Really bad speeds

My daughter lives in Tipton, West Midlands. She has broadband from Sky, and gets ridiculously low speeds, approximately 300K down and 600K up. The router sync speed is only about 385K down. I tried the usual faceplate removal/test socket trick with no improvement. I have phoned Sky on her behalf, and they tested the line, and concluded it was OK. Eventually a BT engineer came out and tested the line at her house and said the same thing, and that the whole estate (new build) is bad for speeds. He said she would probably be lucky to get 1 Meg anyway. This seems exceptionally bad for an urban area, there are businesses nearby too. Can anything be done? There's no VM either unfortunately. Thanks.

If the downstream attenuation is 63dB or higher than pretty much that is the speed you will get based on the line length from the exchange.

New estates don't change the laws of physics and you are relying a lot on the developer believing that good Internet is a selling point, many don't and thus you get whatever is the standard low cost option, rather than the newer superfast type options.

Given a postcode we will be able to see if the speeds look sensible and maybe if plans for fibre are on the way.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If the downstream attenuation is 63dB or higher than pretty much that is the speed you will get based on the line length from the exchange.

New estates don't change the laws of physics and you are relying a lot on the developer believing that good Internet is a selling point, many don't and thus you get whatever is the standard low cost option, rather than the newer superfast type options.

Given a postcode we will be able to see if the speeds look sensible and maybe if plans for fibre are on the way.

Well it would seem that the stink we kicked up caused Sky to escalate it to a department that knows what they're doing. Since posting this, my daughter phoned them again and the guy she spoke to said there was a Dynamic Line Management cap of 300K on her account for no reason he could see. He took it off and she's now getting 2.8 Meg instantly! Not sure what a DLM cap is, is it similar to an IP profile? For the record, the postcode is DY4 9FD. Thanks!

DLM - a system Sky runs that can sometimes be over harsh in slowing you down to make the line stable.

If line stays stable then 2.8 Mbps will be better.

Someone a bit closer to the main road got http://tbb.st/1428758944650349255 3.8 Mbps from a speed test and from distance and checkers the 2.8 you are getting seems about right.

Cabinet 81 which connects you back to the exchange https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.537817,-2.072941,3... does not have fibre but appears to be on the plans for the Black Country BDUK project. So as fairly close you should see that as a faster option to order at a later date.

As newbie I may not be in the right place here but talking about SKY I posted
on their own forum (along with hundreds of others!) about slow speeds.
I was told (after all the tests were ok) that the length of telephone line from
the exchange to my house determined my speed and it would be the same
with any other provider so how is it neighbours (with other providers) get higher
speeds than me using the same telephone line ?

Connection speed will be dependent on line length, and this obviously caps the speed you will get, but peak versus off peak performance does vary from area to area and provider to provider.

Sky does sometimes have capacity issues just like many other providers, and things generally do improve as the network teams add more capacity on the backhaul lines that Sky own.

You were asked repeatedly on the Sky forum to provide your line stats so other users could advise if you were actually getting the appropriate speeds, but refused to.