First 10 days

I was told that the first 10days would be some sort line testing process where it works out what stable speed you can get. However I logged onto my sky account and it says:

Your Connection details
Line testing is not currently in progress.

Surely it shouldn't say this? Or am is it called something else?

Also the sky router came with an installation CD which I didn't bother with. That wouldn't have any software on it which would cause the speed testing stuff to occur would it? I had assumed it was something they set at the exchange.

Thanks

I'd give them a call and ask them to kick start the line testing.

Nope, the CD's best use is a tea coaster.

Thanks that is what I assumed re the CD. I am on the phone at the moment.

They are kick starting it... after getting past the gate keeps trying to fob me off. So when I condensed his waffle to "so what you are telling me is that my account telling me "Line Testing is not in progress" is incorrect?" He suddenly said I am putting you through to the technical guys. They confirmed it hadn't started and said that they will kick it off.

He also said my max speed will be 7Mbps, the website said 10-20Mbps and the person I spoke to when I signed up said 8-10Mbps. So we will see what reality brings. However even the 3.3Mbps we are getting at the moment feels fast because of what we had got used to.

Good News

My Estimate was 10 - 20 Mbps from the start and ended up with 9.

After using another router and a bit of tweaking I get 10

Nicky, my speed is exactly the same as yours and it also says line testing is not in progress! My estimated speed is shown as between 10 and 20.

Not bad, three days into my training....

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1198684540.png

Edited by deleted (Sat 12-Mar-11 23:22:12)

In reply to a post by Mork:

Not bad, three days into my training....

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1198684540.png

Looking Good

Yes that looks great. Mine went to 5.2 when they started line testing bit has basically sat at that. I was lead to believe it would be significantly faster.

In reply to a post by NickyJ:

Yes that looks great. Mine went to 5.2 when they started line testing bit has basically sat at that. I was lead to believe it would be significantly faster.

Has the training period ended yet?

My original estimate was 17mb but I'm not complaining about 14mb. I have two phone lines into the house and this line was tested as 2mb faster than the other, how odd!

No the training period hasn't finished. It started on the 9th. I just expected a bit more variation in speeds during it.

I am surprised, as from what I can gather you should be able to expect double the speeds you were getting on ADSL, and we used to get about 5Mbps (before Talk Talk tinkered) when we first moved in. No we are on ADSL2, I was expecting higher.

I am not really complaining just surprised. 5Mbps is great for what we are using especially as we had got used to much slower speeds again (0.2 - 0.4 most evenings).

In reply to a post by NickyJ:

No the training period hasn't finished. It started on the 9th. I just expected a bit more variation in speeds during it.

I am surprised, as from what I can gather you should be able to expect double the speeds you were getting on ADSL, and we used to get about 5Mbps (before Talk Talk tinkered) when we first moved in. No we are on ADSL2, I was expecting higher.

I am not really complaining just surprised. 5Mbps is great for what we are using especially as we had got used to much slower speeds again (0.2 - 0.4 most evenings).

Can you post your line stats reported by your router?

Depending on your stats Nicky I would ask Sky to put you on the gaming profile. If this causes instability you can always ask them to put you back on DLM (or whatever Sky call it).

In reply to a post by DannyD12:

Depending on your stats Nicky I would ask Sky to put you on the gaming profile. If this causes instability you can always ask them to put you back on DLM (or whatever Sky call it).

I probably get one synch disconnection a day on the gaming profile, although I do tinker with my SNR a bit to gain a bit more speed.

I can live with that

Here are my stats:

Connection speed 6144kbps down, 796kpbs up
Line attenuation: 36.0db down, 21.9db up
Noise Margin: 7.1db down, 16.5db up.

ETA: By comparison I was getting 33 Downstream 21 Upstream when I was on F2S and BT hardware.

Edited by deleted (Tue 15-Mar-11 19:21:32)

In reply to a post by NickyJ:

Here are my stats:

Connection speed 6144kbps down, 796kpbs up
Line attenuation: 36.0db down, 21.9db up
Noise Margin: 7.1db down, 16.5db up.

ETA: By comparison I was getting 33 Downstream 21 Upstream when I was on F2S and BT hardware.

Thanks for the edit I just searched through your posts looking for that.

Looks like you're on ADSL2+ then given the 3dB rise in attenuation. If this is so, I'd say your connection speed is being limited by noise on the line. You should be syncing at around 13Mbps

Yes I had to go and find it too.

I must admit I didn't make a note of the previous noise figures. Could this be internal or external? My router is plugged into the first socket into the house. There isn't a master socket as such, but this one does have a BT logo on it.

Hopefully, it's noise due to your internal wiring - in which case you can do something about it.

After my 10 days of training my reading is as below.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1203474308.png


These are my router stats
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 13303 kbps 1117 kbps
Line Attenuation 24.5db 12.3db
Noise Margin 6.2db 7.9db


Is this all good or not?


regards

You should be getting around 18Mbps but again, your connection appears to be limited by noise.

Ah ok. IS there anything I can do? Previously I was on O2 up to 8MB and had 7MB with them.

Thanks BatBoy for the reply, it's appreciated.

The first thing to try is to plug the router into the test socket on the master. With nothing else connected to the phone line you should be able to see if/what improvement is possible.

I took apart the phone socket to discover the idiot who wired in the other phone sockets in the house didn't do it correctly. They have hard connected the other phones to the main cable coming in rather than of the front face, so that they can be easily isolated. I will need to completely rewire it all to get that sorted.

However I then have a thought that I am still using the old microfilters, so I switch to the new ones. Our noise is now more like 10dB. I am still in the testing period, so I hope it will pick up the reduction and start giving me fast speeds. I don't know whether to try and speak to them about it?

However how much difference will an increase from 6dB to 10dB really make?

I should probably start rewiring it all so I can isolate the rest of the phone sockets though as well first I guess.

ETA: I have disconnected the other sockets, and the Noise Margin jumped to 16dB (I think) I rebooted the router on that and it is now showing 11dB.

Is there a speed calculator anywhere which actually takes the noise margin into account?

Edited by deleted (Thu 17-Mar-11 08:21:56)

It should make a lot of difference, giving you higher sync and a more stable connection.

The line test had actually finished. I spoke to the lady after her initially telling me I should only be getting 4Mbps, she then spoke to somebody (when I was quizzing her on how she was getting this and talking about the attenuation on the line) and I am now connecting at 14Mbps, but the test is showing less but faster than I was getting.

Edited by deleted (Thu 17-Mar-11 08:59:23)

This is a lot better now, I just got 10Mbps. Yeah!!!

That's great news