Broadband Speed dropping

I have been having problems with my Broadband connection with (Surprise,surprise!) TalkTalk.
In January I was getting a, for them, breakneck download speed of 1.96Mbps.
Since then my IP address keeps being changed and almost every time the download speed has dropped.
Today it had got to 1.0Mbps and I finally decided to call their Customer Service to report the fault. A very brave thing to do!
To cut a long story short they informed me that my line could only handle a speed of 1.2Mbps and, since 1.0Mbps was only 20% less than that speed there is no fault. When they then asked me to hold on, I said I would as long as the fault was going to be fixed.
At that the line went dead and my blood pressure rose!
I have tried to discover why my IP addres keeps changing and why this should affect the download speeds but "answer came there none".
As far as I can discover all Broadband suppliers have an Overseas Call Centre where all queries are responded to by using a checklist of questions without any knowlege of IT.
Any easy answer would be welcome but I do find that a lot of your Forum responders talk in a technical language which I do not understand.

If you can get us the statistics from the router that would be great.

If you need help doing this let us know which router you have.

IP Address changing is a side effect of the ADSL disconnecting and reconnecting and the dynamic nature of the IP addresses on TalkTalk

What is the model of router you have from TalkTalk, we can then guide you to a page with some router statistics on it, and then if you paste them into a post we can advise more about the stability of the ADSL line.

The suggestion currently is probably that the ADSL is unstable, and a good chance that would be the same no matter which provider you are with.

I am using a Belkin Router, not a TalkTalk one.
The model is a Belkin F7D11401v1.
It is connected by cable to my PC.
Am I to suppose that the ADSL line problem is not fixable or needs a Broadband Engineer to be sent by TalkTalk? They do not like to pay for that service!

There is a good possibility the issue is with your wiring in the home, which you or any competent telephone engineer would be able to fix

Will go find out where the router stats are hidden first

Start by showing us your current line statistics.

start/run/ cmd should open a black screen on your monitor. Type ipconfig in this box, and hit enter. The results shown will include 'default gateway' which will show the IP address of the router 192.168.1.1 for instance.

Type this in your browser and it should open the web based interface for the router ...

Belkin F7D11401v1 does not show up on Belkin webpages, other than three Italian pages.

But there is a F7D1401_v1

In your web browser type http://router into the URL address bar
If that does not work try http://192.168.2.1

And then you need to goto

http://router/status.stm
http://192.168.2.1/status.stm

I think, cannot be sure as there is very little useful documentation that I could find on the router.

In reply to a post by scottie4642:

As far as I can discover all Broadband suppliers have an Overseas Call Centre where all queries are responded to by using a checklist of questions without any knowlege of IT.

Actually no. But it comes down to cost. Everyone wants a cheap service and the only way to keep costs down is to use centres of cheap labour for call centres.

Choose your ISP and pay a little more and you will find much better customer service.

Try from the Belkins here: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php#3

what does the Talk Talk speedtester say ?

http://myaccount.talktalk.co.uk/speed-checker/check

the result at http://myaccount.talktalk.co.uk/speed-checker/check/... shows a speed at the router which is the sync speed to the exchange, then the speed at your PC which is a speed test result. How do they compare.