Daily reset needed

Dear All,

I am a newbie - please excuse if I ask a really daft question or if there is actually a thread that covers this somewhere. I have been reading the forums for a good few months and searching but can't seem to find anything that quite matches my query.

I have been with Freeserve, Wanadoo, Organge for 8 years with varying degrees of success. I am regularly contacted by them suggesting I upgrade my service so I can go faster: 2M - 8M (which was a disaster when they did something with LLU - I lost the internet for 2 months), then last year to upgrade to 20M The package is Home Select 20Mb, unlimited usage allowance. I often check my download speeds etc and since they upgraded me to the 20M service it has been lower than it used to be (normally around the 5.5M mark). This itself isn't really a problem unless I am using the computer to watch something on iPlayer.

For the last month I have noticed that on returning home from work the internet is extremely slow - speed testing shows that download is consistently around 600K - last night it was 302K. I understand that 6pm is a "busy" time and that the internet is congested - but surely not to that extent. If I run the speedtester.bt.com it informs me that my max line speed capability is 5.5M.

I therefore reboot my router & miraculously I get download speeds of 7.5M until the following day when I have to go through the procedure again. Once I have rebooted the router it shows that my max line speed capability is 7.6M or thereabouts.

I am at work on a different connection currently so I don't have the results etc. in front of me but the salient information is that the service to which I am subscribed is ADSL2+. My exchange is 1.2 km away and is called Wallasey Exchange and is apparently ADSL2+ enabled. My router is a Siemens Gigaset supplied by Orange and is configured in setut for ADSL2+ line. Downstream noise is 10dB. Router is permanently on. I am a very light internet user.

What I have never quite understood is that since "upgrading" me to this service the internet was consistently slower and less reliable. My average speeds downstream over the last three months have been 5M, which I can just about live with, but surely they should be a little faster since they always used to be until last year. The largest annoyance is the daily need to reboot the router to enable me to check an email or access Google and speed up from a few hundred K connection to a few Megs.

Once again please forgive me if this has been covered somewhere else, please tell me where to look & I will go away

Thanks in advance

Jonathan

Orange, PC on Win7; Mac OsX Lion

Edited by deleted (Fri 02-Dec-11 11:38:01)

You are now on the BT Wholesale WBC product, and has a figure called the IP Profile, and thus if your connection is bouncing around speed wise, you can end up with a slow throughput sometimes.

Can you copy/paste the stats out of the router, next time it is behaving badly, and then the same again after a reboot.

Also complete the following test http://speedtester.bt.com and paste back the full results as this too will allow us to see if your profile is incorrect.

Thank you for responding (and so promptly). I was getting worried as my connection seemed to be performing well and giving me a consistent 5.8Mbps dowlstream.

However, this evening it has thrown its usual wobbly. This is my speed test result from thinkbroadband and also from speedtester.bt.com:



Date 06/12/11 19:32:18
Speed Down 184.51 Kbps ( 0.2 Mbps )
Speed Up 792.93 Kbps ( 0.8 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest2.thinkbroadband.com

speedtester.bt.com says this

Download speedachieved during the test was - 161 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 1200-4000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :4872 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 944 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 4298 Kbps

>Upload speed achieved during the test was - 706 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 944 Kbps

my router settings read:

MTU: 1492
Line Mode: G.992.5 (ADSL2+)
Encapsulation VC MUX
QoS class: UBR
VPI/VCI: 0 / 38

ADSL Line

Status: Cable connected
Line mode: G.992.5 (ADSL2+)
Maximum line rate: 4873 kbps (downstream) / 944 kbps (upstream)
Noise margin: 3 dB (downstream) / 4294967228 dB (upstream)
Line attenuation: 28 dB (downstream) / 15 dB (upstream)
Output power: 22 dBm (downstream) / 11 dBm (upstream)
System uptime: 4:23:23:22

Following a router reboot the thinkbroadband test says the following:



Date 06/12/11 19:53:02
Speed Down 5730.83 Kbps ( 5.6 Mbps )
Speed Up 786.41 Kbps ( 0.8 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest2.thinkbroadband.com

Unfortunately the bt speedtester won't let me do the test again now and wants me to log in differently & do a third test. Having rebooted my router it won't quite tally and I'm not that keen on changing my router login just yet.

Anyway - I hope that the above information shows that something isn't right somewhere, in that I am technically subscribed to Orange's 20M service and since that time I have never had anything above 7.5M

My normal speeds seem to be around 5.6 or 5.8M downstream

Thanks again for your help

Jonathan

In reply to a post by fiffaro:

Line mode: G.992.5 (ADSL2+)
Maximum line rate: 4873 kbps (downstream) / 944 kbps (upstream)
Noise margin: 3 dB (downstream) / 4294967228 dB (upstream)
Line attenuation: 28 dB (downstream) / 15 dB (upstream)

You should be getting 17-18 Meg Sync.

Agreed, suggests something is not right in terms of your internal wiring, or the line outside your property.

Of major significance is the upstream noise margin, is a phone call noisy? Try 17070 when the ADSL kit is unplugged from the line and do the quiet line test, with a non-cordless phone it should be free of noise/mush/static

For the reset you could buy a timer clock and plug the router into this so that it's turned off some time in the early hours and then back on. This way it will have had a daily reset when you try to surf.
However, daily switch-off is a bad idea because BT's dynamic line management (DLM) may think you have a bad line and reduce your speed. I say this in the context of what my ISP (ZEN) advised me to do. In addition, there's ThinkBroadband's line quality monitor which requires your router to be switched on and to accept "pings".
I didn't see how you restarted your router - from the router's control page? I don't know how DLM reacts to that.

Thank you for the replies. I will try the quiet line tests tonight. I wonder if I should also try testing my router plugged into the master socket of the house & hooking a laptop up to it.

Regarding the question about resetting my router, until recently I have been switching it off at the wall & waiting for 30 seconds. Since last week I have been rebooting it from the 192.168.1.1 page in the router itself as it is far quicker to find the line again. Does it make a difference?

I will post my findings later this evening probably. Thanks again one & all

Jonathan

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

You should be getting 17-18 Meg Sync.

Thanks - is this true?

I had a look at my Orange account page which says I am on Home select up to 9Mb. My statements say I am on Home Select up to 20Mb. I emailed them to ask which was the truth. I had a reply within 5 hours which seems to be the standard blurb - but saying my line is only capable of 9Mb

the email from Orange below:

All our new packages are advertised as up to 20Mb, however top speeds can vary quite a lot especially if you live far from the telephone exchange. If your line won't support our fastest broadband speed, we'll always give you the fastest your line can handle.

The estimate that we give you is an estimate on your Access Line speed. This is different to the actual speed you receive on your desktop computer or laptop, known as "throughput speed".

The Access Line speed is the speed your line is capable of from the local exchange to your house and is the headline speed you'll see in adverts. Once inside your house your throughput speed can be affected by a number of issues, including the following:

quality of your internal wiring your router not being plugged into the main BT socket the time of day (we and most other internet providers sometimes have to restrict speeds a little at peak times to ensure everyone has stable access to the Network) having more than one pc connected to one internet connection even things like having your router near magnetic / electrical equipment and sometimes even the weather

Not everyone will be able to achieve higher speeds than they already experience for some of the reasons explained above, which is why your account page shows speeds up to 9Mb.

Thanks for taking the time to email us.

Kind Regards

Karen
Broadband Support

Yes, it is true providing there is nothing wrong with your wiring. My estimate is based on what you could get based on your measured Attenuation.

What it says on Your Account pages is just an estimate based on what you got in the past, which will be affected by the "quality of your internal wiring". I've been getting 19 Meg Sync for months, Yet My Package page @ Orange stupidly says:

Your current home package is: Home Select - £££.pp a month, up to 13 Meg speed, wireless router, unlimited usage allowance (fair use policy applies).

Even worse is what it says on my Speed Information page:

The speed estimate at registration or the speed we have measured on your line is 2.0Mb.