Sorry for replying so late but I came across this thread when googling the subject for myself. I'm about 4km from our exchange and enjoy (!) approx. 2Mb down and 0.6Mb up. A new second line was recently installed with a new socket and MK 4 BT filtered faceplate. The speeds were more like 0.8Mb down and 0.6Mb up with lots of background hiss on the phone and my download SNR often dropping to zero momentarily.

BT came and went a couple of times, changing the faceplate for another new one but with no fault found. The technical support at my provider suggested plugging an old filter into the master socket and this immediately increased my download speed to over 2Mb and my upload to just over 0.6Mb.

The odds of two differently sourced Mk4 filtered faceplates each being faulty are pretty long (I bought the 1st from Ebay myself). I suspect they are simply not very good, especially on long and difficult lines.

I hope I've added to the debate!

Edited by deleted (Sat 18-Mar-17 10:36:12)

Completely agree Nobby, they are poorly/cheaply made rubbish.

Your tale only adds to what I suspected to be true already, and sadly makes me wonder how pants the SFI engineers were not to have picked this up on the first visit.

Zarjaz, would you say that upgrading my MK3 to 4 is a waste of time?

Yes.

Can I also ask what modem/hub you are using? There are some around which perform very well on longer lines - now you have the faceplate/filter issue resolved, and may give you a little extra speed. 2Mb at 4km is on te low side - I sorted out friends to give them a little over 1.2Mbps on a 9km line by choosing the right modem

I'm using a Billion 7800DXL at the moment, it does a very good job of holding onto the connection even with a very low SNR. There's at least 1km of aluminium wire within my EO line so I suspect 2Mb+ is my lot for now.

I don't know what sort of black magic you practice to get 1.2Mbs on a 9km line but it's obviously powerful stuff!!

Low SNR margin and near perfect quality cabling all the way, a very rare occurrence.

If you fancy gambling £5-10 try and get an unused BT Business 2Wire 2700-HGV (not a 2701) and see what that does.

The 9km line could on a good day get almost 1.5Mbps! However it is now on an FTTC connection with somewhere in the 1.5 to 2.0 Mbps

Sorry, did you just say you get 1.5 - 2.0 Mbps on a FTTC connection? Please explain why you upgraded?

In reply to a post by MHC:

If you fancy gambling £5-10 try and get an unused BT Business 2Wire 2700-HGV (not a 2701) and see what that does.

I've just ordered one from Ebay for just under a tenner. I'll unlock and test it when it arrives and post here. Thanks for the tip.