Weird speed

Right now my broadband is running at around 100kbps, when it should be running far faster. I've checked the connection settings on the PN Member centre and it says "Your current broadband speed is 2000 Kbps". Ha! What the hell? Last time I checked last month it was "Your current broadband speed is 8000 Kbps".

My router stats say:

Connection Speed - Down: 160 kbps Up: 320 kbps
Line Attenuation - Down: 28 db Up: 6 db
Noise Margin - Down: 1 db Up: 6 db

So... what the hell?!

It looks like the snr has caused a number of re syncs. Are you able to run the BT Speedtest?. Anything in the router logs?.

Can't seem to get the BT Speedtester to work (as usual), and the rest of your post went straight over my head! Can you clarify it - i'm not too knowledgable on this sort of thing

Your OP stated, "Noise Margin - Down: 1 db Up: 6 db"

It's the down figure that's important. With such a low number, (e.g. mine is usually 9 during the day dropping to around 8 during the evening) your router would find it very difficult to maintain sync with your exchange.

The cause would suggest a problem between your equipment and the exchange. Can you use different filters, and if possible a different router. Also plug the router into the test socket behind the BT Master socket, then repost your stats.

I've no idea what that means

Could it be temporary? It only started a few hours ago. Actually I first noticed it when I reinstalled OS X on my laptop.

Matt,

It's nothing to do with your laptop. The figures you posted must have come from your router. Those figures indicate the state of the connection between your router and the Exchange.

Try the easy steps first, replace any filters and see if there is any improvement.

What is a filter and how do I replace it?

Courtesy of kitz

It does seem to be a problem between you and the exchange. You need to rule out any in house issues first.

In reply to:

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What is a filter and how do I replace it?

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I'm assuming you connect to the Internet via a router. Somewhere between your router and your telephone socket the router is connected to, is a little box.

http://www.adslnation.com/products/index.php
bottom left picture. That is a filter. You may have a spare, you may have to buy one or borrow one to eliminate the one your using as possibly faulty.

Ah yes (and cheers sadoldman, saves me replying twice!)

I'm hooked up directly to the socket and things look a bit different. My router is reporting a connection speed of 6592kbps down and 448kbps up. PN Member Centre still says 2000kbps. Noise margin is 4/5db down and 22db up.

Mybroadbandspeed.co.uk still reports around 127kbps download speed.

Hooking it back up to the filter in my room (actual BT socket is in the next room and an old wire+filter (from 2002) goes between the two displays a connection speed of 3776kbps down and 448kbps up. Noise margin is 10db down and 14db up.

This is awfully random. I've tried rebooting the router again and it now says connection speed is 4320kbps down and 448kbps up, and noise margin is 6db down and 16db up.

I've never had a problem with my router until this afternoon. It hadn't been moved, banged, disturbed, switched off, or anything until I reinstalled OS X on my laptop and hooked my laptop up to it via a whateveryoucallit cable.

Ooh bit more waffle here... the only other thing hooked up to the BT socket on the wall is an extension cable for the Sky+, because it seems it needs to be plugged into a phone line at all times. Anyway I just unplugged it and my stats shot up to 8192kbps down and 448kbps up, with line noise at 11db down and 28db up. Mybroadbandspeed.co.uk still says about 130kbps, and PN Member centre still says 2000kbps. I've tried plugging the Sky+ stuff back in and the stats remain the same as when it was unplugged.

Like I said, awfully random! Does any of that mean anything?

edit - i've rebooted the router several times now and it's displaying solid 8192/448 connection speeds and line noise margin of 13db/28db. Speedtests still around the 130kbps mark

Edited by fetler (Tue 01-Jan-08 19:34:14)

Ok, first thing. Does your Sky box go thru a filter too. It needs to if it doesn't, If it is, then some investigation into the cabling needed to find out why it has such a drastic effect on your SNR.

Next you need to get your sync speed as close to 8192 as possible and then call PN and ask them to retrain your profile which will lift your 2000 BRAS profile up towards your sync speed. Then you will get circa 7meg rather than two..

The Sky+ box goes directly to the BT socket on the wall of the other room. I don't know what it's called that's attached to the front of the BT socket, but it's got two little sockets, one for the cable that has the filter on the other end that my router is plugged in to, and the other is for the cable that goes to a small little finger-length adaptor that then hooks up to the Sky+ box. This is the way it's been since July and i've not had a problem like this, nothing at all like this.

I'm syncing at 8292 steadily now. Will phoning them up give me better than 130kbps download speeds?

edit - maybe a bit of a daft idea, but could it be that the exchange became overloaded? New Years Day has to have some of the highest traffic of the year what with everyone being home, nothing to do, no shops open etc, and throw into that i've read my exchange (Chorley) has suffered from being too full... i.e. there was a time earlier in the year around summer that they weren't accepting any new people because it was full.

Edited by fetler (Tue 01-Jan-08 20:08:15)

In reply to:

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Will phoning them up give me better than 130kbps download speeds?

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No. The problem isn't with Plusnet, and niether is the remedy.

If you type your details into the BT Speedtester, even if it doesn't run it will say "Your IP Profile for this test is ****" What is the figure at present?.

It seems the 'system' is perpetually busy. When it's not it just says some crapp about the IP and my phone number.

Is it always this useless? I'm on a BT line.

I recently sorted a friends Sky+ box connection. The Sky Engineer decided to connect the sky box directly to a two way phone adapter, plug the adapter into the phone socket and plug the ADSL Filter into the spare adapter socket.

Hazaa results!

The speed test has completed on test server speedtester1.nat.bt.com for user *********** and you have downloaded a 1.7Mb file at a speed of

97 kilo bits per second (Kbps), your service bandwidth will have been quoted to you in kilo bits per second.

Your IP address is ************, your browser is reported as being Mozilla 5.0 and is running on Macintosh PPC Mac OS X.

BT would regard the speed ranges shown below as normal service:

For 250kbps End Users speeds between 50 - 250kbps.
For 500kbps End Users speeds between 100 - 500kbps.
For 1000kbps End Users speeds between 200 - 1000kbps.
For 2000kbps End Users speeds between 400 - 2000kbps.

You may now disconnect from the speed test account (click 'disconnect' in your internet connection window) and if you wish to regain normal access to the internet please re-connect to your ISP using your usual username and password.

Please note that test results may vary according to varying traffic in the network. If you continue to experience slower throughput when logged in to your ISP, this may be due to a slow internet site or high traffic levels beyond the BT Wholesale Network. Please report this situation to your ISP's helpdesk.



That help?

edit - i've just had a look at the Nildram exchange checker (found it in Google) and it says "Congestion status on this exchange is RED", and that it was supposed to have been upgraded weeks ago.

Edited by fetler (Tue 01-Jan-08 20:53:43)

I've tried it a few times tonight and got the busy message as well
What happens is if, as I suspect, your router has lost connection to the exchange a few times the BT equipment at the exchange lowers whats called the IP Profile for your line. Basically this means it lowers your download speeds in an effort to stabilise your connection.

Providing your connection is stable for anything from 3 to ten days, the BT gear will raise the Profile in steps until it reaches the max 7150mbps, or the max your line can cope with. This number is totally different to your router sync speed of 8128 so don't confuse the two.

I would suspect that the figure you are seing on the PN site is your current IP Profile as supplied to Plusnet by BT. Plusnet have no control over the time it takes to recover. However it may be worth raising a ticket to make PN aware of the problem.

Cheers, i'll see how it's doing tomorrow just in case by some fluke it fixes itself. I'm mighty annoyed though because i've hundreds of megs of updates to do on my Mac.

Did you use http://test.speedtester.bt.com:50301/

It should give a result like this;

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 6704 kbps

TEST ERROR
The IP address discovered on the network associated with your telephone number:***********

Whatever that means. Why is it whenever I use this speedchecker it's always broken?

That's a standard "busy" message. If I was you I would still raise a ticket with PN.

How long have you had Sky for?

Since July 2007, and there hasn't been a single problem with it.

It will be interesting to see PN's response if you raise a ticket.
My speed has collapsed from 3M to anything between 150K and 900K over the last couple of weeks.
My ticket has been closed by PN without any explanation or resolution.

In reply to:

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i've rebooted the router several times now and it's displaying solid 8192/448 connection speeds and line noise margin of 13db/28db. Speedtests still around the 130kbps mark

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That looks promising, unfortunately it will take 3-5 days syncing at a higher speed for the IP Profile to increase again, until this you won't see any higher speeds.
As has been said in other replies, the BT Speedtester(when it works!) will give you the current IP Profile so you should be able to see for yourself when this goes back up.

If you want to PM me your username or a ticket number from your account I'll check things from this side to make sure there isn't an issue here.

He's recently synced at 160 kbps (see above post) which is the lowest available sync speed. Therefore theres a pretty good chance that his IP profile is going to be 135 (or was at one point).

Hes going to be able to maintain the current sync for a while (can be anything up to 5 days) before he gets the full IP profile back thats equivalent to the current sync speed.

Right now theres not much the ISP can do about this until your IP profile starts to rise.


Info how it works - IP Profile

Cheers for the info and your link, your site is rather priceless

Regarding the BT Speedtester, it's DRIVING ME INSANE. I've tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried x 100 times and I keep getting the same error that my IP address isn't the same one registered with my phone number or something.

Is it quite possibly the most incompetent tool on the internet? Everyone else seems to get it to work. I have Caller Number Identification turned on, i'm not running any fancy software to change my IP address or owt like that, and i've tried it on a PC with IE and Firefox, and on a Mac with Safari.

I'm not on any sort of LLU, and i'm going to smash something if I can't get it to work!!!