Aluminium Drop Cable & ADSL Speed?

So I've posted on here a couple of threads about my current situation.

Moved into our new house beginning of July and awaiting FTTC to come to the area (part of superfaststaffs BDUK rollout - due end of September.

My master socket is in the hall, right by the front door and no power nearby. The drop cable comes into a BT80a junction box then a short (about 4 inches) connection of cable to a master socket right next to it.

Here's a post from one of the members here about it

So I've replaced the BT80a with a new one, and put a master socket in the lounge and connected this to the new BT80a using copper twisted pair wire. (I've just disconnected the previous master socket and left it where it is - complete with the wiring of all the extension sockets connected)

I haven't seen any speed increase in my line at all (But no decrease either) but what was slightly concerning me is that the drop cable looks silver in colour.

Is it possible that it's aluminium and would that explain why the speed I'm achieving is somewhat less than predicted, and what implication if this is true, will this have on FTTC speed when it arrives?

I did ring BT to find out if I was on the wrong profile, but seeing as my upload speed is now 992kbps I assume that means I am indeed on ADSL2+

My download speed is 8128kbps but according to the dsl checker I should be getting between 10 - 19 Mbps

It's not a massive problem as I have said FTTC is due by the end of September and my previous Exchange Only line has been migrated to a cabinet.

It's more of a "getting to the bottom" of things.

And the full set of connection stats is?

What does http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc say about lines potential speed based on the router stats.

Can you post your line stats reported by your router please?

Here's my line stats..

Thanks for the coolwebhome link, that seems to indicate my line is a problem in getting any additional speed on account of my noise margin..

Edited by deleted (Wed 19-Aug-15 19:34:51)

No such thing as aluminium dropwire ( as in pole to house )

The lack of speed is due to the DSL modulation being g.dmt - ADSL.

The wire is silver coloured though, certainly doesn't look like copper to me..

In reply to a post by CHBMB:

The wire is silver coloured though, certainly doesn't look like copper to me..

Scrape the silver coating off. It will be a copper wire.

Thanks, what is the silver coating for and what's it's purpose?

Here's my coolwebhome results

This seems to indicate that my downstream noise margin is the issue.

Is there anything I can do about this? And is this likely to have a significant effect on FTTC speed or provision.

I'm no expert on this, but I have never heard of aluminium drop wire. Aluminium underground cable yes, but drop wire no.

Tinned copper wire is also silver in colour.

Can you describe the dropwire?

Is it circular with a number of different coloured wires inside? 2 x 2-pairs plus some steel support wires in yellow insulation? Or is it figure of eight shape, possibly grey in colour; rather like speaker cable or mains twin flex of yesteryear?

If figure of eight, then the two conductors are likely copper plated steel, whether these are also tinned, I do not know.

By the way, I have seen, internal phone wire which was described on the drum as CCS wire. It was not until after I had used it that I found that it was Copper Coated Steel....

Cheers!