SatSig topic:

Tooway Speed issues (page 1 of 3)

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Jun 23^rd, 2013 at 1:00pm

Im still a new customer to Satellite so am not fully educated on what to expect.

I've got a speed issue though that I would like some opinions on.

I've got the 20mb down / 6mb up service. These speeds seem readily available but all of a sudden they drop to around 2mb. I've seen this behaviour a few times now and the only way to get them back up to 20mb is to reboot the modem. Is this expected behaviour?

Jun 25^th, 2013 at 10:49pm

no my friend. Is not expected. Maybe your antenna has been moved or bad luck.

Jun 26^th, 2013 at 12:28pm

I've arranged with my provider for them to reinstall the system. Something isnt right because my modem is rebooting on its own occasionally and the speed is fluctuating.

My rx SNR is around 12db.

Jun 27^th, 2013 at 7:18am

Ummmm ok. If not working ask for a modem change. How is working now?

Jun 28^th, 2013 at 3:57pm

An engineer is visiting my site tomorrow to go through the dish installation and swap out the modem. Hopefully that will resolve my disconnection and speed issues.

Jun 29^th, 2013 at 2:19pm

Engineer has been and gone. Dish has been removed from the wall and reinstalled level this time. Much neater job...

A replacement modem has been couriered over from Avonline and speed is consistent now. Looking good so far...

It'll be slower tonight once everyone is back home and surfing for the evening so I will perform another speed check then to see if all is good.

Fingers crossed...

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 7:18am

My speed issues are still a problem.

Last night my internet connection was terrible. I also noted that my modem went out of sync once in the evening as well.

I believe there is contention issues with the service because the speed issues seem to mainly be a problem in the evenings when everyone is using the service.

Anyone have any tips on what I can do?

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 11:01am

I have a very good signal, from 11 to 12.2 db...Is a good signal but sometimes, every two days aprox, the modem loose the sync and reconnect automatically, only one tome the modem never sync again and I turned off and on.... I it was fixed. I am learning about this modem and understanding it, but maybe is a "normal" function.

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 2:31pm

Spoke to my provider over lunch today. It turns out that Tooway were performing maintenance on the spots in my area last night hency my terrible service...

It would have been good to know about this maintenance up front.

Ive been told things should be fine tonight... We will see.

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 8:48pm

Unfortunately things are no better... My evenings speed test showed 1.65mb down and .3 up!!! Terrible.

This website for instance which is almost completely text loaded very slowly.

Something bad is up with the Tooway system at the moment.

Jul 2^nd, 2013 at 11:10pm

Some time ago I made a speed test download page:
https://www.satsig.net/speed-test/speed-tester.htm
You are welcome to try it. If the results speed up significantly after the first attempt to download the page, then there may be a caching or acceleration feature in the Tooway link.

I updated this satsig forum software (from YaBB 1.3.1 to YaBB 2.5.2) on 5th June 2013 hoping it would improve the speed of page downloads in the forum. Some features, such as "5 recent messages", work very much faster ( 1 second compared with 90 seconds ).

This satsig.net web site is on a cheap shared cloud server system where simple static pages take about 0.22 Seconds to download. (min 0.046 Seconds , max 7.2 Seconds, in last 24 hours, European test sites, using pingdom and page https://www.satsig.net/axiflat.htm ). I'm not sure if this is good, average or bad.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 3^rd, 2013 at 2:20pm

Spoken to Avonline Broadband again and they said that they have been made aware of a number of Tooway users downloading over a terrabyte of data every month. they also said that Tooway were not controlling this via a FAP

Tooway are meant to be putting these users on a separate switch and rate limiting them.

With this in mind, it would seem that a number of Tooway users should be seeing this low speed problem that I am seeing every evening at the moment... Its meant to have been going on for two weeks!

Jul 3^rd, 2013 at 4:39pm

A downlink Tooway carrier is maybe 68 Mbit/s in clear sky conditions and this capacity is shared by many customers. If you download just one 1500 byte packet, sent via the satellite as one contiguous block, you may well get the full 68 Mbit/s for a moment. The problem is that during a longer period like a whole second, packets need to be send to the many active sites that may all have just clicked to download a web page, youtube video or whatever.

Tooway should manage this capacity and limit traffic bit rates according to tariff paid and rearrange customers to different carriers so that only a limited number of high useage (and high tariff) business customers are assigned to each carrier. Tariffs for shared useage vary from 24.50 for 10 GB per month to 564.50 for 175 GB per month, all "up to" 6/20 Mbit/s up/down. Tariffs are also available for dedicated capacity, both short and long term, such as for TV broadcast feeder links, where slow downs due to congestion must be avoided.

For shared service, it is all well and good selling "up to 20 Mbit/s down" and "up to 6 Mbit/s up", but they should make it clear what average bit rate is likely to be achieved, and what you might be limited to, over periods of time, like 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, 1 week, 1 month.
Simply expressing the tariff GBytes per month as an overall average kbit/s rate per month would help a lot psychologically.

In the early days of Tooway, there was endless discussion of fair access policies ( FAP ) and the merits of multiple sliding windows of various lengths, multiple traffic amount limits and slow down speeds. All that for each and every tariff. Clever stuff but hard to explain to anyone.

Best regards, Eric

Jul 3^rd, 2013 at 8:45pm

Ran your speed test Eric...

Results below along with some updated speed results from Tooway.

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 10:12am

I am having the same problem, unusable connection in the evening but it's better through the day.

I have logged a fault and awaiting a response.

Chris

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 12:55pm

Keep us posted chris. You are experiencing the same issues as myself and others on this forum but do keep us posted on what is said to you.

Paul.

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 2:32pm

So far I have been asked to connect my laptop directly to the modem and run three speed tests. I completed that last night and was getting consistent 3mb down and 0.21 up. Most webpages wouldn't load and trying to install a 16MB downloaded app on my iPhone took 45 minutes. I pay for 18 and 5.

I am waiting for a response to my support ticket and will let you know. Up until this point, Tooway has been awesome and very robust.

Chris

Jul 4^th, 2013 at 6:50pm

Its standard stuff being asked to bypass your router. Being a techy I personally would never do that because for that short moment your laptop is totally unprotected.

The reason for this test is to see if the router is faulty as can sometimes happen it could cause a slow connection.

Realistically though in this case i'd say they were probably stalling. They know there is an issue and thats that...

Spoke to Adam today and there are still no firm dates on "the fix" being applied.

Tonights speed is typically slow.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:15pm

I have been experiencing the slowdown issues now for over 2 weeks, we are not over using the service but degradation between 4-12pm usually results in the system returning download speeds of 200-400kbps which is ridiculous and unusable.

So far I have been told that a 'fix' is being worked on but nothing has improved, £65 a month for an unlimited service that can't be used in the evenings is a joke.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:19pm

Welcome to the club. Spoken to Avonline a while ago. The are contacting Tooway at the moment for an update and will be coming back to me shortly. I'll update this thread with the results.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:52pm

I have received a response from Bentley Walker and it is far from satisfactory.

"We have checked the site and bandwidth is correctly assigned, but as with all networks, the customer could experience peak speed reduction, above all during peak hours."

"They have pushed down the latest revision of firmware down to your modem however, and would like you to try again. Looking at your tests yesterday it would appear as though the speeds had picked up."

It seemed ok last night after 6pm and was ok this morning when I left.

Mu next door neighbours is still 3 meg down and Bentley Walker has told him that 3 MB is acceptable in peak times. It is in the contract apparently.

Chris

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 1:55pm

Interesting... Can you confirm the revisions of the firmware that has been pushed down please? I will bring this up with my provider.

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 5:35pm

Here is the info, it's working better tonight but still maxing out at 10mb down

Software version UT.1.5.1.0.13

Jul 5^th, 2013 at 6:30pm

Avonline called me this afternoon. Basically there is no real news except that they have been on conference calls with Tooway. Tooway know this issue is affecting many users and are still working on a fix.

I attempted to contact Tooway directly today to ml have a moan but it got me nowhere.

I guess I have a weekend of poor internet access ahead of me.

Jul 6^th, 2013 at 9:22am

I'm in shock! I appear to have good working internet access this morning

Jul 6^th, 2013 at 9:44pm

Service has been up and down today. On the whole its a huge improvement.

This evening I have been seeing reasonable transfer rates which means web pages are loading OK. Not as good as mid day for example but atleast I am seeing data transfer this evening.

Dont think we have seen the end of the troubles yet though

Jul 8^th, 2013 at 12:51pm

Ive had confirmation from my provider that modem software version UT.1.5.1.0.13 is not specifically related to the congestion issues we have all been experiencing. Its actually related to a web browser issue where a given web page attempts multiple IP connections at the same time.

MY provider has agreed to apply it to my modem for test purposes so we will see.

Performance as of now is still up and down depending on time so the congestion issues are still outstanding. Skylogic have received my email complaint and have been in contact with Avonline over the weekend to discuss. At this time there is still no news on a fix though.

Jul 8^th, 2013 at 3:58pm

Modem firmware upgraded to UT_1.5.2.2.3

Will see how that goes...

Jul 9^th, 2013 at 9:33pm

The service is unusable tonight.

Tooway are not reacting quick enough to this ongoing issue.

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 5:48pm

I called Avonline today. Spoke to Adam, was told they would 'have it in writing' in 48 hours what 'the satellite operators' propose to do.

This is not £65 per month service obviously. It certainly looks like an ongoing problem, that will be ongoing for ??.

I am reluctant to give up a good 20mb service but right now quite happy to swap an intermittent 20mb / 0.5mb service for a consistent 3mb service from say BT.

Any cancellation in service would be for the whole installation cost say a proportion of the monthly speed - which at the times i wanted it has been dismal so most of that £65.

Why would anyone put up with this without a change?

One proposal is to take bt broadband at night when service is c**p and avonline at a reduced cost per month for days.

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 5:51pm

Latest speed test

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 7:40pm

I too am suffering over past few days. I have checked and realigned the dish but its made no difference. Tonights test enclosed.

I am on the 20/6/unlimited package but tonight I can't even stream from spotify whilst browsing this forum without it breaking up.

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 7:50pm

Its really bad tonight. I cant even get to the website with the speed probe on it...

Tooway. Anyone listening? Anyone reading this forum? You have a number of unhappy customers!

Jul 10^th, 2013 at 9:33pm

Finally got a speed probe to work. The results aren't good.

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 10:59am

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 1:37pm

Quote:

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Maybe we can help you, Hylas a bit more expensive but ...... 100% working without any problem, guaranteed ! Not a single issue over the last 2 years !

The problem there is that a number of us, me included are only 1 month in to a 24 month contract. I also could not see any pricing on your website. Can you point me at a URL detailing this please?

Thanks

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 3:29pm

Quote:

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Maybe we can help you, Hylas a bit more expensive but ...... 100% working without any problem, guaranteed ! Not a single issue over the last 2 years !

Thankfully I am out of my 2 year contract so please tell me more (or message me with a number to call you).

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 3:33pm

Quote:

Raised a call with Bentley Walker last night; their reply today;

"Thank you for the update. We are working with the NOC and once we get a reply from them regarding this, I will let you know.
I understand it may be disappointing to hear, but we are expecting the update later this week, or possibly the start of next week now."

Am going to talk to other ISPs about alternative solutions such as leased lines or multiple bonded ADSL lines (even they would be faster than the current situation).

Maybe we can help you, Hylas a bit more expensive but ...... 100% working without any problem, guaranteed ! Not a single issue over the last 2 years !

The problem there is that a number of us, me included are only 1 month in to a 24 month contract. I also could not see any pricing on your website. Can you point me at a URL detailing this please?

Thanks

Remember the sale of goods act - if things are not satisfactory you have the right to reject it. I nearly had to do that in the early days of Tooway when SSL/HTTPS didn't work but thankfully the hardware manufacturers fixed it just in time.

Tooway has worked very well and I have seen speeds of 16Mbps+ all the time, but not in the last 3-4 months alas.

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 4:02pm

Ive had some news from Avonline Broadband.

The issue is with the top 10% of users downloading over 2TB of data per month using peer 2 peer services. Tooway are about to block peer 2 peer traffic that will then resolve the issues we are currently seeing. This is unofficial news at this time so could A.be wrong and B. changed if they find another solution.

In the mean time I am looking in to running an Avanti Hylas installation along side my Tooway service until the issue is resolved.

Jul 11^th, 2013 at 4:11pm

Quote:

Ive had some news from Avonline Broadband.

The issue is with the top 10% of users downloading over 2TB of data per month using peer 2 peer services. Tooway are about to block peer 2 peer traffic that will then resolve the issues we are currently seeing. This is unofficial news at this time so could A.be wrong and B. changed if they find another solution.

In the mean time I am looking in to running an Avanti Hylas installation along side my Tooway service until the issue is resolved.

I've forwarded this to Bentley Walker to see if it agrees with what they hear....

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 8:33am

Either the fix is in place or everyone else was asleep this morning:

Test Date: Jul 12, 2013 7:03:37 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20510 kbps
Upload: 6075 kbps
Ping: 818 ms

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 6:51pm

and tonight its back to 0.5 down and 0.3 up.

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 7:51pm

same for me too

ive arranged to have the Avanti Hylas system installed on Tuesday. its technically a lower speed system but will be a good comparrison next to Tooway.

fingers crossed its more stable.

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 8:22pm

It seems that the moderator Europe-Satellite is deleting their own posts so the text below is now irrelevant because it was in response to a their post that no longer exists...

The same moderator europe-satellite also had a question directed at them yesterday regarding pricing and they have not responded to that post yet they can post adverts....?

Original post text:-
Can you tell me anything about the service they offer. Speed. Package and so on? I understand the speed figures are technically a lot less than the Too way offering. In your experience how much slower is it?

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 9:19pm

I too tried to contact them for some prices etc but all I can get is emailed datasheets which don't really explain it very well. I was also told Hylas was a 'bit more expensive; but it seems it is considerably more expensive...

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 9:24pm

Ive managed to get some prices out of a few UK web sites WITHOUT giving out any personal info and from what I can see it is a very expensive option in comparison to Tooway. I guess that why everyone goes for Tooway.

It'll be an interesting experience playing with both on Tuesday evening. I will have two wifi routers so I can switch between them both and see whats what...

If I do ditch Tooway it will be a shame really because the 20mb speed is excellent when it works...

Jul 12^th, 2013 at 11:43pm

Either look at the Q Sat website or phone them,by the way what spot beam are you on as I have had no issues like this with Tooway on beam 1

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 11:29am

Latest from Bentley Walker, just received:-

"Bentley Walker have been alerted to behaviour affecting some Tooway customers accessing the service on Beams 23 and 34, where users are experiencing lower than expected performance.

As a reseller of the service Bentley Walker does not control manage or operate the network providing the Tooway service, however we have escalated this issue with Tooway network operators Skylogic-Eutelsat. We are informed that traffic calming measures are in place preventing heavy users from demanding a disproportionate amount of network resources and that works are on-going to address the matter. We are expecting an official communication from Tooway shortly, which will provide further insight and path to resolution.

Bentley Walker continues to monitor and progress the situation with Skylogic-Eutelsat and once updates are available customers will be provided with a further notice via email."

Chris

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 11:46am

im in beam 34 so the information provided appears to be accurate.

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 11:55am

34 for me too.

Jul 15^th, 2013 at 1:56pm

34 - Leicestershire/Derbyshire for me too

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 9:30am

Mornin all, just joined the forum after searching for answers as to why my broadband has been slower than BT ADSL for the past couple of weeks. I have just spoken to Avonline, who are not easy to get hold of when there are problems, they tell me Tooway have initiated measures to fix the problem and we should all see improvements in the 'not too distant future'. The guy would elaborate on what that means but said ring back in a week if nothing has improved. Not impressed with that for customer service. This morning my download speed was a measly 1.6Mb/sec. I can pay a fraction of the price and get that from BT !! will monitor with interest.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:01am

Morning RogerB. Welcome to the club.

Basically, you probably know the score. Tooway have contention issues at the moment with a couple of their spot beams. This is not affecting all Tooway customers, only those inside these two beams.

Tooway are in the process of cutting down on Peer 2 Peer usage that has been the root cause of the problems. There are currently no actual dates on a fix BUT they are working on it right now.

Re Avonline Support... Ive had no issues what so ever when ive been calling them. 0800 1303131 option 2 will get you through to Stuart, Adam or Justin. All of these chaps know whats going on and whilst they will not be able to fix you up right now, they will keep you posted on whats happening.

Keep an eye on this forum thread...

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:08am

RogerB, depending on your location in sussex you may be able to see if Avonline will move you to spot beam 22. This beam is not affected.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:49am

Thanks for the info, I am reasonably close to the beam 22 coverage I think, not far from Chichester. If the problem goes on for long I will try asking. I think my issue with Avonline has been caused by the high call rate they are probably experiencing. I don't think I have spoken to the actual support guys this week, who normally are most helpful. I think the call went through a number of 'call forwards' due to the length of time of no answer so I could have been speaking to anyone. The guy did sound stressed. Either way the issue needs to be resolved, I have just recommended the service to a friend who is about to have it installed. It will be embarrassing if the service is slow as BT.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:51am

Thanks for the info, I am reasonably close to the beam 22 coverage I think, not far from Chichester. If the problem goes on for long I will try asking. I think my issue with Avonline has been caused by the high call rate they are probably experiencing. I don't think I have spoken to the actual support guys this week, who normally are most helpful. I think the call went through a number of 'call forwards' due to the length of time of no answer so I could have been speaking to anyone. The guy did sound stressed. Either way the issue needs to be resolved, I have just recommended the service to a friend who is about to have it installed. It will be embarrassing if the service is slow as BT. (Posting this via ADSL as satellite service not responding)

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:53am

i'm using the same spot as you are right now and I have service. What are you seeing if you navigate to Code:

https://192.168.100.1

Is your modem connected or is it scanning?

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 1:53pm

Thats interesting, thanks. EVerything looks good from there. I have just done another speediest using the Skylogic portal and I have a download speed of 2.12Mbps and 5.26Mbps upload. The FSNR is 10.6db and the RSNR is 10.5db, so it seems I am still affected by the problem. The better news for the friend I have recommended is he shouldn't be affected hopefully as he is up in Lincolnshire.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 1:57pm

Actually my firend will be affected as Lincolnshire is in Spot Beam 34

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 1:59pm

Actually my friend will be affected. lincolnshire is under spot beam 34, which an earlier post said is affected. Do you know what has to be done if I want to change to the unaffected spot beam ?

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 2:48pm

Assuming its clear, 10.5 for the RxSnr is a bit low. Saying that, if you're on the edge of the beam its probably acceptable.

Your speed results are similar to mine today. Low down speed and high up speed...

Going back to my other posts re Avanti... I'm having the Avanti Hylas sat system installed right now so hopefully I'll have reasonable internet access tonight. Fingers crossed. This is a stop gap until Tooway are back up to speed.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 5:56pm

Avanti installed and running.

Took the chap nearly 3 hours because there were issues with the modem. Dish is larger too. Looks like its 80+ cm.

Initial speed checks are OK but not lightening.

Ive got this system for a couple of weeks to see if Tooway resolves things. Fingers crossed.

I will keep this thread updated of any news regarding a resolution to the congestion issues...

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 8:25pm

Done a bit of surfing on the Avanti system and Im not impressed. Getting reasonable results from speed tests but the latency is often over 1000ms.

Typically, the Tooway connection this evening is working at good speed. Below are my evenings Tooway results.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 8:25pm

Whilst its too early to be sure the problem is fixed, its certainly considerably better tonight. When I ran the speedtest earlier I was getting 26Mbps down and 5.6Mbps up. Later this eve I was getting 9d/5u.

Much more realistic and like the good old days.

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:10pm

I got one hour this evening of a better speed, but only up to 10Mbps. It is now back to sub 2Mbps so fed up, again !

Jul 16^th, 2013 at 10:37pm

Average Download Speed: 23911 kbps (2988.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Average Upload Speed: 5521 kbps (690.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Tuesday the 16th of July, 2013 22:34

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 12:30am

Really? Much better than me then ... 1194 and 2129 indicated by speedprobe, much less when using other tests

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 7:13am

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 7:07:05 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20.69 Mbps
Upload: 6.29 Mbps
Ping: 732 ms

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:20am

At last I have a proper speed test result, is anybody else seeing better results?

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:24am

Quote:

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 7:07:05 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20.69 Mbps
Upload: 6.29 Mbps
Ping: 732 ms

Don't test a system using a WiFi connection. Connect a computer DIRECT (Cable) to the modem.

You cant just say dont.. Ad some substance to it fella...

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:51am

Mine is good this morning (20.37 down, 5.42 up) but it was the same yesterday and soon started declining. I will keep an eye on it. I don't start the day well if I run a test and the download speed is sub 2Mbps, how sad is that ?

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:59am

Quote:

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 7:07:05 am
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: Birmingham
Download: 20.69 Mbps
Upload: 6.29 Mbps
Ping: 732 ms

Don't test a system using a WiFi connection. Connect a computer DIRECT (Cable) to the modem.

Pardon?

Please elaborate...

I consider my network to be very robust and reliable so I see no reason why testing over wifi would cause false results. I use the industry standard Speedtest app on my Android cellphone (connected via a new 5GHz AP/router and a 5GHz repeater elsewhere in the house) for quick tests and these always agree with the throughput seen on my Mac Pro connected on a wired 1GBps connection or my Macbook pro via 5GHz wifi.

Furthermore the SNMP monitor on my router confirms the results seen via the Speedtest app and the Skylogic speedtest website. The only reason I don't use the Skylogic speed test website on my cellphone is it doesn't work.

I appreciate there may be some caching on my router which may skew repeated tests but all the tests so far have agreed with my experience when actually browsing, sending email or FTP etc. I have been running the skylogic speed tests as often as I can so that a database of results are recorded by Skylogic that my ISP can use to validate any claims of poor performance.

For those users who are not IT profficent then I can see the advantages of eliminating as much of the internal LAN as possible to avoid it introducing any latency/ bottlenecks, but in my case neither applies - I frequently see over 400-500Mpbs across my LAN between devices.

Furthermore, I think you need to add a VERY large warning whenever you/ISPs suggest people connect their PCs directly to their modems that they are connected directly to an unfiltered connection on a public/dirty IP. So unless they are running a robust software firewall with all the latest updates and really understand what they are doing, it present a significant risk to them.

If you know differently then I am always willing to learn please.

Regards

Simon

(btw, don't let my signature mislead you. Whilst I do have my own Wedding photography business, I am also a senior Windows Server and Virtualisation Specialist with 20+ years of experience of IT at a Server/ Enterprise level).

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 9:02am

I have been testing for days morning, noon and night, the speeds have been under 1 mbps so I am starting the day in a good mood today, crossing fingers legs and arms!

Will test throughout the day, I am on the Orange beam 2

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 3:08pm

News today, after waiting for 'should have a reply in 48 hours'.

I am on unlimited and as such, I am in the high user category, apparently managing to use 60gb in last 4 weeks despite not being able to use the service in the evenings. I think usage was 70gb? Thats between a family that watches catch up tv in standard definition in the evenings .... nothing else.

As a 'high user' i am put into a 'pipe' along with all the other high users and ooo the reduced (to unusable) speeds are reasonable because of that.

Advice - use less gb per month.

But I'm on unlimited? Guaranteed 90% of 20mb speeds?

But other users on capped limits are getting the same restriction?

So apparently i'm on severely limited, unlimited, with a guaranteed speed of 2% headline rate for the bargain sum of £65

Must tell my friends

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 3:34pm

Quote:

News today, after waiting for 'should have a reply in 48 hours'.

But I'm on unlimited? Guaranteed 90% of 20mb speeds?

90%of 20Mbps? Where did this come from please? I've not seen any guarantees on speeds (as I would expect) through Bentley Walker.

Simon

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 5:18pm

I signed up to a service since which have changed terms, the present terms are not those that I signed up for.

I subscribed to a service where the sales agent said 'we often achieve more than 20mb but we have to say we'll achieve 90% because of the legals'

I am often, like others, receiving less than 1mb, I can't use iplayer on this. I wanted a service that was better than my previous one through conventional broadband, I am receiving an inferior speed.

Fap? I have been told previously that 'you're on unlimited do you're alright' 'say 100gb, you're not a heavy user' 'it's all those people downloading a terabyte spooling it for the rest of you'

The terms have changed to suit the outcome. My usage hasn't changed, the excuses have.

I buy a car capable of 100mph, complain it only does 5mph and get told its ok because we said it does UP TO 100mph and you're a guy that does lots of miles so we're putting you in a car park with the other high mileage drivers

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 5:56pm

Since this web site started, in 1999, I have always asked anyone featuring their service to avoid the use of the word 'unlimited' unless the sharing ratio is 1:1 i.e. dedicated continuous information rate such as might be provided by a pair of SCPC carriers.
An example Ku band service was 800kbit/s down and 200kbit/s up, price $5000 per month.

With the advent of satellites with very small spot beams, and configured to provide a star network, it is claimed that the cost has come down significantly, assume $1000 per Mbit/s per month or $20,000 for 20 Mbit/s.

How does this match up with shared service on Tooway?.

Tooway limits the upper speed for downloads, per second, and advertises "up to 20 Mbit/s".

Also, it has limits for download amounts per 4 weeks, e.g. 10 Gbytes to 175 Gbytes, so the average download speed over 4 weeks is far less than 20 Mbit/s.
e.g.
!0 Gbytes = 33 kbit/s
100 Gbytes = 330 kbit/s

Pricing more or less proportional to amounts downloaded, approx £3.20 per Gbyte.

At the start of the Tooway service customers has multiple Mbyte quantity limits: per hour, 4 hours, 1 day, 7 days, 4 weeks. These sliding windows (5 min increments) were different for each tariff.

Image: A "difficult to understand" FAP status display of a Tooway site in 2008.

It made good sense engineering wise, but I suspect very few customers or reseller sales people understood. Customer experience was unexpected slow downs (due to excess useage) and they got annoyed, waiting for a sliding window to expire, which might be several days ahead. Providing the customers with on-line graphs, like above, didn't seem to help much.

In recent years the FAP system was simplified somewhat, and the amounts allowed greatly increased.

Well, we now have them offering "up to 20 Mbit/s". It will no doubt help to sell terminals but it needs to be qualified by a clear Fair Access Policy (FAP) so that customer expectations are not raised unduly.

Just one time window, a day, combined with a free-for all period from midnight till 6am, works well in Afghanistan (BW Hughes HN network).

In my opinion satellites should not be used for video streaming, catch up TV etc, on a per single end user basis. Satellites are fine for multidestination TV broadcast where the big cost is spread over all simultaneous receive sites.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 6:54pm

Problem is though Eric, we're just using the service thats been sold to us by the resellers. On Avonlines website one of their Tooway related headline is Think iPlayer, online movies, music & Skype are out of reach? Think Again. Up to 20Mbps download speeds with UNLIMITED data downloads means more choice than ever before. Everywhere across the UK. NOW!

Ive also reportedly downloaded over 70gb in my first months use. This was mainly down to a load of computer updates spread across a families worth of computers so I guess next months figures will be lower.

Ive not had official word from Avonline yet and im using my free Avanti system for a while whilst the Tooway stuff is sorted out. The message I was given was that the tooway issues were down to some users downloading terabytes of data per month. I'm not sure how these people are able to get a fast enough service to do this though...

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 7:58pm

My speeds are back to normal, I rang Avonline and they assured me that I was not being throttled in anyway, so it seems that the problems with the tooway system are fixed, can anybody else confirm

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:01pm

What package are you on? Also you're meant to be throttled once you reach 50% of usage - be interesting to see how they define 50% of 'unlimited' as a policy should be applied equally across the board

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 8:04pm

I was told there is no throttling on the unlimited package.

Test Date: Jul 17, 2013 20:05
Download: 18.31 Mbps
Upload: 3.80 Mbps
Ping: 788 ms
Connection Type: Wi-Fi
Server: Milton Keynes

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 9:31pm

Was told by Adam today. This means that I am destined for crap speeds and by definition if all such 'high users' are in the same group / restriction then surely it gets worse than the experience so far?

Jul 17^th, 2013 at 10:12pm

Here's my synopsis of today: download speed has been great all day (circa 20Mbps). This evening it dropped to 4Mbps and has stayed there. I am a light but picky user. My usage doesn't even show on the Skylogic chart. At the speeds I have been getting lately there is not enough time in a month to become a heavy consumer of data. I might as well go back to ADSL, at least its cheaper.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 12:01pm

Hi everyone, Im a new customer of avonline/tooway, we had our system installed yesterday. I live in a small village in north nottinghamshire which is probably never gonna get 'superfast broadband' from bt or any other terrestrial provider.

I just wanna say after reading these forums which did begin to put me off tooway as a satellite broadband provider because of all the problems you guys have been having with your systems i find the system works well, we chose the unlimited absolute package with 20mbps down and 6mbps up and since activation the speed has been very up and down. fluctuation between 12 and 20mpbs.

does the system take a day or two to level out and provide a more constant speed? or a more steady connection, i havnt suffered any modem disconnects but the speed stream does seem very unsettled. will rebooting the modem fix this problem?

Thanks, hope you guys can answer my questions.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 12:14pm

Hi there.. Welcome to the club. Firstly, dont be put off by the recent speed related issues.. Every provider be it wireless, cabled, firbre or satellite suffers issues like this every so often.

Ive been speaking with Avonline today regarding the recent speed issues. Basically, Tooway have had to put in some restrictions on the service to keep things moving for everyone.

Users transferring 60gb of data in a 4 week period automatically have their service put on to a slightly limited port between the hours of 16:00 > 00:00. This keeps them separated from the other low users with the view that it'll keep the majority going.

I personally feel that 60gb within a 4 week period is a bit low and i have put this forward to Avonline in the hope that they will feed this back to Tooway.

If you are below the 60gb limit you will not see any issues. A speed fluctuation you mentioned is perfectly normal as the system loads up with users during peak times. Remember, the speeds mentioned by your provider are quoted as "UPTO"

I have asked Avonline for a web based portal where high users can keep an eye on their usage to see if they will get pushed in to the same port as other high end users. They said that this was not currently available but would see what they could do.

Interestingly, last night I was in the same port as the other high end users having downloaded 76gb in the last 4 weeks and my service was perfectly usable last night.

I have expressed concern that the terms of the unlimited package have obviously changed and that a 60gb limit is probably a bit low. I know its not the end of the world because this separate port does not necesserally mean we're off the grid for the evening.

Mixed bag.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 12:30pm

ahh okay thats fine. i do agree that the UNLIMITED package should be as advertised and not have any usage limits this is false advertising and tooway should not be hiding this from new customers because all the information on all the tooway reseller websites do say that the absolute package is totally UNLIMITED and also on the tooway website themselves. i do not really notice the latency effect that some people seem to have a problem with and i understand that the system does and will slow down as the more users go online during the peak period. i wasnt sure how my system was performing as it is a new install. Thanks for giving me the info.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 3:03pm

I agree re false advertising and its that advertising that's created these problems.

I do believe there should be some form of limit though. A stepped approach where if someone is on the top package, the first 50gb are at 100% of available speed. the next 50gb are at 50% of maximum speed and after that its reduced accordingly.

Thats just off the top of my head and little thought has gone in to it so don't flame me...

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 3:03pm

If anyone has suggestions for clearer wording, please email Avonline.

If this give a graphical result please copy the image, and upload it here or send it to me.

Munger. Your stepped idea is good and welcome. The trouble is that sales people have difficulty revealing that what they are selling has limitations. As indicated earlier I have almost banned the word 'unlimited' on this website (for more than 10 years) to avoid misleading new customers.
Any shared VSAT system does not provide an unlimited service. A shared service is limited by the fact that multiple users are sharing the same total capacity.

Best regards, Eric.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 3:13pm

The status page just shows "default" on the absolute package and you don't get to see what you've downloaded at all. I have requested this be made available so that the end user can monitor.

Below is a .jpg of my portal. I've removed my mac address and current IP address.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 9:42pm

Tonight the service is very poor for me. Portal speed tests indicate an acceptable transfer rate but real world surfing is failing. Im seeing DNS related time outs and a flash update my computer is trying to download is failing completely.

VERY unimpressed with the fix that has been put in place.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:06pm

I'm having alot of problems with Dns time outs too I've had to restart my router twice and my modem once to correct the issue but browsing is very slow tonight

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:16pm

I know its not my pc. If I switch to the loan Avanti sat system all is fine.

Interestingly, Avanti is only offering me 5mb down, 1 up but its like that all of the time and appears to not be affected by load or the time of day...

Just wish I could afford to switch to Avanti permanently.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:51pm

Just out of interest, I noted that their FAP has been updated in the last few days. See the Wayback Machine

(I can't post the link as this is my first post, but type 'Wayback Machine' in Google and then paste the Tooway FAP Url in the search box)

No mention of P2P in there then...

I have no particular love of P2P, but I think Avonline (not Skylogic, I didn't buy from them) would have a very hard time defending some of their claims under Consumer Law if it came to that.

But I am assuming it won't. All ISP's go through this kind of thing from time to time. I'm a 'normal' user paying for a premium service (Unlimited) that I use as designed and sold (streaming films, surfing the net, catch-up TV). I don't need 20MBs to do this, just something fit for purpose and I hope common sense & normality prevail in due course.

Jul 18^th, 2013 at 10:53pm

Or click this

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 2:24pm

Hi everyone I think you all should check out this page from ruralbroadband.co.uk which they posted on their blog yesterday.

I tried emailing Avonline to find out what they knew and how it effects us customers on the UNLIMITED package and they read the email but never replied typical eh? Well I will keep bombarding them with emails until I get an answer

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 2:47pm

Not surprised really. The last three weeks have demonstrated how an unlimited service offering can fail.

Will be interesting to see what our ISP's say. Keep us posted...

It's interesting to note that this site is openly offering status updates on the Tooway service whereas no information what so ever seems to come out of my provider unless you call them post issue...

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 4:10pm

Quote:

Not surprised really. The last three weeks have demonstrated how an unlimited service offering can fail.

Will be interesting to see what our ISP's say. Keep us posted...

They can not say anything, it is Skylogic who make the rules.

Don't blame any re-seller, this is pointless and a waist of time.

I'm not blaming my reseller at all. Avonline have been great for me through out all of the recent Tooway speed issues.

My comment above was in relation to how the contract for existing users on absolute as its know will work going forward and how Avonline may have to change the contract...

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 4:19pm

Quote:

They can not say anything, it is Skylogic who make the rules.

Don't blame any re-seller, this is pointless and a waist of time.

Ah, but my contract is with the re-seller, not Skylogic. If there is a breach, I pursue the re-seller not Skylogic. It is the duty of Avonline etc to protect themselves against anything their provider may or may not do. From a legal point of view Skylogic may as well not exist.

Jul 20^th, 2013 at 4:21pm

is anyone else having issues accessing websites using your tooway broadband, yet again it seems like there are DNS server issues. i have tried contacting avonline technical support and all im getting is voicemail, so i tired calling the sales line to try and speak to somebody and im getting an O2 Voicemail. im getting a bit sick of these issues ive only had my system installed since wednesday and and the dns has gone down twice. please can you guys report if you are having issues too?

Jul 21^st, 2013 at 12:33am

I have issues for sure! Slow all day for past two days.

Tonight two speedtests - their own says I am getting 20mb, bbc and real world results says I'm not.

Before any 'well bbc test isn't etc etc' .... Avonline told me to use bbc test

So you tell me how these can be so different.

As stated before, my contract is with Avonline, I have not been notified of any changes to policy or terms since I signed up. My contract was formed during a telephone call, it was stated that the speed was 20mb and the data package was unlimited, it has also been stated at a later date that i am not a high user.

This is a production line of excuses to fit the circumstances.

No matter what is said, we are still having problems.

Jul 21^st, 2013 at 11:13am

Done a speed test just now. Obviously slower but not unusable for me so far today...

Test Date: Jul 21, 2013 11:10:23 AM
Connection Type: Wifi
Server: London
Download: 5.97 Mbps
Upload: 6.23 Mbps
Ping: 823 ms

EDIT: Added iPlayer results.

Jul 21^st, 2013 at 3:27pm

I am in the IT business and know full well about WIFI, how it can perform poorly and so on. This is not the case for my setup. I have chosen my wifi channels carefully having done a full survey of my area. There are no conflicts on my wifi network and it is offering speeds on my LAN much greater than that of my WAN connection.

Jul 21^st, 2013 at 3:49pm

To refocus, this thread is about the recent (june/july 2013) speed issues related to Tooway.

To catch up :-

Tooway started experiencing performance issues on two particular spots. After investigation it turned out to be caused by high data users on the absolute package taking more than their share of the currently available unlimited data package.

Tooway eventually added a 60gb fap where anyone exceeding 60gb of data transfer within a 4 week period would all be lumped in to a separate port between the hours of 16:00 - 00:00. This would keep the, separated from other users not transferring so much data. The affected users should technically be able to attain their max transfer speeds depending on the load of this one port at that time.

In and amongst these speed issues there have been some DNS related issues that only affected the users in the high transfer port mentioned above.

That's the current status as of writing.

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 8:57am

Very frustrated now, all my speed tests looked good for the last few days, then sat down to watch iPlayer last night, no luck it just would not play, I carried out a speed test again and the speeds were dreadful. Speed tests this morning show around 10mb.

I have been a very light user due to the poor speeds.

Although 10mb is good whats happened to the 20mb advertised, I just don't seem to see that is my tests.

Anybody else struggling with iPlayer?

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 9:16am

I would contact your provider to see if you have crossed the 60gb within 4 weeks usage that would then put you in to the same port with other high end users.

I did nto see any issues last night. Speeds were not 20mb but they were good enough to stop me grumbling. you wont always see 20mb because you have to take into account contention with other users... Evenings are very busy so speed will suffer.

I see we've got a new speed utility on the Skylogic test site. Ive also noted the latency figures are VERY low today. The best ive seen so far.

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 11:44am

I am well under 60gb, I have been browsing this morning and latency seems to be very good, browsing seems as snappy as my BT line, I uploaded a 2gb file to youtube which sustained 7mb up for the entire upload time. iPlayer works fine today also. It looks to me as if a lot of work is taking place on the system, the latency drop is a good thing, but whatever they are doing seems to be causing the inconsistent service. I spoke to Avonline last week, I found them unhelpful at best.

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 11:50am

Quote:

I spoke to Avonline last week, I found them unhelpful at best.

Who did you speak to there. Ive been dealing with Adam, Justin, Stuart and their boos Craig Roberts. Each of them have been most helpful for the past month.

If you are unhappy with them, did you tell them so and explain why? If you are still concerned speak with Craig Roberts. He's the broadband head there and can sometimes be willing to offer more info than the guys on the desk can offer...

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 1:07pm

Is this issue supposed to be fixed now? My speeds haven't changed for weeks and are as low as 2MB in the evening.

I am totally sick of this c**p! £59.95 a month for this speed is a total p*** take.

Chris

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 1:13pm

what is youre location? Are you in beams 23 or 34? they were the affected beams noted on July 15th on page 4 of this thread. Im in East Anglia which is cpvered by beam 34.

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 1:19pm

I am in beam 34, I keep getting told that the traffic is going to be managed but I have seen zero improvement so far!

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 1:37pm

that does not sound right to me. As we are on the same beam we should be seeing the same kind of browsing experience.

Is it slow right now? Have you called support to see what they say today?

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 4:43pm

I wouldn't trust the speedprobe test for as far as I could throw it. Odd that, with the introduction of a new 'speedtester', my speed has increased to higher than it has ever been before.

Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 7:14pm

Right now using my iPhone I am seeing speeds of 2.3MB/s. Using the skylogic test on my laptop I get 13.45MB down. Downloading an actual file comes in at 993KB/s. This is the best its been for ages and will not last!

Chris

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 9:51am

Speed test this morning is around 9MB/s and my usage is around 22GB for the last 20 days so no way should I be getting throttled.

Bentley Walker claim that my speeds will go up if I download less, this it complete BS.

Chris

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 10:08am

Thats pants. 22gb.. you're only just tickling the service so you should be getting more.

When this all started my ISP mentioned some users downloading terabytes of data. I assumed that my forecasted 100gb per month would not even be on their radar.

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 10:53am

To be fair, someone downloading 1000 Gbytes per month should be paying something like £1500 - £2000 per month.

It annoys me when marketing/sales people raise customer expectations above what can be reasonably expected. The word unlimited has been banned on this website for over 10 years in relation to shared VSAT services with good reason.

Think in terms of £60000 per month per 60Mbit/s. How you would divide that up amongst customers? How many customers ? Price per customer ? What upper bit rates would you apply? What quantity thresholds would you apply ?

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 11:15am

Absolutely agree with that Eric.

Ive just been speak with the team at Avonline and they have clarified whats happening with the Tooway Absolute package at the end of August.

Absolute will no longer be available to new customers. Instead its being replaced by the Tooway XXL package as previously mentioned. Existing customers on the Tooway Absolute package will NOT be downgraded to XXL. I will point out that the new XXL package has an included 50gb bundle. This means that a FAP might come in to play as low as 25GB. I'm not 100% sure on that but I think that will be the case.

Also, the guys at Avonline are monitoring this thread with interest...

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 11:19am

Hi munger,

Does that mean us avonline absolute customers will stay unlimited (i use the term loosely of course) and just have the current FAP policy still in place?

Also do you know if avonline have any way for customers to monitor their accounts as BW and europasat do because i dont even know when my direct debit first payment is going to be or anything.

Thanks

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 11:24am

Quote:

Hi munger,

Does that mean us avonline absolute customers will stay unlimited (i use the term loosely of course) and just have the current FAP policy still in place?

Yes, this is the case. Avonline confirmed this morning.

Quote:

Also do you know if avonline have any way for customers to monitor their accounts as BW and europasat do because I don't even know when my direct debit first payment is going to be or anything.

Thanks

There is not currently any system available for users on the Absolute package. Users on the lower tariffs see a display on the Tooway Check Portal. Us Absolute users just see "default". I have placed a feature request in to Avonline for this info to be made available. They confirmed they were already working on a system BUT there is no date on availability at this stage. I have expressed concern about this especially now that we have a 60gb limit before entering in to the new FAP.

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 11:36am

ive just had a phone call from avonline too in response to the email i sent asking about the new package details and they confirmed what your saying too. so thanks for posting that info.

they also told me about a new customer account management suite that they are working on too so we can upgrade/downgrade, check our usage etc so hopefully we will get this sometime soon when all the changes have happened.

Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 11:57am

Just had this response from Bentley Walker.

Your account usage is 32.03GB for the past four weeks, which brings it in to the list the NOC deem to be needing reduction.

This is different to the usage you can already see at "https://www.toowayhome.com/" using your Site ID: and so we are working with the NOC to enable you to see the new usage metrics too.

Update: Jul 2026. The website toowayhome.com seems to be no longer working. An image of the home page from forum archiver is below:

Image from toowayhome.com archive.

I am being throtted for using 1GB a day, this is useless, I pay for 50GB a month, based on a 30 day month that is 1.66GB a day which I can't use now apparently, well not a proper speed. Goodbye Tooway!

Jul 24^th, 2013 at 9:58am

If Avonline are monitoring this thread, I suggest they also monitor the one on think broadband.

Though I do not agree that any change to my terms and conditions are valid and reasonable, I would suggest such things are not best relayed via internet forums but to the customers directly - email maybe?

I for one would expect a professional organisation to act professionally and I'm quite looking forward to a bit of sale of goods and services act fun.

Jul 24^th, 2013 at 11:55am

Ohhh is a bad news for user like me... I don't abuse, but I need more than 50 Gb.... I hope old users to maintain the "unlimited" service.

But, I was thinking, on holidays, o vacation month, to reduce the speed (pay less), but maybe I won't be able to return to unlimited plan.

Jul 25^th, 2013 at 1:34pm

Yer, users on Absolute will maintain the unlimited data BUT there will be the 60gb FAP.

I'm well over that for sure.. Tuesday for example I had a power cut to the modem rebooted at 7am. By 1pm I logged on to the modem to have a look see at the stats and 10gb!!! of data bad been transferred in 6 hours. The culprit was my kids hammering YouTube. I've got no chance of trying to keep my data usage down unless I start banning access to sites like YouTube...

Ive been monitoring the threads over on Think Broadband and the members there seem a lot more vocal about the Tooway issues. There are also a few of accusations against the team at Avonline...

Jul 25^th, 2013 at 6:13pm

Hi everyone,

Finally got around to signing up,

1 week connected to avonline, speeds have been consistant everyday for me.

Jul 25^th, 2013 at 9:22pm

Welcome to the forum. As a new Tooway member I very much doubt that you have fallen in to a category of a high user and therefore are not operating in a FAP where your connection is rate limited.

Tonight my connection is poor again. I am well in to the 60gb per 4 week FAP hence the figures being so poor

Below are the results from a current set of speed tests. The Think Broadband speed test appears to offer a realistic set of results and is definitely recommended as a good 3rd party test site for those suspicious of the Skylogic site.

Note how the down speed is much lower than the up speed.

Jul 25^th, 2013 at 10:29pm

We have problems, it's not right so what do we want to do about it?

This forum and the think broadband one have us relating to each others experiences, we are not alone but it's not changing the speeds we get us it?

I think contractually we have a stronger case than avonline / ?

As said I have not been made aware of any legitimate reason for the problems, it's only hearsay and third hand stuff. I am a customer, I want a reason in editing, as you should, from that reason you have a legal argument.

If they refuse to provide a reason, you have no reason to suffer degradation of service and can legitimately demand 'normal' (reasonable) services to be restored

If you speak to avonline, ask them to email you or write with a reason why YOU are being restricted. If you do not fall onto the naughty step then again you have a legal challenge. You can demand compensation.

It's gone on long enough now and I need reliable usable Internet. Sick of being treated like a mushroom

Jul 25^th, 2013 at 11:13pm

thanks for the warm welcome,

I will keep you guys updated on my service quality,

I only use the tooway for downloading files and updates etc, I use a business wireless 3 meg for general browsing.

I think that sort of speed reduction is absurd if that is what happens after you go over the 60gb mark, it should be atleast say 50% of speed for a further 60gb followed by 5 meg for another 60 gb etc..

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 1:18pm

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the lack of input over the past few days. I'm trying to catch up on the current status - which sounds like I have missed out on all the fun!

I've not been home long enough over the past week to do much testing but I did notice speeds had deteriorated again at the start of the week compared to the previous week after Skylogic rejigged the network. I'll try and do more tests over the weekend to add to the comparison pot.

I did however have a very long and candid chat with another lesser known UK/Ireland Tooway reseller who was suggesting that the situation should improve now Skylogic had started to re-categorize the users and that it was worth hanging on. I was initially talking to him about moving to alternative systems (which ended up being far more expensive for less bandwidth). They acknowledge that the system was/is in chaos at the moment as the takeup of tooway had exceeded expectations and possibly the design limits of the system (for certain beams).

Only time will tell but its great to have so much constructive feed back from everyone to be assured I/we are not alone in this matter.

Regards

Simon

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 1:32pm

Ive also got the Avanti Hylas system currently installed in my house. The service im using for test purposes is their 5mb down, 1mb up. This is throttled by my ISP I believe.

Ive noted that whilst the system does load up with users here and there, the drop in speed is not as notable as Tooway.

LAst night for example it was below the 2mb on Tooway... Switched over to Avanti and had a good solid 5mb...

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 2:51pm

I had today two good conversations.

The first, with my reseller. He told me about the unlimited package. The package is still available to selected countries, but the package was created for only 20.000 customers. After reach tis number, it will be disabled in all countries. If you are in unlimited package and downgrade in the future to 30 gb for example, you won't be able to return to unlimited package is it has been deleted.

Second, I spoke today to europasat. I was speaking about my usage. In the last 28 days, my usage was 117,5 gb but I am not in the FUP because my usage is normal. I am not downloading every time, full time, is a normal usage, different hours, punctual downloads, not P2P all time (they are monitoring our P2P, because I use sometime in a VPN for port forwarding and they know it) and a normal usage.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 2:58pm

Hmmm. someone is lying...

Either our providers are telling us a load of rubbish or your provider has given you false info.

From my side, my provider Avonline has said data usage over 60gb in a 4 week period will automatically place me in to the 60gb FAP where speeds MAY be limited in the evenings.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 3:06pm

Umm yes, I understand you my friend. I don't know the true. I only post my information. For all my friends. Know my usage s very high but my speed is still high, around 21 Mbps at all time. I am doing test around the all day, including night and evening.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 3:15pm

Just called Avonline and you will be in the FAP. The systems that decide who goes in to and out of the FAP is controlled by software. There is no human intervention.

Its irrelevant that you are not downloading P2P, you've gone over the 60gb FAP and therefore are limited between the local hours of 16:00 > 00:00

I'll be using the Avanti system this weekend so weekend browsing wil be good for me. It'll also bring down my figures on Tooway.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 3:55pm

The FAP on Absolute is applied dependent of the contention/congestion of the spot beam you are connected to.

For example, most southern UK users are located on beam 23 or 34, which are contended resulting in the congestion policy being applied to those flagged as heavy users during peak hours.

Hipolito, located in Spain, may be on one of many spot beams (1,4,5,7,8,9. 10 or 11) covering the Region, which may not be as congested during peak hours therefore more bandwidth is available for each customer, including those exceeded the soft-cap FAP limit.

Each spot beam has the same capacity, but some may be more contended than others. (Eric has previously posted the bandwidth details in the 'Service drops to zero' thread on this board)

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 4:00pm

DavidBentlyWalker.

Thanks for your post. That clears up how the FAP is being applied..

That also has put to the end of me recommending the service to other local friends. I don't want any more users on my spot beam....

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 4:30pm

Ummmm very very interesting. I am in the spot 1. And maybe is a "free" spot. Never I got down speed.
My spot in the south Spain has a trick. The half of the spot is over the sea. The same area for less territories. The stats result in less people in average.

Thank you David.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 4:33pm

Never let anyone move you to another spot beam...

We have a similar spot in the very westerly point of southern England in the county of Cornwall... Users on that spot beam will also get a good service with the unlimited package....

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 4:33pm

David, I have a question. Because you are from Bentley...ls for me je. Is true that the unlimited is or the first 20000 people, and after reaching this number the package will be closed.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 4:45pm

The Tooway Absolute was marketed as a 'Promotional Package' and will be removed and replaced with a Tooway XXL with a 50GB monthly quota at some point in the future (potentially soon for certain congested regions) ... all Absolute customers will remain on the absolute package.

The initial reported number was 20,000 subscribers.

Here is the footprint with Spot Numbers in case anyone is interested:-

While Tooway isn't typically my forte within Bentley Walker, will be happy to attempt an answer to any questions you have!

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 4:57pm

Munger..., I am going to do the same. Stop recommending ha hA. And I am installer. Ha ha

The best spot because has a lot of water are 1, 6 (Spain), 14, 13 (French), 12 (Italy) And 77. A lot of sea.... Less people.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 5:05pm

Thank you David. You help is very appreciated.

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 5:55pm

Tonight...

Last Result:
Download Speed: 9285 kbps (1160.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 5445 kbps (680.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 720 ms
Jitter: 80 ms
Packet Loss: -1%
26/7/2013 17:48:56

Jul 26^th, 2013 at 11:40pm

me: (my wife is using her computer)

Last Result:
Download Speed: 16612 kbps (2076.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 4887 kbps (610.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 719 ms
Jitter: 94 ms
Packet Loss: -1%
sabado, 27 de julio de 2013 0:38:00

Jul 27^th, 2013 at 10:58am

is anyone else in beam 34 having really crap speeds for the last 2 or 3 days this is my latest speed test results

Last Result:
Download Speed: 5197 kbps (649.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 5651 kbps (706.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 759 ms
Jitter: 124 ms
Packet Loss: -1%
27 July 2013 10:53:47 BST

my upload is faster than my bloody download. how the hell does that work out. its pointless phoning avonline cos surprise surprise their so called 'TECHNICAL HELPLINE' is closed at weekends weird that a broadband isp has no customer contact at all at weekends when things usually go tits up in my experience.

Jul 27^th, 2013 at 12:09pm

Bit up and down for me. Avonline support is open 10:00 / 14:00 on Saturdays. ..

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 2:58pm

heres the latest speed test:

Last Result:
Download Speed: 3568 kbps (446 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 5665 kbps (708.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 722 ms
Jitter: 70 ms
Packet Loss: -1%
28 July 2013 14:50:40 BST

For the 3rd day running my speeds have been riddiculously slow i dont see how they can have throttled me back because of using 60gb data ive only had the system installed for a week and unless im downloading every movie in the known universe i cant see how i can have used that in a one week period.

These slow speeds are really stupid. my rx and tx levels remain unchanged since the system was installed so its not as if im losing signal along the way.

i want to know how i can end my contract with avonline and get a different satellite provider possibly SES broadband from astra as im sick to death of paying £65 per month for a service with speeds that are no better than BT ADSL because they are making 'guarantee's' about speeds, value and technology which are a load of rubbish. the speeds are c**p, the value is extortionate and the technology cant handle the amount of traffic being put through it.

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 3:41pm

I see they also offer unlimited packages and they also have a FAP so I bet they will have exactly the same issues as Tooway during peak times...

As previously mentioned by Eric and others in this thread, Satellite broadband has limited capacity so the issue is related to the technology and should/has to be governed by a FAP thats fair and considerate to all paying customers. I believe the current implementation is not quiet there yet. My ISP said that Tooway will be putting out more information this coming week in relation to the FAP changes.

The recent issues related to speed originate from Tooway offering an "unlimited" package that everyone INCLUDING me have taken literally. Im chewing through 100gb a month...

My previous internet connection was a 3g mifi connection and I only had that because the ADSL service I had purchased kept disconnecting when ever someone called my land line. BT nor my ISP could resolve the issue so I disconnected the ADSL and went with 3G. That proved too expensive to run and had its own stability problems.

I then started looking at wimax. There is a local mast but in my area but you have to have line of sight to it and there are too many taller buildings in my way so that left me with satellite technology...

I took out satellite and thats when the speed issues started...

My choices are...

1. Love it and stay. Curtail my internet usage.
2. Love it and stay. Let my kids youtube all day long and suffer the consequences.
3. Leave and go back to 3g. Speeds are faster and latency is 1/10th that of my satellite connection BUT the costs for 100gb per month are out of this world. And of course there are stability issues.

We've reached a point on this thread where we all have to decide what to do. A class action against our ISP's or Tooway is not worth the effort for me personally. I just dont have the time to get involved. So then it comes down to individual cases and thats what you all have to decide what steps to take. I suspect that if you went down the local Citizens Advise Bureau they would sit on the other side of the desk and think you were talking in martian. They would not understand the mechanics of the problem and would suggest to you pay to speak to a solicitor to take it further....

Thoughts... Am I miles off the general consensus. Am I giving in... Dunno. Maybe its the heat of todays super hot weather thats got to my head and made it go soft....

Woffle over...

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 3:43pm

Using satellite to connect to the internet is a relatively high cost option for people who don't have good terrestrial methods.
Two-way prices are low, partly due to the satellite system design and partly due to very many customers sharing the satellite capacity.
In the initial years of service when the satellite is very lightly loaded there is no way the revenue comes close to covering the cost. Maybe the will break even after several years once the transponders are full up with traffic.
it seems to me that expectations have got out of line with reality. In my opinion a price of 2 pounds per gigabytes would be reasonable.
if a satellite provides 68 Mbit/s for 68000 pounds per month how would you divide up the capacity ?

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 4:06pm

thats all very well but i want to know is everyone else on the same beam is having exactly the same slow speeds because if we are then its clearly down to capacity and its up to Skylogic to get this sorted out.

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 4:23pm

Why is putting up with it and being apathetic an option?

If a small child kicked you in the shins all day every day would you put up with it? Because that's what avonline are doing to me and I don't see why you or I would pay for it.

If the technology can't cope then I'm off. But I want compensating for the installation cost and for the periods of downtime.

What I really want us proble free usage.

If there are rules to enable me to get this, I need to be told officially by avonline and not hear it from 'your mates dogs cat friend'. If I accept the parameters to getting good speeds and stay within them and STILL get problems then clearly it's not the parameters that's the problem and avonline would again be grasping at excuses for why the speeds are crap.

How can alasdairbailey be throttled by overuse? Hence why talk of going over allowance is a misleading reason.

First off they need to tell me where the goalposts are.

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 4:26pm

Im in beam 34 and speed tests now are approx 2.5mb down and 5.5 up so yes we're all affected.

There is only one beam in my area thats usable. I did run off of the green beam for an hour once before my modem was configured up correctly and yes it did work OK but RxSNR was too low to keep a stable connection and the ISP's are not allowed to point you at a spot beam outside of where you are meant to be. Basically, there is no real fix. If a particular beam is reaching capacity I very much doubt the ISP's will stop signing up users in that area...

Im on my avanti system at the moment and its working fine. Problem is that I only have it for another week before its disconnected and returned to my ISP. At that point I have to lump the Tooway speeds or bolster the service im using with a 3g mifi modem during peak times...

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 4:32pm

then surely skylogic need to do something to alleviate the pressure on the beams that are being severely throttled due to over population. why should we pay £65 per month for the same service other customers are getting on unaffected beams whos speeds are almost 10x quicker than ours who dont suffer from throttled speeds and heavy congestion. perhaps they need to look at the capacity for the busier beams and re-jig them lumping more capacity on the congested beams and taking it away from the beams that are over the sea and have only a handful of customers obviously without degrading those customers service.

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 4:41pm

Quote:

then surely skylogic need to do something to alleviate the pressure on the beams that are being severely throttled due to over population.

I dont think we can be moved between beams unless we are on the fringe of two or more. Of course moving house to another spot beam would technically resolve that issue...

Dont get me wrong, im sharing all your frustrations hence me starting this post in the first place... Have you checked the view count recently. 4000+ views. There are more people out there affected than we realise....

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 4:57pm

surely tho there is a way for skylogic to increase capacity on overcrowded beams tho because they cant leave it as it is because they are going to start losing alot of customers.

Jul 28^th, 2013 at 7:44pm

In my case, the contract between me and my ISP is formed by the offer made on their website and various claims therein. The terms of service and the FAP on the website form a part of that but do not over-ride anything else unless it was made clear to you that they do, and that you acknowledged as such (by signing or verbally accepting them). None of this applied to me.

Even if you did sign the Terms of Use, no provider can fundamentally fail in the provision of a service they agreed to provide. A contract that attempts to shift the blame to a 3rd party (i.e. Skylogic) would also struggle under consumer law. The only relevant agreement here is between you and your ISP.

To proceed you need to write to them. An email will work, but a good old fashioned letter is best. Keep it simple. Point out that they are in breach of contract, give a period of time for rectification (their Terms of Use suggests 21 days, but you can offer any 'reasonable' time) and then make it clear you will cancel the service for breach.

Keep a log of speed, so that if necessary you can prove non-compliance.

Give them a chance to respond. If they do not, send another letter referencing the first, cancelling the agreement and inform them that no more payments will be made. Normally they will respond. What happens next will be determined by HOW they respond. Getting back installation charges etc. may be more difficult, but this is a start.

Personally, I am deeply annoyed, but not enough to start proceedings yet. As I said before, I suspect Avonline are as irritated by this as we are, and I can't believe that even Skylogic would allow this to continue too long. So I will sit tight, but in around 2-3 weeks, my patience will break and I will write my first letter. When I do, I will publish it here, and you can simply copy / paste.

Jul 29^th, 2013 at 12:42pm

I've started another thread asking about the number of downlink carriers presently operating in each KA-SAT spot beam.

To reach the claimed 400 Mbit/s per beam Skylogic need to transmit 6 carriers per beam, with each carrier supporting 68 Mbit/s in clear sky conditions.

If fewer carriers are active then the capacity of the beam is not yet the maximum. If there is more than one carrier active in a beam then they need to balance customers between the carriers, to avoid one carrier becoming congested while another is lightly loaded.

Jul 29^th, 2013 at 3:24pm

I have just spoken to Avonline who confirmed that I have been put into FAP again, thats why I am seeing 2mb, my usage since the 16th - 29th is 26GB, they confirmed I should not have been limited, but I have, they don't know why and have requested that I removed from the heavy user queue.

Is it possible that the system predicts the months usage, as it is possible that I may have hit 60GB at the end of 30 days?

I am moving all my computers over to my ADSL line tonight, then very carefully monitoring my usage for the next 30 days, I will feed back my results and speeds.

I believe we are all being limited on very small traffic loads way below 60GB per month.

Jul 29^th, 2013 at 3:51pm

Two weeks ago I was suffering the same download speed problems as everybody else then come July 16th it seemed that the issue was resolved for me anyway with 21Mb/s download. Out of curiosity I checked the speed today and I am back to sub 3Mb/s. I am a very light user so the FAP is not an issue for me. On reporting to Avonline today they are not admitting it is the same problem as previous. After a number of simple checks such as re-boot etc they are logging the issue with the service provider and are suggesting perhaps they need to get someone out to start changing my equipment. I dont believe that is the issue at all, I am sure its the same problem the other forum members are experiencing. Crap download speed, okay upload.

Jul 29^th, 2013 at 3:55pm

Definitely sounds like the FAP is being applied outside of the "verbally" specified hours OR the beam is running at capacity...

I would say that we definately need a spectrum analyser on someones dish/tria located in spot beam 34 to see whats going on...

Jul 30^th, 2013 at 4:12am

Oh look ..... Avonline 'suddenly' include terms and conditions on their web page - too late as the contract was formed prior to these and we have proof via screen prints of the website at the time of sign up / the contract being made

Jul 30^th, 2013 at 11:59am

I checked my downline speed at 09.00 this morning and it was 20Mb/s so I thought it was resolved again. I have just re-checked and its down to 4.39Mb/s. So as far as I am concerned Avonline are in breach. I will keep monitoring and then decide whether to cancel. I do not think I am getting value for money at present.

Aug 1^st, 2013 at 3:01pm

last couple of days my service has gone bad, and its as bad in the off peak hours, 09.00-16-00

Attached image edited by forum admin to make it with low jpg resolution. Also cropped to make it smaller on the screen. Now 25k instead of 123k bytes.

Aug 1^st, 2013 at 3:12pm

ok something strange is going on with my setup,

I restarted the modem and my speeds are back to 20 meg,

also I noticed that the longer the modem is left on for the lower the rx snr goes, it was 7, restarted modem and its back to 11.

im starting to think maybe something is faulty

Aug 1^st, 2013 at 4:36pm

Me too my friend. I am estarting the modem every three o four days, because the snr is coming to bad values. After restarting the modem, it comes back to 11.5~12

Maybe the modem its causing noise itself. I don't know. For my and some customers is not a problem, but for a unanntended installation it can be a problem.

Aug 1^st, 2013 at 10:48pm

so is it faulty modem you think or tria?

heres my latest speedtest

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 2:01am

I don't know but it happen to me and a customer too.

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 9:36am

5.49Mb/s download this morning. It has now been poor for 5 consecutive days. Powering everything off and back on makes no difference. Zero feedback from Avonline since reporting the problem on Monday. Will chase again today.

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 9:39am

Spoke to them yesterday and they believe the current lower speed issues are down to extra load created by children being off school at the moment.

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 9:47am

Is true or are you kidding us? Hahaha

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 9:49am

Thats what I was told....

In the UK its summer holiday time so there will definately be an extra load generated by kids surfing YouTube and the like...

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 9:50am

14.4 meg download here in Ireland, lets see how long it lasts

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 5:26pm

Just spoken to Avonline, apparently the poor speeds are due to the existence of biscuits.

Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 5:28pm

LMAO!

Aug 3^rd, 2013 at 4:06pm

Apparently, the speed issues will continue after the school holidays too as teachers will then be using the service in rural schools.

What a joke this service has turned into!

These guys couldn't lie straight in bed as they say, sick of being told utter crap!

Chris

Aug 3^rd, 2013 at 6:20pm

Then, in December, The system will be slow, because the children's will be sending theirs letters to Santa. In February the people booking the holidays in brazil for Carnaval. In others months, the Muslim reading about the Ramadan. On Friday in the nights, people dating and watching porn. Tuesday in midday, women looking for cooks receipts.

Aug 4^th, 2013 at 9:16am

Well things don't seem to be getting much better. Ive backed off my premium unlimited service substantially, but its still patchy, not as described nor fit for purpose. It would also appear that an alternative has popped up. Anyone got any experience of this?

https://www.broadbandeverywhere.co.uk/

Aug 4^th, 2013 at 9:27am

This service has been mentioned previously in this thread. ,y personal conclusion is that they will eventually suffer the same issues as Tooway.

They are offering an unlimited service which will be taken literally just like Tooway so users will eventually suffer the same congestion...

Hopefully though, some users out of contract will move over to SAS and alleviate the congestion on Tooway. I for one am going to really be pushing SAS to everyone I know it'll then make my connection faster...

Aug 4^th, 2013 at 3:25pm

SAS?

Aug 4^th, 2013 at 3:28pm

Quoted from interview with Avonline

"For referring and installing just 10 systems a month, a partner with Avonline could earn up to £25,000 a year"

So keep selling chaps!

Aug 4^th, 2013 at 4:30pm

Quote:

SAS?

Sorry.. Got confused with another thread on another forum... Getting old!

Aug 4^th, 2013 at 10:02pm

System unusable again this evening. Half way though a itunes rental and its ground to a halt...

Last Result:
Download Speed: 1336 kbps (167 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 799 kbps (99.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 720 ms
Jitter: 129 ms
Packet Loss: -1%
4/8/2013 21:59:41

this is getting beyond a joke - everyone tells me the system will improve yet I see no evidence to support this.

Aug 5^th, 2013 at 7:51am

25000 for just 10?

Aug 5^th, 2013 at 7:58am

Per month so -120

ht tp: //w ww.r di-o nline .co.u

===
Censored by forum admin ....

The web site link above (to Avonline details on the rdi-online web site) previously displayed above has been partially deleted and struck out. It led to a page using the word "unlimited" and the expression "totally unlimited". Such expressions are banned on this website and I don't wish this site to be associated with other sites that display such text. It misleads people.

Anyone considering satellite internet is advised that low cost services intended for home user and small businesses are shared services where a large number of customers share a high bit rate download carrier, such as 68 Mbit/s. In such cases your service will be limited, both regarding bit rate and amounts downloaded, by the fact of many others sharing the same capacity. In addition to being limited by congestion you may additionally be limited by the service provider in respect of maximum short term bit rates and amounts of bytes downloaded or uploaded per unit time, according to tariff paid.

If the service provider puts too many busy people onto the same capacity there will be severe congestion.

Text above added by forum admin.
===

Aug 5^th, 2013 at 2:46pm

Admin. You're interjection was out of context and unnecessary. It was a link pointing out where the quote came from. The quote was to demonstrate why avonline might be reluctant to stop selling within capacity and therefore whatever measures are in place to make contention better, will get worse if the incentives to sell are high.

Avonline is not unlimited. We can all see that, it's been said, we get it. Allow people to get it, understand it and go ahhh interesting.

Context. I'm not advocating anyone spends xx on satellite broadband that's so limited.

Aug 5^th, 2013 at 8:50pm

WTF is going on tonight have a look at my latest speed test guys:

Last Result:
Download Speed: 259 kbps (32.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 227 kbps (28.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 720 ms
Jitter: 67 ms
Packet Loss: -1%
5 August 2013 20:47:41 BST

How the hell can avonline and tooway expect customers to pay £65 per month for speeds like this. i might aswell as go back to 90's n get myself an bloody ISDN line i will be contacting avonline tomorrow and demanding they come and take their equipment away and give me back the £370 they robbed off me for this absolutely diabolical service!!!!!!!!!

Aug 5^th, 2013 at 11:40pm

your not alone m8.

this is what Iam getting in Ireland, it just keeps getting worse and worse, I actually left my modem off since I last posted with the hope when I turn it back on things will be resolved. I am running these tests on a regular basis everyday from now on to form up a report for my own proof should things not get resolved at least I have proof of these speeds, theres no way im going to continue paying 85euros a month for these sort of speeds. I only have this installed for 2 weeks, first few days were fantastic, no matter what time of day I was getting 20 meg. then it all started going downhill.

I am just hanging in there atm to see if things get resolved, if not contract or no contract there not extorting money out of me for this claimed 20 meg service which my mobile phone 3g is faster.

also I believe avonline are still selling the absolute package which is not available anymore, digiweb have stopped offering this absolute package as well as other distributors so why are avonline still marketing it!

Aug 6^th, 2013 at 8:42am

Interestingly today is the first day in over two weeks that I have measured my download speed at an acceptable rate. This morning it measured 20.52Mb/s at 06.40 and just now (08.40) it was downloading at 19.69Mb/s. I will keep the regular tests going. Still zero feedback from Avonline as to whats going on but perhaps there is progress. Not holding my breath.

Aug 6^th, 2013 at 9:17am

I'm using a neat little program to automatically test my connection every 30 minutes. This is not a Tooway 'approved' test (speedprobe) but will build a representative picture of when your connection is 'fast' and when it is 'slow' (you'll see the throttling / busy periods appear fairly quickly).

As I mentioned before, this kind of record will be important in proving that the service being delivered is not as described.

You can cut and paste your results onto this forum is you want to share performance. It's a little more insightful than the 'point in time' snapshots.

Aug 6^th, 2013 at 9:20am

Do we know what the concrete cast in stone facts are with regard to FAP, throttling etc on the various subsciption packages.

I am out of contract soon and need to look at my options. All I know for sure is that if I use more than 25% pf my monthly download quota in one week I get throttled. I am on the 50GB package.

What happens if you are on the unlimited package or the smaller 30GB packages?

Also what speed do you get throttled back to and how long does it last if you don't go over the following week?

So many unknown factors still after all this time.

Anyone know?

Chris

Aug 6^th, 2013 at 10:28am

i can confirm my test this morning is 20.23meg and 5.51 upload..

Aug 6^th, 2013 at 10:38am

mine is high too this morning but as the day goes on and the world wakes up it will slow down until it is unusable again like it did last night. still waiting for avonline to call me back following the email i sent to them.

Aug 6^th, 2013 at 3:23pm

Yep you are right. Mine dropped to 2Mb/s at lunchtime and is an unsatisfactory 5.98Mb/s now.

Aug 6^th, 2013 at 3:27pm

yep same here, my speeds have dropped to 6.1meg download, upload is always the same 5ish megs for me, I am based in Ireland

Aug 7^th, 2013 at 5:33pm

I called today to Europa sat for asking about my usage. My month started on 11, and today I have used 96 gb. Still my speed is on 20/6 aprox

Aug 7^th, 2013 at 6:43pm

i think the fap only comes in to effect if the spot beam is busy. in youre case, its probably not because most of it is over the sea

Aug 7^th, 2013 at 9:22pm

Yes mr munger. I think so. Is my spot is free, all for me

Aug 8^th, 2013 at 11:21pm

another update from me,

iv been running speed tests all day, and can confirm that from about 3.30 pm onwards the speeds gradually reduced from 20 meg, at present 23.15pm the speeds have reduced to 1.3 meg download and 5.6 upload,

I am starting to come to the conclusion that tooway is never going to get any better but only get worse, a high percentage of users are leaving there pcs on overnight while they sleep and download, from late afternoon to midnight you have users on surfing youtube etc..

the only time tooway is usable is very early in the am to about mid-day. which tbh is useless for anyone that goes to work during the day.

the same pattern happens over the last 2 weeks since I have joined tooway. there are too many users now and they keep selling packages instead of ceasing to take new customers until spots are freed up.

to anyone reading this and thinking of getting tooway, do not bother,

Aug 9^th, 2013 at 6:36pm

c**p service this evening.

Spoke to Justin at Avonline at 5:45 this evening and he confirmed that I've downloaded 53gb in the past 4 weeks. 2gb of which was downloaded today. I asked as to why I was being placed inside the FAP that is now in place. He could not answer that question. They offered to attend site and remove the kit and cancel the contract without fee...

Aug 9^th, 2013 at 8:22pm

wow that's mad, maybe there trying to get the high usage people off the system with orders from skylogic? if you don't mind me asking what sort of material is it your downloading! torrents?

For me I cant download torrents, even with full speed torrents wont go above 80k/sec.

in a way im lucky as I have a business wireless connection 3 meg that I use for general use, I only use the sat for system updates and downloading big files from work..

heres my test just now, its the best its been for evenings in a while, most likely due to it being a Friday night and most are out and about.