PlayStation®Network Technical Help

[Black-Spore]

Hope someone will be able to answer this, for the past 2 weeks, any downloads done from PSN have been very slow, to the point where it took 3+hours to download 30mb, however browsing the store is fast.

Is this a issue with my ISP or region? have tried using alternate connection methods such as connecting my PS3 via my mobile phone, just to check if the speed would increase and it did! my mobile phone is able to download much faster but of course i can't download gigs of data with it as this would be extremely costly.

BTW, downloads from all other sites are normal, only PSN downloads are crazy slow.

if anyone can provide some insight to this it would be greatly appreciated.

Also i'm in South Africa (if that could help)

[Willium_Bob_Cole]

I've only ever had slow downloads on PSN. Sometimes EXTREMELY SLOW, other times, just really really slow. I use wireless internet for my PS3, but it shouldn't take, as you say and I know from experience, MORE THAN ONE HOUR (usually more than multiple hours) to download a SMALL update, of 30MB or 120MB or whatever it is at the time, I usually only ever download game and demos that I can download in the background, and just leave my PS3 on for days at a time, and refrain from downloading updates unless I specifically need to be online or need that update. Again, yes I use wireless, but it should NOT be THAT slow!!

[Black-Spore]

Well i tested it again tonight and boom i was downloading at full speed again! ... its just so strange, 1 week really bad, the next full...

and i also used wireless, my speeds was better than the land line, which to be was really odd... but glad things are back to normal.

[strangeplaice]

Occasionally maintenance on the network that doesn't result in downtime, or heightened traffic (eg, when a new COD map comes out) will result in the network slowing down. At times even things like a very popular game or recently the 10 free PS+ games cause things to slow up.

It's unavoidable bottlenecking that all networks suffer from. But if none of that is happening at the time switching to wired should help. If wireless is faster then that'd suggest there's possibly a problem with your network, or that your ethernet cable is faulty.

[Willium_Bob_Cole]

I just cant afford a new ethernet cable at this moment, and wireless should still never be this fast, there is next to no interference between the connections, other devices happily stream HD movies, I only ever get slow as hell speeds on PSN, it's pretty unforgivable, and to say it is 'occasional maintenance' or 'bottlenecking' is a pretty cop out excuse in my opinion, steam manages to handle big releases of full titles worldwide, many gigabytes in size, and I manage a respectable 1.5 MB/s of my usual 1.7MB/s. PSN of course can't show you what speed it is actually downloading any files, you just kind of have to judge for yourslf based on the progress bar, but HOURS for BASIC updates is unforgivable! I love the console don't get me wrong, but the console market is dated and needs to take a leaf from the pc gaming industry, in the same way that printed media needs to take a leaf out of online media's book to not fall behind the times.

[strangeplaice]

Hang on. Did you say your network speed it 1.5Mbps? That's below the minimum for optimal Networking performance and well below the minimum for PSN which is roughly 2-2.2MBps. Anything below that and choppy poor quality gaming is really to be expected no matter what you play on.

You can get a new Ethernet cable for around 25p.

[gymno74]

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strangeplaice wrote:
Hang on. Did you say your network speed it 1.5Mbps? That's below the minimum for optimal Networking performance and well below the minimum for PSN which is roughly 2-2.2MBps. Anything below that and choppy poor quality gaming is really to be expected no matter what you play on.

You can get a new Ethernet cable for around 25p.

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he's downloading at 1.5MBps not 1.5Mbps.

that's equates to a connection of approx 12-13Mb

i also wouldn't buy an ethernet cable for 25p.

ideally you want atleast cat5 or preferably shielded cat5e

[strangeplaice]

You can purchase branded Cat 5 cables for almost any price. The 25p I stated was simply so people searching don't go out buying the £70 variants that are exactly the same. They take seconds to make and cost almost nothing to produce so really any old one will do as long as its Category 5 (Ethernet).

Are you sure? I'm going to wait for confirmation as people use Mb and MB ambiguously even though they're different quantities.

[Willium_Bob_Cole]

I specifically used MB/s as opposed to Mbps, I understand that many people are confused by this but I am most certainly not, I just find it distrustful and mislead on the part of ISPs who offer, in my case, UPTO 20 Mbps, and then lesser educated people are confused when their download seem to only be 2MB/s or so, when it is in fact the same figure. I know ethernet cables are cheap and would never be ripped off by a cable store, but I am seriously poor at this moment lol, food has to take priority I'm afraid.

[ElectricZooRocks]

Well, here are one of many reasons: It possibly means you have too much data on your ps3, and we all know the more data, the slower. I myself have proof that this could be the situation. I once had many many video games installed into my Playstation 3, I then tried to download a game (Saints Row: The Third) onto my Playstation 3. After about 30 min of trying to figure out what my 13 year old brain can think of, i then thought that it might be all of the data. I than deleted everything i don't use (more than half of my ps3 data, including pictures, games, music, movies, videos, ANYTHING that can take up space in your Playstation 3) and it was not too much faster, but faster then before. If this is not the situation, all I can say is that you have bad internet service/connection, or Psn is just being a butt. Also, many people have problems because they have the older versions of the Playstation 3. I hope this helps.