Am I Being Throttled?

Line Stats: http://quickmind.co.uk/images/bb.jpg

Connection Speed: 3488 kbps
Line Attenuation: 43.0 db
Noise Margin: 18.5 db

For that Attenuation I would expect 8 or 9 Mbps?

Our line only went active yesterday, is this something that will improve over time?

Thanks.

You have an 18.4 noise margin - have you tried restarting the router and seeing what the noise margin is at startup? It's possible you've got a higher target margin set due possibly to previous line stability problems? It's also possible that they've fixed you to that speed because of some sort of past problems?

Apparently all new users are now subject to Dynamic Line Management. Try rebooting your router a few times over the next few days (best time to reboot is about noon), and if the situation doesn't improve, give customer services a call. Getting higher than 8Mbps is quite unlikely at 43dB attenuation, because Sky are reluctant to put people on ADSL2+ with that level of attenuation, because there's very little to gain.

Had a bit of an experience with support!

Phoned them up and explained the problem, the rep agreed with me and said I should plug the router into the master socket and unplug everything else - to eliminate internal wiring issues and then call back.

I did this, called back 5 mins later and got someone different - who obviously had no clue. eg. I explained the problem again, she asked if the router was in the master etc. all good.

Then she started asking me to check my PC settings, and how many computers were plugged in etc. I stopped her and said it was a problem with my sync speed nothing to do with my computers.

Then I explained the situation again, saying for 43 db line attenuation I would expect more speed, she put me on holding while she spoke to Tier 3 support. After 5 mins she came back and said "So you think you should get 43 Meg?". So I explained it again, hold again, then after yo-yoing for 40 minutes, she put me through directly to Tier 3.

I explained the problem again. The Tier 3 lady then put my upstream speed down to 416Kbps "for stability", but increased by upstream to 4480Kbps after a few tests. I was happy with this and went on my way, after an hour on the phone...

Now my stats are:

ADSL Link	Downstream	Upstream

Connection Speed	4480 kbps	416 kbps

Line Attenuation	43.0 db	26.0 db

Noise Margin	15.0 db	14.0 db

So my SNR has dropped a bit, but it is still at 15db, surely I can go higher? This was at 7pm, peak time.

I may try ringing again tomorrow...

When I first joined Sky my noise margin was high. I left the router on for 10 days and the snr dropped a bit every day until it settled at about 6-7. Maybe that's their way of testing a new line?

I'm sure you can get some more speed - possibly down to around 6db. I would just leave it for 10 days and it should settle down unless Sky have already messed around with it. The DSLAM is generally able to make a decent decision on speed vs stability.

If you want to talk to Tier 3 support, the best time to do it is very late at night or very early morning. Sky support work 24/7/365, and the Tier 3 people are much less busy off-peak.

sky's dlm (line profiling) seems to work the opposite way to BT's ipstream version.

As I understand it, it starts you off on a very conservative high noise margin and moves you down gradually on forced resynchs until it starts seeing too many errors and then stops there.

It only lasts for 10 days tho so I guess after then you can get it manually set to a setting you like.