and can presume that we are paying for 10Mb/s, can i assume that when this slows to 1.4Mb/s (seemingly randomly), the problem is not with the wires in my house?
It's not your wires, it's a thing called contention. You might be able to get 10MB to the exchange, but there are 100* other people sharing a 100MB* connection to the backbone. If everybody uses it at once, your speed drops by 90%
*Actual numbers will vary according to your ISP and service plan, these are just for illustration.
It's not your wires, it's a thing called contention. You might be able to get 10MB to the exchange, but there are 100* other people sharing a 100MB* connection to the backbone. If everybody uses it at once, your speed drops by 90%
*Actual numbers will vary according to your ISP and service plan, these are just for illustration.