What is wrong with my internet?

[parsnip]

My son has been having problems using discord voice chat and playing roblox on his PC since yesterday. The computer is new, I just got it last month and it was fine until yesterday. It appears to be an issue with our internet service. I did a speed test yesterday and our upload and download were around 50 mbps which is WAY lower than advertised by our provider, but the stability of the upload rate was terrible. It's better today but still not great. We contacted the ISP and they said everything looks fine as far as they can tell, but he's still having issues with roblox being too glitchy to play and his voice cutting out constantly on discord voice chat.

Please help me help my little sped, dear kiwis.

 

[jershs compensation beard]

If your internet is being provided by satellite a tree can grow too tall and fuck it up for everyone in the neighborhood. Used to happen to us before they layed fiber.
Other than that it could just be that he is playing at heavy traffic periods. Run a test to see if the connection is better when less people using the Internet provider will be home. Like middle of a work day.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

I'm sure it would help the tech autists around here if you included more info about your internet setup.

What type of internet do you have? Is your poor child's computer hooked up to wifi or ethernet? If it's wifi, have you tried ethernet?

Also a lot of times advertised speed and actual in-practice speed are very different, that's normal. 50mbps is fairly fast for casual use.

 

[parsnip]

It's fibre internet and we tried both Wi-Fi and Ethernet with the same results. I'm wondering if it's because we're in a condo and a lot of people are subscribed to the same ISP in our building?

 

[jershs compensation beard]

It's fibre internet and we tried both Wi-Fi and Ethernet with the same results. I'm wondering if it's because we're in a condo and a lot of people are subscribed to the same ISP in our building?

That might be it, instead of each individual tenant having their own line, I can see the bandwidth being shared across large groups of tenants. Probably cheaper for the Front Office and less hassle for the ISP techs

 

[parsnip]

That might be it, instead of each individual tenant having their own line, I can see the bandwidth being shared across large groups of tenants. Probably cheaper for the Front Office and less hassle for the ISP techs

Yeah they had a big promotion when they installed it to get as many of us signed up as they could. My husband is a sucker for a discount. Thank you for your help!

 

[eatler]

@parsnip get less terrible Internet, we need you shitposting on the front lines if we’re keeping Q&A as a territory!

 

[Fascist Frederick]

You could always try the classic move of restarting your router.

 

[I'm Really Feeling It]

It does sound like a congested bandwidth issue. Online games and Discord voice are quite latency-sensitive so they take no time to break when the bandwidth is too full.

 

[RougeRed]

which is WAY lower than advertised by our provider

Almost every ISP says they are providing "up to" the advertised speeds. The numbers they advertise are pretty much meaningless. I'm not saying there isn't an issue, but don't use the advertised rate as an indicator. The result you got from the speed test would only be useful if you knew what it was before you were having issues.

 

[parsnip]

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[BirdUp]

your son is being groomed on discord

 

[Rain Team Pepe]

A lot of routers allow you to prioritize traffic types and devices over others.
You could give it the good old college try to prioritize roblox.

your son is being groomed on discord

There's no good reason for a child (or adult) to use Discord.