BT ADSL speed

Hi -
I've had BT broadband for two or three years now and generally it's been pretty good.

About a year ago they upgraded it to 2MB from 512KB and testing it it did seem to be working at about that speed. A little while ago they told me they were putting it up to 8MB - that's what it now shows in my online account details.

However, I've noticed it seems slower than it used to be. Over the last week or two I've speed tested it a number of times, using this site's speed test and others. It shows the downstream speed consistently down below 500KB/s (with upstream a little over 200kB/s.

Can anyone tell me if this is a problem with my connection, or with others using ADSL more heavily in the area, or might I have been downgraded again?

What ADSL modem do you have, and what line speeds does it say it is connecting at.

Also visit www.speedtester.bt.com and tell us the IP Profile figure

Andrew

Thanks Andrew -
I have a wireless linksys ADSL router and modem (WAG354G) although this pc is not connecting wirelessly. It shows the connection as:

Downstream Rate: 2272 Kbps
Upstream Rate: 288 Kbps

This is the result of the speed test at the site you linked to:

The speed test has completed on test server test.speedtester.bt.com for user xxxxxx and you have downloaded a 1.7Mb file at a speed of

392 kilo bits per second (Kbps), your service bandwidth will have been quoted to you in kilo bits per second.

Regards, Steve

Downstream Rate: 2272 Kbps
Upstream Rate: 288 Kbps

Still on 2M fixed speed then

Thanks yarwell - I wasn't confident I'd actually been put up to 8MB although that's what they have on my account.

But is 392KB common for a 2MB connection? I'm sure I measured it at much higher speeds when they first put it up. Yet for the last couple of weeks, no matter what time of day I test it, I'm around 400KB...

393kbps is not common for a 2Mbps connection, it may be a combination of increased congestion in your area, or with your ISP.

Is it still this slow if you use the speedtest login and the speedtester site i.e.
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/qanda.asp?faq=troubleshooting#Q283

Andrew

Sorry Andrew, I don't really understand what to do here. What do I log into with the speedtest login?

If the modem is currently saying

"Downstream Rate: 2272 Kbps
Upstream Rate: 288 Kbps"

then you aren't on Max and should get a speed test of 1890 kbits/s or so and a download of 230 kbytes/s or so unless your exchange and ISP are congested.

If there has been an error you may have been dropped back to 2M.
http://speedtester.bt.com/ when it responds (early morning perhaps) would give a helpful diagnosis report.

If your 392 is in kBITS/s then get onto them and tell them you have the wrong upstream speed for Max and the downstream is that of a 2M fixed speed line with the speedtest of a 512k line.

Edited by yarwell (Wed 18-Oct-06 17:04:52)

It is talking about logging onto the ADSL service using a different log on name to usual, and then visiting the speedtest website.

Andrew

Apologies for not getting back sooner. I ran out of time to test and troubleshoot.

Anyway, I've just re-tested using this site's test and got the following: 1,873.5 Kbps

So I guess I'm at least back up to 2Mbps. Don't know what happened over the last couple of weeks but that'll do me for now!

Thanks for all your help.

Steve.