ADSL Max Sync Speed Slowly Dropping

Been on ADSL Max since May. After the intial line training period my sync speed settled to 7.1 meg. It stayed constant up until about a month ago then the sync speeds started dropping and I am now down to a max of 6.4meg and often below 6meg. I get the best connect speed about 0900 then after that it slowly gets worse during the day if I reboot my router. The downstream S/N margin drops to 12db in the evening. I checked the wiring and I have what looks like non twisted pair bell wire running from the BT box on the outside of my house to a junction box in my loft very close to lots of mains cables, I think this wire is over 56 years old. The wire then changes to standard modern twisted pair cable to my BT master socket.

Has anyone got any idea what is causing this? Should I get BT to rewire the conncetion, I don't want to do this unless I have to as its expensive.

Line Stats Router BT Voyager 240

Line Mode G.dmt Line State Show Time
Latency Type Interleave Line Up Time 00:01:07:22
Line Coding Trellis On Line Up Count 1

Statistics Downstream Upstream
Line Rate 6432 448
Noise Margin 14.8 dB 25.0 dB
Line Attenuation 26.0 dB 31.5 dB
Output Power 11.9 dBm 19.7 dBm

Are there any extension wires from the master socket ?

How long is the non-twisted pair line?

What is the state of your internal wiring? You may want to consider an ADSL faceplate splitter or disconnecting the ring-wire, if you haven't already.

Do you have a master socket with the detachable lower cover? Connecting your router to the test connector behind the lower cover will let you know how much your extension wiring is contributing to the problem.

Brad K.

I don't have any extentions off the master socket.

I have tried plugging the router directly into the master socket bypassing the front panel. It made no difference to the sync speed.

The ring wire has been disconnected, I did this when I first switched to ADSL Max.

What I have is about 7 metres of very old solid copper non twisted pair cable from the external BT box connected via a BT junction box to a modern run of twisted pair cable.
A fairly new cable with twisted pairs runs from this old junction box to a modern master socket.

There's really not much you can do, in that case. What you're experiencing is the effect of the seasons. ADSL Max uses the same frequencies as AM/MW radio, and at night these frequencies are bounced around the world by a layer in the ionosphere, causing interference from AM radio stations to be stronger at night. During daylight hours, the layer is slowly dispersed by the action of daylight on this layer. Your ADSL wiring is acting like an aerial, and the strong MW stations appear as noise. Because there are fewer hours of daylight in the winter, the layer becomes stronger, and takes longer to disperse.

Count yourself lucky - your line goes from 7M down to 6M. Mine goes from 6M down to 3.5

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Oct-06 12:24:34)

Thanks for your comments. I had come to the same conclusion. If I boot the router early in the morning about 0630 my sync speeds are even worse which confirms your observation.