100kbit speed - job on line - help!

Have just had ADSL enabled on two business lines (using Nildram on Tiscali LLU) to a fairly remote site some 6km from the exchange. The sales guy happily quoted 'ooh about 2 Meg' but the reality is more like 100kbit on either line. Theres no extra internal extensions or wiring, new routers and filters etc (and have also tried known good routers working at 4Mbit elsewhere on a 4km line).

Nildrams tech support said the lines had been provisioned as ADSL2+ lines, which at 6km "were never going to work" - he has suggested (and i have now ordered) regrades to ADSL Max products. Anyone have any view on whether this will change speeds?

Attenuation was initially c 90dB, but when he tried different profiles he got this down to 60dB, but still with an achievable line rate of about 100kbits.

If its not working in 10 days (for a fixed deadline) I will be added to the jobless queue - quite literally, so any help much appreciated.

"Attenuation was initially c 90dB, but when he tried different profiles he got this down to 60dB, but still with an achievable line rate of about 100kbits."

That statement rings alarm bells, profiles CANNOT change the attenuation, apart from perhaps the difference in attenuation between ADSL and ADSL2+.

ADSL2+ supports ADSL, and you can force it to connect at only ADSL speeds by telling your modem to only use ADSL mode, or ADSL2 mode.

ADSL2+ should work on 6km lines, but for stability switching it to an ADSL only profile may be better.

Do you know how to get the line connection rate, attenuation and noise margin from your hardware? ALso have you tested the speeds at the test socket inside the master socket, as telephone extension wiring in your property can adversly reduce the speeds, ISP should have made you check this before changing any product.

I did wonder from basic electronics (many years ago) how attenuation could change, but i did watch my router lose and then gain sync as ISP changed profiles (or what he desribed as profiles) his end - and the attenuation figure on my router stats page change from 90ish to 60ish.

The only socket is a BT master, but old enough to not have the test socket facility. There is no other internal wiring beyond this socket. Line connection rates were (I recall) maybe 10-20% higher than the data rate - certainly not lots more, and noise margin was high single figures - 7 to 9 maybe. The system is about 20 miles from home (in business premises) so I cant check immediately.

The attenuation figures I gave were off the routers stats page, and confirmed by nildram the other end - i assume he could measure the line via the LLU equipment somehow.

I guess then you are saying 100kbit on a 6km line is a) no what you should expect and b) not going to be improved by a switch to adsl max bt service from a LLU adsl 2+ ?

In reply to a post by warwickwater:

I guess then you are saying 100kbit on a 6km line is a) no what you should expect and b) not going to be improved by a switch to adsl max bt service from a LLU adsl 2+ ?

You're lucky to get anything on a 6km line but ADSL2+ will always out-perform ADSL Max (except when supplied by Tiscali )

ADSL2+ usually has an attenuation 3dB greater than ADSL, due to using higher frequencies, for very long lines this may be more pronounced, without ADSL2+ and a lot of cable to play with can't confirm anything.

60dB attenuation and ADSL should still manage 1 to 2Mbps connection rate and if you are not then something is wrong. What line rates are you seeing? 100Kbps at 60dB attenuation and 7 to 9dB noise margin is poor and an ISP should realise this

TIscali LLU is a bit of a mystery as it is less documented than BT Wholesale.

It may improve with a switch to the ADSL Max service, particularly if the Tiscali product is not setup to cope well with longer lines.

In reply to a post by warwickwater:

Have just had ADSL enabled ... some 6km from the exchange. The sales guy happily quoted 'ooh about 2 Meg' but the reality is more like 100kbit on either line.
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If its not working in 10 days (for a fixed deadline) I will be added to the jobless queue - quite literally, so any help much appreciated.

So why is your job on the line? Do they expect you to be able to repeal the laws of physics?

With a ten day deadline the only advice I can give is that you start researching how to claim for unfair dismissal and looking for a new job (all from home obviously) as unless by some miracle a 3G dongle works there you are toast because it's almost certainly too late to get a satellite deal set up, certainly too late to get fibre and it sounds like semaphore will outperform adsl.

Broadband in the UK if spending sensible amounts of money is a best efforts it may or may not work service.

I would add that trying different hardware on the end of the line can make a big difference, Speedtouch 585v6 is often good for long lines, and can make some people jump from 256Kbps to 1Mbps.

My worry here is that we do not know for sure what the line rate is, i.e. the 100K may be referring to a speed test which could be low due to a line profiling period with Tiscali LLU.

As this is business and its crucial then an expedited new line activation may give better results, but need to find a voice provider who understands the idea of expedited orders, i.e. you pay more but things happen faster. Another option is to get a BT engineer to attend and give the existing socket a once over, and fit the more normal NTE5

satellite - too expensive for short event.
3g - no covergae
laws of physics? - the post was really aimed at seeing if this was simply physics, or a combination of problems introduced by either me or the ISP!

In reply to a post by warwickwater:

laws of physics? - the post was really aimed at seeing if this was simply physics, or a combination of problems introduced by either me or the ISP!

Yes, that's what we're all thinking. How about lots more information?
Make of router.
Actual stats page from the router.
Postcode of Property.
Exchange name.

In reply to a post by warwickwater:

Nildrams tech support said the lines had been provisioned as ADSL2+ lines, which at 6km "were never going to work" - he has suggested (and i have now ordered) regrades to ADSL Max products. Anyone have any view on whether this will change speeds?

Hi, it can improve performance on a very long line, if you can match the router chipset with
the exchange DSLAM chipset http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/showthreaded.php?Bo...

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/equip.htm

Useful info http://www.hmmm.ip3.co.uk/adslmax/index.shtml