ADSL Speeds

Trying to look at a family connection which appears very slow. Unfortunately, the information is limited and I cannot get there for a couple of weeks but want to see what I can find before then.

It is, apparently, ADSL2+. Distance from exchange to house is around 450m - unfortunately the undergound cable goes straight past the house for another 250m to te cabinet and then coming back again! So 950m. In the past, looking at the attenuation figures, it suggested a line of 800-1000m.

At 800m I would expect near full speed, and at 1000m 20-22Mbps ... is that a reasonable expectation?


The BT checker puts the speed at aound 10Mbps, but in reality it is often down at 6Mbps with upstream at 0.8 ish

The big question - what speeds would you expect on a 950m line - Down and Up


My plan will be to redo all te internal cabling, check/replace filters and generally clean up te nstall to see if I can improve it.

At 800m I would expect near full speed, and at 1000m 20-22Mbps ... is that a reasonable expectation?

I’d have to say no. Maybe in ‘lab/ideal conditions’. But in the the real world, I’d think not.

10Mbps seems reasonable, maybe a touch more.

You know the drill, note stats as per current set up, then on the end of the incoming pair.

Use a corded phone to check for line noise, see what the errors do when the phone is used whilst in sync.etc etc.

But you know all this

I'm fairly sure tha at one time it was it was up in te high teens - maybe just hitting 20 but don't have records.

Wiring could well be an issue with various junctions, filters &c and a "care alarm". The hub is also probably 5 years old, if not older, so that will be te first change.

It will be a challenge to see where I can get it to and then ensure it is stable.


The next two houses, have even worse estimates on the checker ... physically nearer the exchange, but on the next pole along on the run back from the cabinet.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I'm fairly sure tha at one time it was it was up in te high teens - maybe just hitting 20 but don't have records.

Before FTTC, I was on a long ADSL2+ line, around 800 to 900m from the exchange. I used to get 18 Mbps with LLU from BE, but with Plusnet on BTwholesale it was 16 Mbps. Upload was about 1 Mbps, and was the incentive to move to FTTC.

FTTC - I wish, I have been seeing "Waitlist" on the line for a couple of years and have just done a contract renewal having been given responsibility for the line with teh ISP - any lower and the ISP would be paying them. Have now got the line on the waitlist - problem will be getting the changeover, if/when, to co-incide with a visit there.

Line is similar to yours, at a guess, 12-15 would be nice with an upstrem over 1 - and stable. I did get one report of it being down at around 4 / 0.3 at one time.

Edited by MHC (Fri 03-Sep-21 09:51:51)

I'd agree with jchamier- I'm about 1100-1200 metres from the exchange and pre-FTTC got a download about 14Mbps (not LLU). Can't remember the upload.

Even that would be nice!

Having dug right back on mine here with something like 3800 from exchange, I was seeing 9Mbps at best and even at the end, 6.8Mbps with over 1 upstream. But having had FTTC since 2010, no old screen shots easily accessible.


BUT ... have just done a check in the past few minutes and FTTC is now showing as available there, so it should be an automatic move across. I will still have a go at tidying up the wiring though.

I get 11 down 0.9 up at 2.6 Km with aluminium cable . Went down to 5 recently due to loose wire in
cabinet . Shown by no phone. However, for 2 months prior, gradual slow down to 7 and phone working.

Should be a lot better than that my line on adsl2+ was 10mb/1mb on a 2.4 - 2.5km line the fttc cabinet was 1.2km from exchange pretty much halfed the line length ended up getting 15.5mb/0.69mb on fttc which was even worse than the adsl2 line due to reduced upload we left and got virgin

Last address I lived at was about 600m from exchange and received about 18Mbit/s on ADSL2+, prior to that at a different address about 1.2km from exchange got about 15Mbit/s ADSL2+. I considered that line as under performing, and when it was upgraded to FTTC could only manage about 35/6 .

Edited by witchunt (Fri 03-Sep-21 12:38:45)