Please Help, BT line advice..

Hi All,

I'm hoping for some advice from you knowledgeable guys and gals...

The scenario: Current broadband = Virgin Media 10Mb Cable. Problem = Oversubscription, sometimes speeds as low as 150Kb/s in the evenings as well as STM.

Problem 2: My BT Line. I have previously been with Be* LLU, Sky LLU, O2 LLU and the maximum speeds I get are around the 4Mb mark even though my attenuation is approx 42db when LLU'd. I think this is down to a poor BT line as I have the ADSL Nation faceplate and have tried removing the 1 extension and have disconnected the ring wire.

So, my choices are:

1) Stay with Virgin Media and put up with appalling speeds, traffic management et al.
2) Move to Be* again and live with the 4Mb connection
3) Have a second BT line fitted in the hope that it is better quality than my current line.

Now, I really don't want to take the first option. So that leaves me with 2 and 3.

I've got to say that I would be a little disappointed if I had a second line fitted and it was the same as the current line, but also, going from my line attenuation, it's quite possible that I could get speeds upto approx 9-10Mb with a decent quality line (If I've done my calculations correctly !).

Can anyone help me decide what to do? Any BT experts seen this sort of scenario before ?

Thanks in advance,

Bri

42db when LLU'd

42dB should give you 8-9 Megs on Be or O2. Sounds like you have noise problems on your BT line which need sorting out - probably your end, so fixable.

Hi,

Sounds good, but I'm at a loss as to how to fix it...

As I said, I have tried ring wire, filtered faceplate, removed extension... can you help me any further..?

Thanks

Bri

can you help me any further..?

Depends what's wrong.
Got any line stats?
Exchange?
Line from pole or underground?
Many extension sockets?
Sky box?
DECT phones?

Hi Batboy,

Thanks for this,

Info as requested:

Line stats:
adslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 8000
Channel: FAST, Upstream rate = 1165 Kbps, Downstream rate = 4385 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: ADSL2+
Channel: Fast
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 8.3 6.2
Attn(dB): 42.5 28.5
Pwr(dBm): 19.1 12.4
Max(Kbps): 5732 1161
Rate (Kbps): 4385 1165

Exchange: Ashton - On - Ribble (Preston)
Line from Pole
1 extension socket, wired to filtered part of ADSL Nation faceplate (Stats are same from test socket)
No Sky boxes
1 Wireless phone, plugged into filtered phone socket of ADSL Nation faceplate.

HTH

Bri

Well, everything looks ok. The only things I would look at are:

The wireless phone is probably responsible for increased noise, so try the connection without that.

Removal of the ring-wire may help.

If you try Be or O2, use the modem they provide and you should get nearer to 8-9Megs. I suspect the one you're using doesn't support ADSL2+ too well. Is it a Draytek?

Edited by deleted (Fri 13-Feb-09 08:33:22)

Re the router, I wouldn't be certain that downstream attenuation of 42.5dB is being correctly reported. It is very low compared to the expectation of getting on for double the upstream, although this is usually commented on the other way round.

The upstream and sync seem consistent with mine of 29.8dB and 1187kbps.

I think your suggestion of a different router has a lot going for it if he tries again on ADSL, though perhaps that was tried before.

Hi,

Thanks for your input guys, much appreciated, I have tried 4 different routers, all of them gave roughly the same stats (give or take a db or two attenuation).

I tried the original Be* router, the standard sky DG834GT, the standard O2 router (Speedtouch I think) and a DLink one (Can't remember model sorry).

It's probably worth saying that the stats supplied were from the sky router, as I'm not on ADSL anymore I had to dig up an old post to find some line stats.

Bri

Edited by synner1 (Fri 13-Feb-09 10:50:39)