Which is best ISP...

My daughter has ongoing problems with Sky broadband. She has a BT line. Max download is about 300K. Sky say it is BT's fault, BT say the line is OK, don't seem interested in pursuing it further and can only be approached through Sky, who are proving really difficult to communicate with themselves. My assessment is it is most probably the BT line that is noisy or intermittent leading to a very low sync speed, although BT engineers came up and pronounced the line OK (while they were there). There are no audible crackles I can hear on the phone.

Enough is enough, can anyone recommend a good ISP who could go to bat properly with BT to find the cause? Alternatively maybe it is worth switching to BT broadband so they can no longer have anyone else to pass the buck back to? What does anyone suggest as the best course of action? This is good (not so good) old fashioned ADSL.

BT as a provider still has the same number of layers to negotiate

What speed is your modem connecting at and what are the attenuation and noise margin figures?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

BT as a provider still has the same number of layers to negotiate

What speed is your modem connecting at and what are the attenuation and noise margin figures?

Downstream 269kbps LA 59dB NM 7.8dB
Upstream 409kbps LA 35.9dB NM 7.7dB

(Just measured)

At times the connection has been known to reach the dizzy heights of 2 Meg for (very) short periods, but mostly it's at this kind of level.

Thanks.

OK if this is Sky LLU then it may be their DLM system which usually errs towards stability may be limiting you, 59dB attenuation is more in line with 2 to 3 Mbps.

If it is Sky LLU and WBC ADSL2+ is available on the exchange, then a BT Wholesale based provider might give better performance.

What exchange are you on?

If Sky don't provide LLU in the exchange then it is time to change ISP, if cost per month is an issue then have a look at BT retail BB packages or even Plusnet BB packages.

For a 269kbps downstream sync it can't be ADSL Max, and I don't think Sky do BTW ADSL2+ do they? If I'm right about the latter it has to be LLU.

Thanks for the replies. The postcode is DY4 which is Tipton exchange, West Midlands via SamKnows.

Sorry, forgot to say I'm pretty sure it's LLU as during one of the (many) phone calls to Sky, and one of the very few to someone who seemed to know what they were doing, DLM was mentioned. There was a DLM cap which was removed, but the improvement only lasted a short time and then it was as before.

Edited by deleted (Sat 29-Aug-15 08:28:07)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If it is Sky LLU and WBC ADSL2+ is available on the exchange, then a BT Wholesale based provider might give better performance.

What exchange are you on?

BT telephone exchange Tipton DY47LU

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/CMTIP

In reply to a post by packetman:

My daughter has ongoing problems with Sky broadband. She has a BT line. Max download is about 300K. Sky say it is BT's fault, BT say the line is OK, don't seem interested in pursuing it further and can only be approached through Sky, who are proving really difficult to communicate with themselves. My assessment is it is most probably the BT line that is noisy or intermittent leading to a very low sync speed, although BT engineers came up and pronounced the line OK (while they were there). There are no audible crackles I can hear on the phone.

The best guide is what speeds does the BT Broadband Availability Checker indicate the line is capable of?

BT Broadband Availability Checker https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/