Braodband Speed

Hi. Is there any internationally recognized standard for speed available compared with contract speed. i.e. On a new service I am specified to have 6 mb/s but it normally running at less than 5 and sometimes around 4. , is this considered acceptable?

In reply to a post by roger1941:

Hi. Is there any internationally recognized standard for speed available compared with contract speed. i.e. On a new service I am specified to have 6 mb/s but it normally running at less than 5 and sometimes around 4. , is this considered acceptable?

What "Contact Speed"? What "Specified Speed"?

Your agreement will almost certainly say "Up to xxx Mbps" and any pre-installation enquiries will have given an estimate - which is only that. There are too many factors that come into play to be able to give a customer a contracted or specified speed. The only services that had that were teh old fixed rate 500/1000/2000 kbps basic ADSL.

It won't be "specified", it will be an estimate, and it refers to the sync (connection) speed, not the throughput speed. There are overheads of 10-13% on ADSLx, which gives you a net maximum speed test result of 80-85% of sync.

Variances below 80% will depend on the quality of your ISP.

Also if you are connecting wirelessly to your router you can lose a lot of throughput speed there.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 04-Apr-14 11:31:12)

As MHC has indicated, the actual contract will almost certainly be qualified by "Up to ..."


However, I recommend that you do Quiet Line Tests, to ensure that your Land Line and your internal phone extensions (if any) are "clean".

Using preferably a corded phone direct in to the NTE (the box where the Exchange Line terminates within your house)

Dial 17070

Option 2 (or SKY Option 4)

A very low, quiet hum is usually acceptable.

Anything louder, "Snap, Crackle, Pop) dialling tones, test tones, bangs etc are not acceptable; and should be reported to your (Voice) Telephone Provider - NOT mentioning Broadband.

The legal requirement applies to Voice Telephony only, even if you otherwise "only use my mobile", which you also should not mention.

---------------------------------

Also QLT from any extensions and if (more) noise is heard, there is a problem with those extensions.

These tests should be with your various phone devices such as BB Modem/Router etc both disconnected totally and then plugged in and ON, progressively, to enable you to identify the source.

First time around may take you about 30 minutes; but could be time well spent.

Without a "clean" Land Line and internal extensions, you are never going to get "best performance".


It is your responsibility to sort out any problems in that area.

All you can really do is compare your sync speed actually attained with that predicted by a reputable speed calculator such as http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php which is based on the laws of physics and samples of actual user speeds.