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Bandwidth issues?

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I've noticed that many streaming services repeatedly pause for a few seconds but sometimes more than a minute.

This happens when I have a strong signal.

 

Examples.

Playing news audio.

Playing me Snapchat video.

 

How can I figure out what is wrong?

 

 

 

 

25 REPLIES 25

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

The issue remains the same. Can't load web pages - they just show spinning circle. News audio buffers repeatedly.

 

HI @dgleba   this is an old post, but what is your issue now?  Give us more info and we can try to help

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I contacted service and this is the help I got.

 

"Your plan is valid until November 22"

 


@dgleba wrote:

I think public mobile throttled service was good enough in the past. It doesn't seem good enough now. I don't know where the problem is. It is not trivial to figure that out. That is also a sad statement.

 

I may just vote with my dollars and go elsewhere.

 

Does anyone with any influence in public mobile read this? Do they care?

 


@dgleba - this forum is a place for customers and members to post. I cannot see any Public Mobile representatives (CSA) stumbling across this or reading this unless someone brings it to their attention. If you like to do that, link your post to a ticket to customer support by submitting a ticket to CSA. 

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@dgleba 

Public Mobile is just another department of nowadays so no not really unfortunately.

 

Sorry to ask if you already mentioned this earlier in the thread but what plan are you on? Not speed wise data allotment wise?

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I think public mobile throttled service was good enough in the past. It doesn't seem good enough now. I don't know where the problem is. It is not trivial to figure that out. That is also a sad statement.

 

I may just vote with my dollars and go elsewhere.

 

Does anyone with any influence in public mobile read this? Do they care?

 

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@dgleba 

The website has a lot of video content or HD image resolution it will definitely take longer to download. There are some settings you can disable if you don't require the video to run or certain things that work in the background that use up data or bandwidth depending on the app you are using or the site you're on. If you have a settings option check for travel mode and it will disable background data usage within the app or page.

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I think I can can get an ok test speed, but poor performance on websites.

@dgleba 

Forgive me I got busy with life it gets in the way of the community occasionally...lol. the upload speed seems to be unaffected from my past experience with speed tests. The concern here of course is the download speed. Here are my results from the other day.

Screenshot_20220914-012119~2.png

Screenshot_20220914-012154~2.png

Screenshot_20220914-012226~2.png

 However note the time....that's AM!

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Things got quiet here.

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

So just as an example.

Question: This would be considered poor as it is less than half of 3 Mbps at 1.39?

Is that the only metric?

 

Below is a picture and the csv export that I could share from the android ookla app.

The picture has more information, but if we got csv from everyone, that could be compiled into one file and summary graphs could be created from it.

 

Date,ConnType,Lat,Lon,Download Speed,Download Size,Upload Speed,Upload Size,Latency,Server,InternalIp,ExternalIp,URL
"09/12/2022, 4:49 PM",Lte,43.3705578,-80.9643271,1.386904,2116394,2.383496,3943808,28,"Toronto, ON",25.67.88.53,209.171.88.53,https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/8676737395

 

 

dgleba_0-1663016775340.png

 

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@dgleba 

Easy.... just everybody should use the same speed test I would recommend Ookla.

 

If you like we could run a practice test tomorrow and start a separate thread and post our results or we can start the thread today and if anyone his interested they could run a practice test tomorrow and then officially start testing on the 15th to the 30th and then that way most interested parties would have time to join the thread?

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

How do you propose to test it - what software?

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@dgleba 

Which plan do you have? The only issue with testing and documenting to prove your point is your plan. If you have the $15 plan then 250mb data plan is very lacking to be able to do daily tests. Mind you if your data speeds are that slow a speed test won't use much data.

 

But if you have 1 GB to 3 GB of data then you can easily document and do daily speed tests that won't use a huge amount of your plan data and if you have family members that can either do the same or switch off testing so more than one speed test can be done per day or per area it would be greater evidence to be able to document and present your case which initially would be to public mobile.

 

"Scientifically" you would want to do three tests in a short period of time twice or thrice daily at a consistent time in the same location for example your office or a place you spend a lot of time at and use mobile data. So often your home would not be a good example unless you don't have home internet.

 

Alternatively if you live in a smaller town and you test consistently in different areas of town like the grocery store and the post office and the rec center and test each time you're there screenshot your test then over the period of 15 days at a minimum if you can show that 75% (or at least 50+%) of the time your data speeds are below the expected norm then you have a case to ask for either a credit or a even a permanent credit on a full speed 4G LTE service plan depending on the plan you currently have.

 

So if you had the $40/5gb plan asking for the full speed 4G LTE $45/6 GB plan with $5 discount would be a reasonable offer to negotiate for but if you have the $25/1GB plan you wouldn't be able to negotiate for a full speed 4G LTE data plan because they don't exist at that price point.

 

But you can also negotiate a credit back based on say the last 6 months for below par data speed on your plan. And consider your options going forward. The price point of your plan will really determine the choices you want to consider?

 

Lower price point plans combined with rewards are very difficult to be beaten in this marketplace. Larger data plans with higher price points offers you more options both here at public mobile now that they offer them and elsewhere on the market that's where you have to decide whether or not you want to lose rewards for more data and more speed?

 

Only public mobile mostly goes down in price each year rather than up so a good price elsewhere maybe a good price for a year or two but they consistently raise the price by $5 or $10 almost yearly after the first year or two.

 

Start with testing and that will really give you a judgement on whether an individual complaint to public mobile and a negotiation needs to occur or whether a larger group complaint is necessary?

 

I can try to test twice daily for the next 15 days because I do have one plan that has enough plan data on it that I can disconnect from Wi-Fi and test at home for you and do the occasional test out and about. That will give you data from Vancouver to compare and present if necessary.

 

Anyone else interested if they read this thread and want to do the same can private message me and we can figure out a consistent data testing schedules so that results are comparative.

 

I would recommend 9:00 a.m. 3:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. with three tests each time. If you have a low data plan and are concerned about using your data up on tests you can start the test take the screenshot and then stop the test to limit the amount of data you're using that to drop any data usage in half so each data tests may takes 6 MB or less.... hopefully? Make sure you screenshot your usage before and after you perform these tests as well so you can monitor how much you are using.

 

If we have say a minimum of five willing testers we could perform starting on the 14th or the 15th of September for 15 days. A thread can be created and interested testers could post their results daily if they like or make a weekly summary and add it to the thread if that snowballs is a little and we get 10 or 20 or 50 testers then you have a real group complaint /study with the ability to show and prove our point to public mobile so that it either gets addressed or at least personally addressed to each customer that decides to complain to public mobile.

 

Of course if public mobile chooses not to address the issue then you do complain to the ccts but it's important to remember they do not accept group complaints despite the wording of their procedural code.

 

However the documentation and a PDF group complaint that you can add to your individual complaint is fairly easily achieved so while each complaint is individual it contains the same comparative data testing info.

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

@darlicious 

I forgot to mention that I have been with Public for some years now. 2017. It started out quite adequate - surprisingly adequate. It has really become unusable. I often just give up after clicking and I don't even wait.

 

I have come to expect issues with services like these for up to months at a time. I wait patiently. This is not getting better after waiting months. Years even?

 

How do I quickly measure and document good versus bad network performance in this situation? 

 

I would hope that simply pointing management to posts like these could lead to them finding a problem or realizing the service doesn't fill the needs of typical light to normal usage. I am not trying to do anything large.

 

I also recognize that some companies may not be responsive without a hard push.

 

Frankly, this might be the type of situation where I vote with my dollars and simply take my business elsewhere.

 

I hope this post can lead to a resolution rather than me leaving. But be warned public mobile - I won't hesitate to leave. I have typically been happier just leaving the crap behind. There are other choices out there.

 

I am the type of person who would be willing to band together and document issues - But, really life is short - I do too much of the documenting and detailing as it is.

Count me in on the group complaint if it comes to that.

 

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@dgleba 

I agree that there may be lack of bandwidth with 4G LTE and even though the 4G LTE service is throttled to 3 Mbps well before Public Mobile consistently offered you 3mbps I have noticed more recently a definite drop in download speeds whereas it can vary between 1mbps and 3mbps with 3mbps speeds being the rarity. It makes me wonder if the deployment of 5G and it's current need to piggyback on the 4G LTE network is causing throttled service to slow down to unacceptable levels on a consistent basis.

 

This past week I was on a road trip so I could really judge download speeds because I was actually using mobile data for several days. While I didn't want to test the actual speeds because most of the accounts I was using only had 250 MB of plan data there were definite areas where data speed was slow. Rural areas we're fine but urban areas had some lag and I pretty much gave up through the mountains trying to post here on public mobile but could Google something and wait a little extra time for the answer. If I was trying to read an article or if I was the type of person to use Instagram for example it would be annoying for you to have to wait for the page to load.

 

Lol.... I'm also surprised that you were at McDonald's and you weren't using their free Wi-Fi?🤪🍔🍟🥤

 

Maybe it's time to band together and consider launching a CCTS complaint that our throttled 4G LTE service is not up to par?🤔

 

That of course would take many customers complaining and monitoring their data speeds over a fairly long period of time of at least 30 days and documenting data speeds on a daily basis to show that it's not just an anomaly but rather a widespread consistent problem.

 

The small print does advertise a disclaimer of providing up to 3mbps data speeds but the average customer expects that to be most of the time but not all of the time but certainly they don't expect data speeds to average 2mbps or less most of the time.

 

That in my mind would be not delivering on a promise of service and should be addressed with a credit of some sort for customers experiencing this issue on a consistent basis. Slower than expected data speeds from throttle service shouldn't be a push for customers to upgrade to unthrottled 4G LTE data plans that echoes in similarity the 30% rate hike on the $10 50/50 legacy plan that pushes customers to instead pay what is equal to a 50% rate hike by switching to the $15 plan with (ironically) throttled 4G LTE data from the possibility of having unthrottled 4G LTE data if the customer chooses to buy a data add-on for that legacy plan.

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I am using LTE

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

These issues are happening on both a pixel 5 and a pixel 3.

HI @dgleba  check your network type, is it 3G only? make sure you select 4G or LTE .  Your 3G speed plan allows you to use LTE network, too. maybe it is  the latency issue on 3G network. 

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

I have moved my sim over to another good phone that I have. It is a pixel 3. It has been recently reset. I'm experiencing similar issues on the pixel 3. 

Another person posted here that Snapchat may not work so well on public mobile. Okay, but should news audio not work? 

It almost seems like public mobile doesn't have enough bandwidth to do everyday things. 

Just now I was sitting outside by the McDonald's and I clicked on a news feed video. I think it was hosted on twitter. Eventually that played. Then I clicked on The view replies. It took nearly a minute to get to that page. These events are not uncommon on my public mobile service.

 

I don't encounter these issues on my work phone which has a bell service which undoubtedly doesn't have the public mobile throttling that is on the basic service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


@dgleba wrote:

This is happening when I'm sitting outside with good LTE signal in Stratford ontario. It also happens in ancaster and mississauga. I would say that it happens everywhere even with good signal.

 


HI @dgleba 

What make and model is your phone ?

dgleba
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

This is happening when I'm sitting outside with good LTE signal in Stratford ontario. It also happens in ancaster and mississauga. I would say that it happens everywhere even with good signal.

 

darlicious
Mayor / Maire

@dgleba 

Snapchat in particular needs at least 2mbps to work properly to switching so 3G only should improve your user experience since your throttled 4G LTE data is up to 3mbps but is often less as reported by others. In Snapchat use the data saver/travel mode setting to turn off background usage not needed to still view each video. Other apps will also have individual settings within the app to reduce data usage which will help prevent buffering.

esjliv
Mayor / Maire

@dgleba - you have been a community member for some time now. Have you been a Public Mobile customer this whole time also?

If so, are you only experiencing this all of a sudden? Then I would say it may be network related; hopefully it is something that fixes itself.

 

But, on a device level, you could try rebooting your phone, or toggling into/out of airplane mode, or performing a reset of the device's network settings, or removing then reinserting your sim card. Any of these may help fix finicky things you may be experiencing 'all of a sudden'.

 

If you try your sim into another compatible phone does the same thing happen?

hTideGnow
Mayor / Maire

HI @dgleba 

You see the same problem everywhere you go ?

 But this could be a problem on the server side instead of PM.

 

Can you confirm you are using LTE and not setting to 3G Only?

But you can also try it out with 3G Only.  But I don't think 3G Only would help.  While 3G only can download faster , 12 to 15 Mbps, it also has a bigger latency

 

 

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