Much slower speeds than estimated on fibre

Morning all,

First of all sorry if this is in the wrong place. This is a bit of a long story but I will try cut it short.

I have lived in my current address for over 6 years, I used to have Sky ADSL Broadband and was estimated to get between 12-17MB when I ordered it. But I only ever managed to get 5.5MB at the best.

The cabinet is only round the corner and approx 200 meters away in line length, and the exchange is approx 1.5 miles away by road and approx 1 mile away as the crow flies.

After many hours on the phone and engineers visits, it was discovered that a 75 meter stretch of underground cable from the cabinet to my property was the old aluminium cable, which the engineers believed at first was dragging my speed down as they said it's not a good as copper.

After 3 months of complaining to Sky, and sky complaining to Openreach they finally agreed to replace it to brand new copper. After the usual 10 days of the line management thing the speed went worse and the best speed I got was 5MB.

They sent an engineer again after they had replaced the aluminium cable and she spent a full day going up and down the pole, backwards and forwards to the cabinet and in the end she gave up, and said she didn't know what was causing it and I would just have to live with it.

I gave up complaining as my exchange was then upgraded to fibre, which I thought was the answer to my slow speed issues! I cancelled my sky broadband as I was out of my contract anyway and ordered a brand new line with fibre on TalkTalk. I ordered the top package and it estimated my line would receive between 68 - 76MB.

The engineer came and installed a brand new line into the front of my house as the old one goes into the back bedroom. I did this as I thought it may help and it would make the line length about 30 meters shorter. I was initially put on ADSL for the first two weeks as I believe you can't go straight onto fibre with a new line. When I was on TalkTalk ADSL for the first two weeks I still only got about 5MB but I wasn't bothered as I kept thinking as soon as I get fibre all will be good.

When the engineer came to install the fibre, it was the same one who was sent to investigate my slow ADSL speeds and she said that the fibre may still be a lot slower than estimated as it's still got to go over the copper cable from the cabinet to my property. Anyway sure enough she was right and the best speed I have managed to download at is only 35MB.

I have again spent many hours on the phone now over the last 3 months to TalkTalk technical department, and they just go round and round in circles asking me to do the same old tests, they still haven't sent out an engineer. They tell me that my line is syncing at 80MB but they can't understand why I can't get a speed test over 35Mb.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem and if you ever managed to get it fixed or should I just give up now and just live with the slower speed than I'm paying for, I know 35MB is good compared to some people, but there's 4 people who live in my house and we are all very internet demanding, streaming HD content, online gaming etc.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Have you troubleshooted your PC?

Have you checked your house wiring?

What modem were you given by the engineer? If it was a HG612 I would recommend unlocking it!

Are you using wireless to run the speed tests?

If so try again and use a wired connection to the router, also try using the speed test here

I would also recommend either unlocking your modem if it's an HG612, or purchasing one off Ebay if you have an ECI modem (very difficult to unlock).

You will then be able to see whats going on, especially if you use a program to log the connection stats.

Some people suffer from a half speed bug, which may be an openreach config issue.

The speed tests what shape is the graph, as if the problem is errors you'd expect some variability in the shape of the graph, whereas with a capped solution it would be very steady.

I have yes, theres no house wiring as the modem is plugged direct into wall socket, no extision leads etc.

In reply to a post by daltonboy:

I have yes, theres no house wiring as the modem is plugged direct into wall socket, no extision leads etc.

If you have a HG612 you need to unlock it, to get the real information.
http://huaweihg612hacking.wordpress.com/

see the links on the right on the light blue background.

If you read the OP there is definitely an issue here with the copper or alu as it was. ADSL getting a 3rd of the speeds and now fibre getting a poor speed.

Have you been put on new d-side pairs?

Edited by da_flash (Mon 24-Jun-13 15:42:46)

I have been in the exact same situation as yourself both with SkyBB speed estimation at my parents house of 14Mbps but only able to achieve 3.5Mbps and when I decided to jump ship in my property from Sky over to Plusnet FTTC I was initially on the incorrect IP Profile, which I believe has been discussed widely in this forum and other places on the web.

Anyway I know its not exactly the same situation as yourself but I can relate.

I would take the advise and grab a HG612 and unlock that sucker.. Do some stats plotting as MrSaffron said you may be able to see a distinct flat line speed test result and this will point you to a possible cap on your product package.

It maybe, worth asking for confirmation of you IP profile from TTalk. I don't really know how open your Service provider will be on this type of information. Just to be sure you are not on the 40/10 package as opposed to the 80/20 package..

But definitely try to lay your hands on the HG612 modem. You can also do your tests in Bridged Ethernet mode and bypass the router/Gateway to see if you get different speed results just by using the modem itself.

Hope this helps.

Ummm?

I agree an unlocked HG612 can be useful, but I don't see what that has to do with seeing flat-lined speed test results.

Do TalkTalk have IP Profiles? They are not subject to the BT Wholesale one that PlusNet take a copy of.

I think you mean the opposite of what you say in your final paragraph. (Easily done, as I have found to my embarrassment many times). As supplied it is in bridged Ethernet mode. When unlocked, it is possible to use it as a normal modem/router.