Poor Broadband in the Countryside

I have recently moved deep into the countryside of south west Wales. It might be beautiful but my broadband speed and costs are appalling.

Because my nearest exchange is almost 6 km away, and has not been unbundled, I opted for BT Broadband option 2. That was last October. My speeds were bearable for the first 2 months at between 256kps to 385kps down speed. However, from Christmas the speeds have been gradually declining to under 101kps down speed.

BT engineers have been out twice and confirmed faults at the exchange and following their last visit my speeds went back up to 385kps for 2 weeks. Then the same thing happened with the speed gradually reducing till today its at 101kps again. Interestingly the upspeed has remained OK at 448kps.

Should I expect better speeds in the country?
Could I successfully argue to transfer to a better supplier even though I'm on an 18mth contract?
Anybody else had these terrible speeds living in the countryside?

I'm currently paying over £20 per months for a supposed 8Mb connection.

David

What you should expect all depends on the exact info from the ADSL modem.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.htm shows how to get the stats from a home hub, putting those into http://www.farina1.com/adsl will give you an idea of whether you can improve things.

Also paste them here and people will suggest things such as testing from the master socket test socket (which removes all your internal wiring). An extension can knock a meg off your speeds, and on longer lines this is a lot of speed.

Thanks for your reply Mr Saffron. below are the figures I obtained from my modem. Interestingly its just jumped back up to about 256kps after a call to BT helpdesk. However, I think its still terribly slow. Anyway anyone got any ideas?


ADSL line status
Connection information
Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 6:45:34
Downstream 352 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.1
Latency type Interleave
Noise margin (Down/Up) 6.4 dB / 12.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 61.0 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 14.0 dBm / 12.1 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local) 16
Loss of Signal (Local) 4
Loss of Power (Local) 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 941052 / 0
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 11584 / 2147480001
HEC Errors (Down/Up) 8332 / 1
Error Seconds (Local) 3

Have done any checks on the phone wiring inside your property?
Do you have any extension wiring that you are aware of?
What else, if anything, is connected to the line?

I'd be expecting 1 to 1.5Meg from that.

Take the front off you BT master socket, and connect the ADSL to the test socket as shown in the picture
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/images/faq...

Then post a set of the stats, if the sync speed is a lot better, then read http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sectio...

If too nervous to do that, then http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sectio... will be an option

As a general rule the less extension wiring in your home the better.

Thanks for the info. I will connect to the test socket in the master socket later this evening and do the tests again.

Reference the wiring in the house, it was rewired 18 months ago when the house was extended. How well that was done I don't know. However, there is a telephone socket in each room, so 6 connections. I currently only use 2. 1 with a dec phone and the other for my broadband. Both have adsl filters and there are no other extensions on the system.

David

I'm sure I remember reading that dect phones can interfere with a wireless signal. Are you connecting wirelessly?

I could be completely wrong of course

The OP's problem is related to the modem /exchange connection speed not their wireless LAN speed, though a fauly DECT base or power supply could be detrimental to their ADSL connection.
The OP could try disconnecting the base from the line and reboot the router then re-check their connection rate

Edited by deleted (Wed 18-Feb-09 19:29:05)

UK Dect phones should not interfere and this would not cause the ADSL issues.

Dect is around the 2000MHz mark (memory going to exact frequency), and ADSL only goes up to 1.1MHz

I'm expecting a good improvement from the test socket, NOTE It is worth checking that a phone does not work in any of the sockets, some people who wire phone extensions do it wrong.