Broadband performance woes

Hi,

My parents in law have got broadband and ever since they have had it the performance has been horrendous. They had a problem with the phone line and BT came and (eventually) sorted that out blaming the extra sockets in the house, so currently the only socket that is useable is the master socket.

They have Virgin as their ISP and I've done a speed check with thinkbroadband and the speed can be seen here : <http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/121535989813005113062.html>

Effectively it's:
Speed Down 58.49 Kbps ( 0.1 Mbps )
Speed Up 292.59 Kbps ( 0.3 Mbps )


I've tried a two routers a Zoom x6 and a Linksys Wireless G, both gave similar results:

Downstream: 5760 Kbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps
Mode: ADSL2PlusAuto
Transmit Power: 12.1 dB
ADSL Link UP Time: 0 day 19 hour 59 min 35 sec
Operational Mode: G.Dmt

Item Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin 16.0 dB 24 dB
Line Attenuation 35.0 dB 20.5 dB
CRC Errors 46 1
FEC Errors 5873 3
HEC Errors 48 2

I've also done a check on the BT website which state that because of the distance from the exchange broadban isn't available. However, their next door neighbour states that they can have 2 meg normal or up to 8 meg on adsl max.

I also live less than half a mile away (further from the exchange) and have 6 meg broadband (I'm with Sky).

The master socket only has the two wires connected (and there are no sockets connected).

Can anyone suggest anything that can be done to resolve this?

If they speak to BT they will charge them to look into the problem (but could they resolve it?).

Would changing to Sky help? I'm beginning to think that it isn't the ISP.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Graham

The line stats look reasonable, though a very high target noise margin from what we can see.
What does www.speedtester.bt.com say, particularly the IP Profile

Line looks good enough, pointing maybe towards the ISP, Virgin ADSL has had big issues with some segments being over congested.

Assuming this is a BTw IPstream connection then the speed may sort itself out within a few days (if the IPdatarate has been set low in line with a low sync the system takes a while to increase it).

After that there should also be a gradual increase in speed as the target noise margin slowly gets dropped from what is likely to be 15dB now down to a minum of 6dB in 3db steps every couple of weeks - always assuming that the line does remain stable.

My own line was 35dB attenuation and was a marginal 8Mbps sync but needed interleave on to achieve that and a good router (Speedtouch 585v6 was best foe me of the ones I tried).

Edited by kwikbreaks (Mon 07-Jul-08 09:45:08)

We dont know for sure its a low IP Profile, and as the lowest is 135Kbps the performance is even poor for that

It is indeed but surely even Virgin don't deliver dialup speeds???

I'd lay odds on the profile being as low as it can be as well as Virgin.

if the poster has been unlucky and got onto a bad BAM or over congested Datastream link then its possible and we've seen speeds like this from Virgin customers.

Remember copper wire is no good for broadband according to Virgin

> Remember copper wire is no good for broadband according to Virgin



Let's hope he returns to tell us. I certainly wouldn't put money on a low IP datarate given the ISP but he did say that somebody recently ripped out the extensions so it could have been dire origininally plus there's every chance that they didn't carefully power down the router before starting.

I've had the misfortune to be on ADSL Max from Virgin Media ADSL. This is the penultimate speed test I conducted before migrating to NewNet (sync 8128kbps, profile 7150kbps).

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtestcomplete.html?id=117554733743325325001

I see what Mr.Saffron meant now. I knew they were poor but hadn't realised just how poor.

If Virgin Media ADSL hadn't offered me a bundle upgrade with phone and broadband I'd probably still be with them on my original 1Mbps connection. I probably only used about 1GB a month so never noticed any problems.

The excitement of Max ADSL made me look into the speeds I was getting and look at my router stats. I think I migrated within a couple of months of Virgin's abortive attempts to provide ADSL Max at a reasonable speed.