Broadband Techy Advice needed.

[ukcobra]

If you are getting varaible speed results, it could be a number of things.

Problems at the exchange. (Deliberate slowdown - Pipex did this a few years back due to difficulties over Christmas and forgot to reset the speed downgrade)
Bad connection at the junction boxes etc (noisy line)
Speed throttling (Capped usage policy ?)
High usage by others in your area (more people online, sharing resources)
Someone filching your wireless bandwidth (I trust your Wifi is secure with WPA encryption)
Speedtest site issues

It is very unlikely to be your modem.

I would suggest running Spybot, and making sure you have the latest Microsoft patches/updates and running a virus scan.

I always test speeds with a download from Microsoft, i.e a MSN chat client. Their servers typically provide a reliable and stable speed.
Virgin (NTL) always used to use this as their yardstick for speed issues.

Mark

[Drift]

It doesnt really matter who your with if your running through the phone line the speed is determined by the distance you are from the exchange and is run through old copper wiring, hence adverts say speed up to such and such.

Cable is operated through dedicated fibre optic cables to a box, usually at the end of your street, this then usually has copper wires running to your home, the copper wires from these boxes dont loose any signal as the are so close.
Now and again with cable your speed can be affected if your UBR is over subscribed ( basically to many people connected to central area boxes) but this is some thing that seems to be getting ironed out, as 50meg is coming online and those customer ( usually heavy users) migrate to the 50meg which is run on another type of system to what cable currently runs on, thus freeing up the over subscription and network blockages.... think I got that right

[FUDDY MUCKER]

Right, just to confirm my line speed I have just visited the BT website for signing up as a new customer of there broadband service, and this is what I got ...........

Broadband checker results
For Telephone Number 01782****** on Exchange KIDSGROVE

We've just tested your line and can confirm your line supports the UK's most complete broadband package, BT Total Broadband. We estimate your maximum download speed to be 6.5 Mbps (Megabits per second).

The actual speed you get could be lower and is dependent on several factors such as whether you have any internal home wiring, our network management policy and the number of people using the Internet at the same time. Speeds are generally lower in the evening at peak times. You can find more information on all of these on bt.com/help.

So I definately think SKY are pulling my chain !!!!!

Just been on the Virgin Media Website, might just have to press the checkout button. Ironically, My SKY Bill each month is £95-£100 per month for Phone line, Phone calls, Broadband and Full TV package including Movies & Sports. Virgin Works out about £15.00 cheaper each month.

[Rich]

if you can get virgin media cable is the best option my speeds

[Ruathar]

ok, a few checks you can do to see if there is a problem.

Firstly, take out all the micro-filters, ADSL should not need to use them anymore and they are just another potential bottle neck in the system. If that doesn't improve the speed then move onto the next one. If the modem cannot connect at all without the filter then you may have too much noise on your line causing you problems (see next test).

This is a highly technical one used by many telephone engineers to test the house line. Pick up a cabled phone (no cordless) and press a single digit. The dial tone should disappear and you will have silence ont he end of the line. Listen to the silence. Is it really silent or is there a crackle, tick, audible hiss or any other noise on the line? Anything other than silence will affect your line speed.

The other one is to do a speed test, then make a phone call and do another speed test whilst on the line, does the speed vary by more than a few kbps? Try this one with and without the filter, see if the phone call is affected by noise when there is no filter.

A sudden drop in speed is often an indication of a line fault or that your kind ISP have decided you need to have your connection throttled. If any of the above show a problem then it is a line problem which your ISP needs to deal with. Unfortunately getting them to deal with it can be difficult. One of the problems with the "up to Xmbps" contracts is that as long as you have a connection they don't actually have to do anything. This should be changing soon due to ofcom pressure over the way speeds are advertised, but currently your contract is in the most basic sense "We will give you an internet connection, we will cap any speed for that at Xmbps but we won't really worry about it if you get nowhere near that. Only annoy us if you cannot connect at all as otherwise we don't care". This is a whole other rant I shall not get into here

If you value your speed then consider when you use the internet before switching over to Virgin. VM can offer speeds a lot higher than an ADSL line, but they routinely throttle those connections at specific times of the day (do a search on google about it, there is lots of information). This was put into place when the NTL Broadband systems were built and they will not turn off the timed throttle (not that they actually can).

[rf9rider]

Have a look through here on the forum, a lot of helpful info and users.
Sounds to me your`e being capped.

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/

[Drift]

Jase we have just re negotiated are deal with Virgin

Telephone Line Rental
Talk weekend and evenings phone
Caller display
Tv XL
Additional standard TV box ( upstairs )
V+ Box ( downstairs )
Disney Cinimagic ( extra channel )
Broadband XL 20 meg

We are getting the V+ Box installed next week and its costing £30, that isnt advertised that you can get it for that, last time I looked it said it was half price installation at £75, we just said Sky was more tempting, they did it for £30 then

We get all that for £59 a month, we got a good retention deal last year for life pays to haggle

[Frontycustoms]

A up Sir Stucky Mucker, if u need a router dont buy one as i have 6 netgear DG843's in my van n if u need one u know how to get hold of me dont u. Usual price of course.................................FREE

[MuddyFairy]

Simple answer BT! There exchange is probably overloaded, too many people on one server/exchange? They may need to uprate it or your speeds wont pick up. Good luck trying to sort BT out we gave up in the end. Useless.
I think Bt have had the monopoly on telecomunications for too long. We are forced to use their lines and services even if we have sky. I have to pay two phone bills one for BT and one for Sky as I have the sky tallk package and the internet etc, where we live we have very slow speeds due to the exchange being so far away and overloaded already. BT like taking money but are never prepared to pay out to improve services.
Mind you our services over here are 100% better than internet in Australia...its so slow and you get cut off all the time with download limits and extra charges. Much better over here.