Not sure what you are getting at: OP's downstream attenuation is 33dB and yours is 24.5dB. Are you suggesting that he has excessive loop loss possibly due to aluminium rather than copper in the line to the exchange, or something else, based on your stated distances to the exchanges?

I supplied the data as a basis for comparison, given the almost identical distances.

You may be correct regarding aluminium wires and the Local Loop distance; but as no information has been given on that aspect, it is difficult for anyone to comment; but it has produced this possibility from you and may lead to an explanation at least, if not an eventual solution.

I was hoping that others with more up-to-date knowledge and more local knowledge of EXETER may be able to enlarge on such aspects.

Let's wait until the OP gets some results from the test socket and then we can perhaps comment further

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Interesting comparison.

Where?

You are conning yourself with the so-called BE line lengths. Yours and the OP's attenuations are vastly different!

You are just misleading the OP!

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

You may be correct regarding aluminium wires and the Local Loop distance; but as no information has been given on that aspect, it is difficult for anyone to comment

No, you have all the info. you need! The OP's loop loss is 33dB. Whether this is due to length or materials or a combination of both, it is a fact and there is nowt the OP or his ISP can do about it.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

No, you have all the info. you need! The OP's loop loss is 33dB. Whether this is due to length or materials or a combination of both, it is a fact and there is nowt the OP or his ISP can do about it.

But if it's due to something else (sub-par connection somewhere?) then there may be...

Knowing the actual cause of something is useful information, even if it means that all you can do is shrug your shoulders and put up with it.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Interesting comparison.

Where?

You are conning yourself with the so-called BE line lengths.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

http://windows.mouselike.org/be/?DoAction=BrasChecker

I find that checker somewhat underestimates line length.

It doesn't do any estimating, it simply reports what's recorded on a BT database

BT Recorded Line Length to Exchange

Agreed fully that there is nothing that the OP or ISP can do about it, if it is aluminium.

I posted that data simply for comparison; and given his 33db attenuation, the basic rate is unlikely to increase by much.

My only experience of aluminium wiring is with a 1990's Alarm System, for the domestic internal wiring.

I have tried searching for the use of aluminium wire on the phone market; but so far I have not found anything relevant.

Do you know if and when aluminium wiring/cables was used for the Exchange to Cabinet and onward to Domestic premises, was prevalent?

I suspect that it may have been in the 1960s and 1970s, as back in the 1950s, the underground cables were copper, soldered joints and encased in sleeves with "wiped" soldering, traditionally using beaver skin. Quite an art on itself!

Thanks for any information you can provide on those aspects,, learning more every day.

Agreed.

In reference to www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/06/fibrecopper_and_aluminium.html:

in Milton Keynes yesterday. The city's telephone network, built in the seventies when the price of copper was sky-high, has an awful lot of aluminium in it, which makes it pretty useless in terms of delivering broadband.