massive speed loss and illogical test results

I am baffled! My download speed dropped from 2 meg/sec to 690 kbps a week ago, and has stuck there. A BT engineer checked the line today and his metering gave 2.7 meg/per sec on download. ( I am 3.5 km from the exchange) He concluded the fault lies with my extension lead.. and promised that if I connect the Home Hub directly to the test socket I would get the same speed as him. Foolishly I let him out of the door before I tested his theory. (One hour later my Home Hub is now connected to the test socket and I am still getting 690 kbps.) I asked the engineer if possibly my profile is locked at the exchange, and his metering system is somehow bypassing the lock. He said that is nonsense...I should see an immediate speed jump to around 2.7 m/s on the test socket..but it hasn't happened. He said the profiling will simply cause that to settle over the coming days to slightly less or more.

I tried my old Sagem modem to see if the issue is with the Hub. It also gives 690 kbps. I have no idea what to try next....any ideas or clarifications please! Why does the engineer get one result and I get a quite different one!

How are you measuring your speed and have you tried an alternative?

I am using BT Speedtest and http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

I also confirm the speed by doing a download using BT newsgroups.

And the IP Profile does not know if you are using the test socket or 200m of extensions, so will not magically change.

You need to look at the actual line connection information from the Home Hub rather than testing actual throughput to see if the test socket makes a difference

Interestimg..the engineer insisted I would see an instant leap in speed to around 2.5 meg plus. He told me sees these sudden changes every day as he goes about fixing line faults. Yet this info on profiling says this is not the case. So who is correct?

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

Meanwhile I will read connection info on and off the extension and post the results..The added difficulty is that I can't find a wifi card for my desktop computer that will work with the home hub reliably...I'm onto my third brand and they all break connection constantly. At the moment I can't get a connection at all to test. Can anyone can suggest a brand that will deliver?

The engineer suggested I should buy a 20 metre ethernet cable instead and run that from the Hub to the computer, rather than an extension lead.

Will post results as soon as I have a working method

thanks

Got the wifi card working this morning. Here are the readings off the test socket. They roughly match those the engineer got. Profile is still locked at 750 kbps.

Will post readings off extension shortly.

Uptime: 0 days, 0:21:29

Modulation: G.992.1 annex A

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,432

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 1.93 / 6.54

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 17.5

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 56.0

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 22.0 / 15.0

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 3 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 3 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 300

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 4

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 3

Line Profile: Interleaved

Engineer will have been referring to Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 2,432

The profile behaves as everyone here suggests not how the engineer suggests

My IP profile just jumped to 1500 kps on the test socket..so things are looking up.

I have not had a problem getting any WiFi cards to work with the BT Home Hub so you may want to look for EMI or just distance causing your problem..