Some variation in speed is normal, depends on your Internet provider. Residential ISPs oversubscribe their available bandwidth over 20 times (they sell the same bandwidth to more than one person). That is why they advertise speeds of "up to XX Mbits". This usually manifests itself by slowdowns in peak times, when people come back from work and start streaming video content.
The only thing you can do is verify whether this is occurring, or is it something with your own connection to your provider. If it is your own connection, it would be at random times, not at peak hours, and the signal levels on your modem may be off. You can check out the signal levels usually via a web interface, most modern modems show some type of status page.
I hope this helps.
Bookmarks