Do tangled cables slow down the Internet?

happygeek 0 542 Views

Virgin Media has released the results of research carried out into just how much the British actually understand the Internet, and those results show that on the whole the nation is pretty much baffled by broadband. The study, which quizzed more than 3000 internet users, discovered that broadband jargon confuses many and the rest are just as puzzled by security issues and Internet speeds.

Of course, and can call me cynical if you like, but the fact that this research has been published alongside an announcement that Virgin Media is to start opening a number of broadband schools, initially targeting those cities which showed least Internet knowledge in the survey, does undermine the credibility of it all a tad.

Sure, we have Virgin boss and well known British billionaire Richard Branson admitting that "I've never been terribly technical and I'm not at all ashamed to say that I'm probably a prime candidate for a Broadband School" but this is quickly followed by a media friendly marketing comment of "At Virgin Media we want everyone to feel comfortable asking questions, no matter how silly they think they are, so that they can get the most out of their internet service and enjoy everything the internet has to offer."

Still, with the Brits getting super fast broadband trials we thought it was interesting enough to report the results anyway. Especially as towards the end of last year, another survey also seemed to suggest that the British were baffled by broadband.

  • 53 percent thought you need a phone line to get broadband
  • 51 per cent do not know how fast their internet package is
  • 40 per cent did not know what ADSL was
  • 40 per cent of web users do not know what an Internet browser is
  • 30 per cent do not know how to tell if a website is secure
  • 18 per cent were not aware what broadband actually is
  • 14 per cent think that tangled cables can slow Internet speed
  • 13 percent don't know what a blog is
  • 12 percent don't know what a mailbox is
  • 7 per cent believed 'Blu-ray' was a type of broadband

Dani AI

Generated

Short answer for 's thread: tangled cables by themselves almost never reduce the ISP‑advertised speed. The common belief that a messy bundle of wires will slow packets is a misconception. Bandwidth and latency are set by the physical medium and the network equipment (ISP modem, router, switch, NIC) and by congestion — not by whether cables are looped or twisted together on the floor.

Why that is so, and when tangling can matter: digital Ethernet uses differential signalling on twisted pairs, which is designed to reject interference; simply looping or twisting the whole cable bundle does not change the internal twists or the protocol rate. Actual causes of copper‑link slowdown are physical damage, broken/crushed conductors, excessive untwisting at terminations, runs longer than the 100 m Ethernet limit, severely bad connectors, or high external EMI (power runs running alongside data cables). Coax and fibre are different: tight kinks or bends in coax or, especially, in optical fibre can introduce attenuation or reflections and will cause real packet loss and speed drops.

Practical checks and quick troubleshooting:

  • Inspect for kinks, crushed jacket, or very tight bends; reseat or replace suspect patch leads.
  • Check link speed/duplex and error counters (Linux example, adapt interface name as needed):
ethtool eth0
ip -s link show dev eth0

# test throughput with iperf3 (server on one machine, client on the other)
iperf3 -s
iperf3 -c 192.168.1.10 -P 4 -t 10
  • On Windows use PowerShell: Get-NetAdapter | Format-Table Name, Status, LinkSpeed.
  • Swap the cable for a known good one and test directly to the modem to rule out Wi‑Fi or router issues.

Bottom line: tidy cable management is good practice (easier troubleshooting, less chance of physical damage), but a tangled bundle is cosmetic in most home/office setups — only physical damage, bend‑radius violations (especially for fibre), very poor terminations, or severe EMI will measurably reduce throughput.

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