks for your attempts to help me.

@dg7feq

I don't really want to put out the money for a different USB modem and/or a different SIM card just to troubleshoot the present nuisance. Once I know more clearly what's going on I will be bothering Tchibo and/or O2. They are not coming up to their contractual obligations.

@inquisitor

Signal strength hasn't changed; it's been 40-60% for ages (as indicated by Linux NetworkManager, whatever that means).

This poor DL performance started abruptly from one day to the next and has been unremittingly in place for a week, without a break, 24 hrs. a day, even at 4 a.m. It's bizarre that UL speed hasn't been affected and DL speed can at times be tolerable for plain Internet browsing, i.e. webpage loading, but is intolerable for file downloads where it often drops into the ISDN range of 64 kBit/s max., to which DL should be throttled only after the 5 GB allowance for UMTS has been used up.

Re LIDL: I may be interested in using their 5 GB plan for €15/mo in the long term. Thanks for pointing out their 500 MB/day fast access limitation; I probably could live with that. For my present problem with Tchibo/O2, a LIDL SIM is not likely to be a solution, as they use the same network, O2, and the poor DL performance probably originates with the latter.

Or could Tchibo themselves be responsible? Tchibo Mobil completely revamped their customer web interface about 2 weeks ago, and it is still incredibly buggy. Could they also have monkeyed around with broadcasting settings, or told O2 to do so?

Added twist: Tried some file downloads using network protocols other than http. In a file DL via bittorrent got a rate of 2 Mbit/s, in two different ftp DL's got 400 kbit/s (Knoppix distro DL) and 150 kbit/s (Index of /), resp. The very same files DL with two different web browsers (Firefox and Chrome, i.e. using http) were again crawling in at a mere 60 kbit/s. So it looks as though a continuous http DL is affected the most in this performance degradation.

BTW, can I identify the location of the broadcast tower(s) that serve my cell and get their usage statistics?

	(#4)
RobF (Offline) Junior Member Amateur Member Posts: 16 Join Date: 20 Oct 2011 Country:	31-05-2012, 15:15 Thanks for your attempts to help me. @dg7feq I don't really want to put out the money for a different USB modem and/or a different SIM card just to troubleshoot the present nuisance. Once I know more clearly what's going on I will be bothering Tchibo and/or O2. They are not coming up to their contractual obligations. @inquisitor Signal strength hasn't changed; it's been 40-60% for ages (as indicated by Linux NetworkManager, whatever that means). This poor DL performance started abruptly from one day to the next and has been unremittingly in place for a week, without a break, 24 hrs. a day, even at 4 a.m. It's bizarre that UL speed hasn't been affected and DL speed can at times be tolerable for plain Internet browsing, i.e. webpage loading, but is intolerable for file downloads where it often drops into the ISDN range of 64 kBit/s max., to which DL should be throttled only after the 5 GB allowance for UMTS has been used up. Re LIDL: I may be interested in using their 5 GB plan for €15/mo in the long term. Thanks for pointing out their 500 MB/day fast access limitation; I probably could live with that. For my present problem with Tchibo/O2, a LIDL SIM is not likely to be a solution, as they use the same network, O2, and the poor DL performance probably originates with the latter. Or could Tchibo themselves be responsible? Tchibo Mobil completely revamped their customer web interface about 2 weeks ago, and it is still incredibly buggy. Could they also have monkeyed around with broadcasting settings, or told O2 to do so? Added twist: Tried some file downloads using network protocols other than http. In a file DL via bittorrent got a rate of 2 Mbit/s, in two different ftp DL's got 400 kbit/s (Knoppix distro DL) and 150 kbit/s (Index of /), resp. The very same files DL with two different web browsers (Firefox and Chrome, i.e. using http) were again crawling in at a mere 60 kbit/s. So it looks as though a continuous http DL is affected the most in this performance degradation. BTW, can I identify the location of the broadcast tower(s) that serve my cell and get their usage statistics?