Is this a speed issue?

I've been struggling with line speed since my broadband was connected. I live in rural cornwall, and there are no green cabinets in the area.

At first, until April last year, I was getting aprox 320 kbps, this then dropped to 128kbps, and sometimes (not often) 250 kbps. Recently the broadband started dropping out, and a BT engineer identified and fixed a line fault and I have been getting an amazing! 1.2 Mbps. Now, after nearly a month of being able to stream video etc. my speed has suddenly reduced to 320 kbps.

My ISP cannot refer this as a speed issue, as the database says that I should only be able to receive between 250 and 520 kbps because of line length (3.8 kilometers straight line, but quite a lot more actual line length).

Others locally have no problem streaming video, and I am able to achieve better speeds through my neighbour's connection than through my own.

Can anyone give me any advice?

Tell us the stats from your broadband router just after rebooting it

Connection speed
Attenuation (Down and up)
Noise Margin (Down and up)

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php has details on how to get this for most routers.

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. Sorry about the delay coming back to you. Here are the results:


Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 0:05:38

DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 1,728

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 16.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 63.5

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 11.0 / 9.5

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1,505

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0

I mananged to speak to my ISP again, and they indicated that there was a stability problem with the line. BT were asked to reset a device at the exchange, which they did, and the download speed improved for a while. It has now slippedd again, and I am getting 850 - 900 kbps download. My upload speed seems to fluctuate more than it used to. Is that part of the problem?

the stats look fine for the line length, connection to the exchange is full 448 upstream and 1.7M downstream.

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 1,728


see how that varies, it had only been up for 5 minutes when you collected the data.

Here are the line stats after 24 hours. My download speed is still 940ish kbps, but the upload is staying steady now at approx. 375.

DSL Connection

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 23:59:52

DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 1,728

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 16.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 63.5

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 11.0 / 10.0

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / TSTC

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 38 / 560,039

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 38 / 451

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 26 / 180

Has the device at the exchange stuck again, leaving me with the reduced speed? I have had 1.4 Mbps recently.

Please run a BT Performance Test, ands post the contents of the down and up text boxes.

As well as the speeds, we need to see the IP Profiles.

Here are the test results:

Download speedachieved during the test was - 0.85 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.2 Mbps-1 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :1.73 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.45 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1 Mbps

OK, that shows why you are only getting under 1Mbps. The IP Profile is what determines your actual maximum speed.

With your 1728kbps the IP profile should be 1.5Mbps. This updates using an automatic system, and can take up to 5 days of line stability. It is probable something happened last week that caused the drop, and the reboot that yarwell asked for gave you the 1728 figure. So later this week your speed should come back to between 1 and 1.5Mbps.

I've got a fuller explanation on this page. It is headed "Old" because there is a newer one for ADSL2+ exchanges, but you are on the original.

What we don't know is what happened to cause the drop in the first place. Watch out for it happening again and see if you can think of anything around the same time. Thunderstorms for instance. Powered exercise bikes and treadmills in use, possibly next door.