Broadband performance

I'm a non-techie broadband user suffering poor / variable download speeds and needing a better service. Facts are:

ISP = virgin.media
Line length = approx 8km
Current download speeds (measured by BBMAX) = very variable between 50kb and 480kb

Acceptable solution = a consistent speed of 480kb.
Best solution = a consistent speed higher than this.

I'd welcome any advice to help me reach a decision about what to do to fix this problem eg

ADSL max
20:1 contention ratio service
Change to Sky (a website I looked at said they could maybe do 8mb)
Change to any ISP that provides an accessible helpline service eg andrews and arnold, BE etc

Get your line stats, http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.htm
Post results from the BT wholesale performance tester, http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

If you can post some stats from modem/router. SNR and connection speed then some advice will be forthcomming.

8K is a long ish line and you may be getting the best possible now, despite not having hte best isp in the world.

I assume that with Sky and 8 meg they are taliking about LLU being avaiable at your exchange ? Check Sam Knows. Or are they just saying that their service is UPTO 8 meg....

Thanks for your advice. I just tried the kitz website but my router a Linksys WAG300N isn't listed. Is there another way of getting this info?

The info found here should be roughly applicable to find your stats ?

8km is a very long line. There are two things you can try:

1. With a long line you need to be especially careful to minimise any electrical noise being picked up in the house. You'll find endless advice on how to do this on just about any thread in this forum, but the best option is to fit a filtered master faceplate to isolate off all the extension cabling, and plug your ADSL modem/router directly into this with a short dedicated cable.

2. There's an ADSL variant called RE-ADSL2 that is designed specifically to improve performance on long lines. Unfortunately the only ISP known to be providing this at the moment are TalkTalk where they've unbundled your exchange, so you may not have the option. The other downside is because they only sell cheap broadband products, the support you'll get is very basic, and they may even refuse to provide you with a service on such a long line. If you do try this then make sure your modem/router supports RE-ADSL2.

Line length = approx 8km. if you are able to use your broadband at 8 km you are on a good pair back to the exchange.no need to change isp as this will not change the distance from the exchange.As an Openreach sfi engineer i can tell you that at 8km you are lucky to have working broadband so don't go changing isp thinking you can get 8mg as it is only 8 mg when it leaves the exchange and if you check the wording of all the service providers out there it says UP TO 8mg .agree with andrews and arnold as a good sp but you will pay alot more and wont get any better speeds.
regards
openreach sfi

Openreach sfi .... thanks for your comments. The fact that the speed of the line
follows a consistent profile during 24 hours makes me think that the
problem is related to contention unless line noise is proportional to the
"busyness" of the line or exchange.

What do you think?