Speed issues - be gentle

I am experiencing extreme variations in download speeds at different times of the day. I am on the "Up to 8 meg" service having moved across from the old 500 Home service a few months back.

For example this afternoon I got around 0.3Mbps !

and a little while ago I got this:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/12883...

and yet at other times especially in the evening I can sometimes get 3.3 or thereabouts.

Did the BT speedtester thingy this afternoon just after that awful 0.3 result. It seems to think that I am getting 3.2Mbps which is within the "permitted" margin as I live some way from the exchange and they reckon I can only get max of 3.5 on the line.

My router is a DG834G.

Talking to an immediate neighbour this evening who is also on Zen, she mentioned that she had also experienced these wild fluctuations in speed.

Can anyone suggest a sensible series of steps to take to try to get to the bottom of this? Please keep in mind that I am immediately baffled by 99.9% of the jargon. BRAS and attenuation and other hideously complicated sounding things go right over my head.

I get odd results from the TBB speed test also. I recommend you use speedtest.net unless you have Kaspersky which breaks it.

Tried it just now - 1.6 down and 0.2 up. Ping 118ms
Hopeless really. At this time of night I would have thought it would have been zipping along.

Post deleted by Titan_ADSL

Post your router stats. Then we can advise.

Post my router stats? No idea what that even means, sorry. Any help/explanation appreciated.

Read this first before posting

OK here goes:

1. Zen 8000 Active
Connection Speed Downstream 4512 kbps Upstream 448 kbps

2. DG 834G V4 Windows XP Pro SP2

3.
Line Attenuation Downstream 37.0 db Upstream 18.0 db
Noise Margin Downstream 5.8 db Upstream 17.0 db

4. No master socket

5. Broadband checker says:
Exchange MUSWELL HILL

Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial test on your line indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line speed up to 1Mbps. However due to the length of your line the 1Mbps service may require an engineer visit who will, where possible, supply the broadband service.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL Max broadband line speed of 3Mbps.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 3Mbps. Our test also indicates that your line could support an estimated ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line speed of 500Kbps and downstream line speed of 2.5Mbps.

[and then goes on about fibre and ordering]

Does that cover what you mean Mr XRay?

Noise on line is reducing your maximum speed

Yes thanks! Well done! BTW: I'm Mr. SpeX.

All I can say at this late hour is that your line is capable of over 7 Meg Sync on ADSL Max (IPStream), which you are on as Zen is not LLU'd at your exchange.

Can you post your results from http://speedtester.bt.com/ (Part 1 only will do)? This is the BT Speedtester for IPStream lines which exclusively gives your IP Profile.