ADSL Broadband speed - need advice!

Hey guys,

Sorry if this post is in the wrong area I'm new here!

I recently moved to a new area that isn

Probably not much you can do.
Your router is indicating a downstream line attenuation of 63.5dB (the highest figure it will read - your actual attenuation may be higher).
This shows your line length to be much greater than 1.5km (probably closer to 6-7km).

Your service is not capable of 8mb, it's an "upto" 8mb product.
The actual speed, as is made clear on BT's website (and on most other ISPs, too) will be heavily dependent on the length of your phone line.
Other factors are cable material (most are copper, but a lot of aluminium was install in the 1970s (this performs worse than copper, with ADSL).

There are a some things you can do, to get the best out of your line.
Connect the router to the test socket (inside your BT master phone socket).
If it connects faster, let us know, and we'll tell you how to make it permanent.

Unfortunately the facts are, if it's the length of your phone line that is keeping your speed down, no amount of yelling at BT will fix it - They're not going to be able to move the exchange closer to your home.

EDIT: Your speedtest result shows almost 700kbps, which is about as fast as you'll get from a connection speed just under 1Mbps (which is what you have).
So, the connection's performing very well for the line length - You're probably just stuck with it.

Edited by adebov (Sun 23-Dec-07 21:42:15)

In reply to:

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[about 1.5km]

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All together now......Oh no it's not !

Firstly, you're not on a 8Mb product, you're on an up to 8Mb product. The speed that you sync with the exchange at is nothing to do with your ISP, whoever that may be. The speeds you've achieved are consistent with your sync. With an attenuation of 63.5dB, I'd say you're a bit further from the exchange than 1.5km, unless the cabling between the exchange and your house is particularly poor. 1.5km could just be the straight line distance, but the actual distance could be significantly longer.

Do you have a NTE5 master socket in your property? If so, could you remove the front plate and connect the router to the test socket (the socket behind the plate that you remove). Then, re-post the stats from the router again.

If these show an improvement, there are a couple of things that can be done, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

As has been mentioned you are along way from the exchange - both upstream and downstream attenuations are outside the limits that are measured or displayed on te modem. Your SNR is very very low.

There is almost nothing you can do if those are true figures. Just check your side of the NTE. The only option will be to move closer to the exchange.

I'd first like to say thank you for all who have posted their advise to me, its greatly appreciated.

I''try the NTE5/Test socket test and see if that improves things. BTW is SNR "Signal to Noise Ratio"? Plus does anyone know of a site where you can find out which exchange your Internet is being networked through?

It seems that there's little chance of getting even 2mb then . I'll report back soon on the test socket thing.

Cheers and merry xmas!

This will tell you what exchange you are on
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php
Definitely try connecting directly into the test socket (behind the face plate) if that improves things then look at getting a filtered faceplate from somewhere like ADSL nation so you can still use your extensions.

Hey everyone,

Thank you for the link Chrimbow. Sam Knows says that my exchange is:
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange.php?ecode=CMERD
That

Hi, just noticed the post and thought I'd add my story - which may or may not help you!

I just north of you by the looks of things in sunny Tamworth and I'm a fare way from the exchange given that I live on the outskirts. To add insult to injury when BT connected up my estate they thought that the best route was the longest so ran the cables miles out and then back in - this hasn't helped me in my quest for a decent ADSL connection as you can imagine.

I won't bore you with the history but I am in a similar situation. I have broadband on my main phone line and have always had problems with speed and connection. I am currently lucky if my Sky broadband - which is located in the lounge - maintains 512Kbps. I use this for my xbox and games consoles but just recently have really been struggling with reliability on the line.
What you may be interested in is the fact that I got so fed up with it that I had a second line installed - which in theory uses the same cables etc. However, on this line I am getting between 1600kbps and 2500kbps. Unfortunately - although not as bad - I still get the occasional disconnection and this is really down to line length. I have recently logged a call with my ISP which I'm hoping may improve things but I'm not holding my breath.

It can be very frustrating especially when people are getting 5mbps+ - I would be happy with 1mbps if it were reliable so that I could jump on Xbox live or the Web whenever I felt like it!

Good luck and let us know how you get on!

Steve Mountford

...how about this for irony - just typed the previous post and was about to submit and my adsl line went down - good huh?