Sky Connection Speeds.....

Hi

I've finally taken the financial saving pill and moved my broadband and phone line from O2/BT to Sky and am currently feeling a little disappointed by my decision!

Under O2 and before them Be I was regularly sync'g at 12-13mbps down and 1mbps up and seeing download speeds of 11-12 at all times of the day.
I foolishly never captured my line stats (Attenuation / SNR Margins) but never seemed to have the need.

I moved to Sky on 8th August and started on their default 4mbps down 0.6mbps up DLM profile. After 2 days of constant running the router was still showing the 4.0/0.6 sync and the 'My Sky' page said that line testing wasn't in progress. Concerned I would remain at that speed for ever I called CS and they immediately increased my download speed to 8mbps, but said the upload speed was as quick as it would get.

The router rebooted itself overnight on the 12th/13th and resync'd at 6mpbs
I checked the 'My Sky' page on Sat (13th) monrning at it stated that line testing had completed and I've got a 4mbps down, 0.5mbps upload speed!!

It looks like the 'My Sky' page is a little out of date and also doesn't relate to what the router is actually doing.

Can someone take a look at my connection stats below and advise what speeds I should be seeing on a standard sky connection?

Date Time Down Speed Down Att Down SNR Up Speed Up Att Up SNR
11-08-11 15:00 8187 35 8 606 19.7 16.5
12-08-11 13:50 8188 35 7.4 606 19.6 18.2
12-08-11 14:15 6851 35 7.1 606 19.9 17.3
12-08-11 20:40 6851 35 5.4 606 19.9 16.9
12-08-11 21:00 6851 35 5.1 606 19.9 17.1
12-08-11 22:20 6851 35 4.5 606 19.9 17.2
12-08-11 23:00 6851 35 4.3 606 19.9 17.2
12-08-11 23:20 6851 35 4.6 606 19.9 17.1
13-08-11 00:00 6851 35 4.2 606 19.9 17.2
13-08-11 08:12 6798 35.5 6.9 606 17.6 17.1
13-08-11 09:00 6798 35.5 6.8 606 17.6 16.6
13-08-11 11:38 6798 35.5 6.6 606 17.6 16.7
13-08-11 13:54 6798 35.5 6.6 606 17.6 16.7
13-08-11 16:56 6798 35.5 6.4 606 17.6 16.7
13-08-11 18:55 6798 35.5 6.2 606 17.6 16.7
13-08-11 20:35 8191 35 7.2 606 19.7 17.2
13-08-11 20:56 8191 35 7.1 606 19.7 17.2
13-08-11 22:10 8191 35 6.9 606 19.7 17.2
14-08-11 08:45 8191 35 8.3 606 19.7 17.8
14-08-11 08:49 8188 35 7.2 606 21.5 18

As you can see in the last two entries, I checked this morning and had a really good SNR on download so rebooted the router (pressed switch off - left 10 seconds - turned back on) and the line speed dropped, the download SNR dropped 1.1db and the upstream attenuation increased by 1.8db

I'm also wondering if when they migrated my service they damaged the cables in the exchange, as nothing has happened in my wiring, but the attenuation (particularly on the upstream) changes quite considerably.

Any thoughts?

Looks like you have a noise problem, are your stats from the test socket behind the master - ie nothing else connected to the phone line?

What router you using?

Your links don't work for me.

Hi Batboy

I'm plugged straight into the test socket - filter from Bethere still being used - just got the Sky router (D-Link 2640S) plugged in - even the phone is disconnected (lovely and quiet now!!).

Just checked links as well - need to update my signature!!

Very hard without stats, either from BE or sky

But I would guess they have you on good old ADSL - g.dmt, not ADSL2+

I know - annoying I can't find any previous stats other than up / down speeds anywhere!!!

I've just software rebooted the router and the stats have gone from

14-08-2011 10:12
Down Speed - 8188
Down Att - 35
Down SNR - 6.9
Up Speed - 606
Up Att - 21.5
Up SNR - 17.9

to

14-08-2011 10:15
Down Speed - 8187
Down Att - 35
Down SNR - 7.7
Up Speed - 606
Up Att - 18.6
Up SNR - 17.4

Speeds are definitely capped and I'll log another call with them. Ref the ADSL/g.dmt vs ADSL2+ is there any way to check?

I'm also concerned about the massive swings on SNR and upstream attenuation each time the router is rebooted. Do you have any knowledge of the D-Link 2640S and can advise on how the numbers are calculated?

In reply to a post by mattb75:

I'm also concerned about the massive swings on SNR and upstream attenuation each time the router is rebooted. Do you have any knowledge of the D-Link 2640S and can advise on how the numbers are calculated?

Might be worth running Routerstats Lite to see how the noise margin varies by time: http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm#routerst...

However there is a bug which means continuous logins to the DSL-2640S cause the router to crash after a day (well, mine does at least).

Edited by Oliver341 (Sun 14-Aug-11 10:37:38)

Hi Oliver

Thanks I'll give it a try - had downloaded that app previously but couldn't get it to connect. thought it was because I was on firmware 2.04, but just checked again and realised I'd got the wrong password in!!!

Have set it running now - will let you all know how it gets on.

Cheers

I will be interested to know how you get on. The crashing problem is quite annoying, the issue has been passed on to the product team but I'm not sure it will ever get fixed: http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Broadband-Setup-Cabl...

Less than 24 hours for me!

Left the system alone for the last 7 hours and just tried browsing the app store from my ipod touch and couldn't get any connection. All the local lan communications were working fine, but when I logged into the PC running the stats the application had errored out.

Router was still running, but my issue was that all DNS requests from inside the network were failing - I could ping external IP addresses but not the domain names.
Adding the google DNS server 8.8.8.8 to the iPod touch got me straight on. I rebooted the router and all is good again.

During the morning Sky support had increased the download line speed following my earlier complaints, so I'm now getting :-

10238 / 797 down / up
Attenuation is still 35 / 21.4
SNR is 7.3 / 16

compared with

8188 / 606
35 / 21.5
7.2 / 18

this morning. Routerstats-lite picked up the change they made around 12:04pm this afternoon.

Interestingly they also said they've set my max attainable to 11936 / 800 but cant drop lower because of their 7db SNR target.

I have asked them to remove the cap on the upload and let the line sync to the maximum achievable at 7db SNR as I think I'm still being capped there.

Also when I rebooted the line sync'd down it sync'd at exactly the same speed again - I think they are still capping it.......

I think you need to ask for the Gaming profile.

Looks like you're on ADSL2+ now

Edited by deleted (Sun 14-Aug-11 18:32:04)