Help Please - Slow speed

Please can anyone help?

My neighbour recently switched from O2 broadband to Sky to take advantage of a package deal. Whilst with O2 his speeds were about 4M down and 0.9M up which are similar to mine (I�m still with O2).

After his change over his speed were broadly the same as his previous service with O2. Over the last week or so he has complained of slow speeds and has spent hours on the phone to Sky without them doing anything or telling him what his problem is. This morning I went to his house and after disconnecting all of his phones and filters etc I obtained the following router stats, which are similar to mine except his SN Margin is 16.0 / 10.8 whereas mine are 7.0 / 5.5 (whatever this means)

Should he be getting better speeds and does anyone know how he / we can achieve them?

Many thanks

Phil

Router Status
System Details
Manufacturer Sagemcom
Model Number F@ST2504n
Firmware Version 5.23.1a4N
ADSL Firmware Version A2pD030n.d23b

Modem Modem Status Connected
DownStream Connection Speed 511 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 414 kbps
VPI 0
VCI 38
Network Type PPPoA

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 511 kbps 414 kbps
Line Attenuation 56.0 dB 34.7 dB
Noise Margin 10.9 dB 16.0 dB

Edited by whitcop (Sat 24-Nov-12 14:40:50)

Are they on Connect (borders useless) product, what does your exchange say here http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

How long have they been with Sky and the result is this from the master/test socket.

Ps What does their Sky account online state regards to configured speed. Sign in- Go to my sky- right of page you will see my package below my account - hit the broadband- then hit the connection detail and broadband.

Edited by NilSatisOptimum (Sat 24-Nov-12 13:53:17)

Hi NilSatisOptimum thanks for the reply. Sorry I don�t know what �Connect� is. The exchange is Ebbw Vale. Most of the phone wiring in the bungalow was installed about 30 years ago and the wiring from each socket (six of them) goes up into the attic where the dropwire also enters. I guess there is a junction box up there somewhere under the insulation felt. There is no master socket. Thinking about what my neighbour said, he disconnected all the filters and phones when talking to sky but he has always used the same filter feeding the router. I wonder if that�s the problem? Will have to nip around later and try swapping them.

He changed from O2 to Sky about 2 to 3 months ago.

Phil

Remove the IP and MAC addys from your post. They may ID your neighbour.

The Sky DLM tends to cap people at a slightly slower speed than other providers, with careful and kind coaxing of support you can usually get things like the cap removed or at least improved.

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc/calculator.php will give you an estimate of what speed should be possible

Thanks for the info. Most calculators suggest a speed of approx 3.5 � 4 MB the same that I get next door. Sky seem reluctant to pass a possible fault onto BT until he can split the internal wiring from the external so I think he�s stuck with it until we can get someone to go in the attic, find all the cables and boxes and divert the incoming lines to an NTE or filtered NTE.

As I originally said after the installation it was fine and he had no problems with his Sky on Demand etc but now that�s unusable.



Phil

Willing to bet no fault, just the Sky systems favour stability over speed, so its the Sky systems slowing the speed down. The DLM caps speeds which means the SNR margin is not always a good guide to if there is or is not an issue

When I went from 1mb to 2mb with a different ISP, my line couldnt handle it, so my new ISP called BT to come have a look, he fitted the new NTE faceplate, which is a FREE sevice, maybe that route should be looked at, cos it fixed my prob?

Based on the stats I don't it is that in this case. The speeds look too like sky capped figures

Thanks for your continued opinions and thoughts on my neighbours problem. Last night he rang Sky up and basically said if you can�t improve it I will cancel everything (a few months back he changed to them and took out Sky Phone, Sky Broadband and a new Sky HD box). They did some tests and claim to have found a fault in the exchange and reset and restarted all of their equipment. When I tested it this morning there is some improvement (Up 2.7Mb and Down 0.2Mb) but still not great compared to what he used to get with O2 (I tested mine this morning 4.2Mb / 0.9Mb and we live next door to each other).
Here are today�s router stats �

System Up Time: 15:08:54
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 213228 329121 0 553 2804 15:07:51
LAN Up 202639 129367 0 5385 1186 15:08:54
WLAN Up 267903 159979 0 364 0 15:08:33

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 3072 kbps 256 kbps
Line Attenuation 52.5 dB 31.0 dB
Noise Margin 16.6 dB 16.0 dB

I still think the S/N margin is high and could be reduced to get an increase in speed.

I noted garbageguy comments about contacting Openreach. I�m not sure what they will do free. As I said his dropwire goes into the attic and so do all the internal cables. I�ve spoken to an Openreach field engineer and he says under the new Health and Safety rules they are not allowed to work in attics (it has over 10 inches of insulation in it) unless they are boarded so what he would do is cut the dropwire on the outside of the building where it now goes into the attic, put a block on it and run a cable from the block down the outside of the building to a bedroom or hallway for the new access point. They would fit the NTE at this location. I or my neighbour would have to rewire internally back to this point.

Many thanks I will let you know how we get on.

Phil