Have I got a setup that'll give me the best broadband speed?

[murmansk]

I've just abandoned Virgin cable for my broadband having got sick of paying £23 per month for broadband only.

My old BT line that's been unused for years is about to come back to life and I've signed up with Plusnet for my broadband.

I'm keen to get the best speed out of my line so I have ordered a fancy double faceplate for my master socket from Clarity - I'm taking separate cables from it for my phone extensions and my broadband.

I'm taking the broadband just 3 metres up into my 3rd bedroom by hard wiring it into the back of the faceplate and using the Cat5 cable provided by Clarity as one of their "official" BT ADSL extensions. At the upstairs end it's wired into a socket with a clip-in module containing 6 IDC connectors.

I live a 3 minute walk from the exchange.

So - have I done everything I can to get the best speed??!!

 

[Astra99]

The problem is that some exchanges have the latest boradband hardware in place, thus giving good speeds, some have lesser equipment and poorer speeds, and, unfortunately there are still some exchanges out there which are on the list "Upgrade Required" and thus speed is poor to say the least. All you can really do is ask the neighbours what speeds they are getting! As a for-example, my son recently moved house. His dialling code has not changed, but the exchange he is connected to has. At his old house he could get up to 12Mb/s, now he receives at best only 5Mb/s. Approximate distance from the exchange is the same, so the "copper length" is not a significant factor. One exchange clearly has good equipment, one is on the upgrade list!

 

[bernardgreen]

I'm taking the broadband just 3 metres up into my 3rd bedroom by hard wiring it into the back of the faceplate and using the Cat5 cable

Cat5 cable is not the best for the ADSL signal which is designed to work over telephone cable which has far less twists per metre than CAT5 cable. Changing cable type creates an impedance mismatch which can degrade the ADSL signal.

I live a 3 minute walk from the exchange.

The cable route might be very different.

 

[simonpolly]

go on the B.T website and input your phone number,this will give you a accurate estimate of what speed you can expect to get

 

[murmansk]

Cat5 cable is not the best for the ADSL signal which is designed to work over telephone cable which has far less twists per metre than CAT5 cable. Changing cable type creates an impedance mismatch which can degrade the ADSL signal.

There seem to be varying thoughts on this - the Clarity website seems to suggest this stuff is the best thing to use and that it's what BT themselves use for an ADSL extension.

The BT speed estimator suggests I'll get 16mbps

 

[Jibbeh]

My old BT line that's been unused for years is about to come back to life and I've signed up with Plusnet

Mind If I ask why plusnet?

 

[murmansk]

Mind If I ask why plusnet?

Well I wanted to port my Sipgate VOIP "landline" number and started with Primus and they couldn't do it so I tried Plusnet and they could. I know from previous experience that their customer service is very good.

It may not be the cheapest but I'll still be paying a fair bit less than I did with Virgin for just broadband and I'll get a phone line where I can actually hear what people are saying!!

 

[Jibbeh]

Sorry just had the thought you were going to say, I've done this, this, this and this to improve my speed..... then turn round and say I went with Plusnet cos they were the cheapest. :faceplant:

 

[murmansk]

then turn round and say I went with Plusnet cos they were the cheapest. :faceplant:

Faceplant???!

What does this mean?!

 

[akwexavante]

To get the best broadband speed.

Only have one telephone point, The Master BT NTE5 Box. Do not have any additional Extensions, buy a property as close as possible to an upgraded ADSL2+ enabled exchange.

Use a good quality ADSL2+ router (Draytek) with GigaEthernet ports. Dump the freebie that you get from your ISP. Dump the Install disk that your ISP send you, don't use it! Make sure your computer is a desktop with a GigaEthernet port. Do not use a Laptop, Do not connect your computer to your router wirelessly use Cat5e or better Ethernet cable connected at both ends to GigaEthernet Ports.

Change your Computers Power Option to High Performance.

Uninstall ALL your browsers toolbars and plugins and extensions accept Java and Flash.

Stop all unused or infequently used applications from starting and running when you start your computer. Don't have Skype, Messenger, iTunes, Bonjour Service, Rapport, all toolbars, Office, etc etc running unless your actually using them, only start them when you want them, when finnished shut them down altogether.

If you do need telephone extensions, Use CW1308 or CW1128 Spec cabling or Cat5e cable. ONLY connect a pair of wires up, one wire to terminal 2 and the other to terminal 5 at each end, DO NOT connect up any other wires. Replace filters twice a year.

DO NOT run telephone wires along side electrical cables or over a floor that has underfloor heating.

 

[bernardgreen]

Replace filters twice a year.

True, they do get clogged up with debris. Much more so than the oil filter on a car.

Of course you only need one filter if you fit a filtered frontplate to the NTE 5 and separate phone and ADSL signals there.

 

[plugwash]

To get the best broadband speed.

Time to seperate the nuggets of good advice from the sea of BS

Only have one telephone point, The Master BT NTE5 Box. Do not have any additional Extensions,

You can have telephone extensions you just want to make sure they are downstream of the filter so they don't affect the high frequency ADSL signals.

There should be exactly one filter (a faceplate mounted type is probablly the way to go) at the point where phone and DSL wiring split.

buy a property as close as possible to an upgraded ADSL2+ enabled exchange.

Or better still a property with access to FTTC services.

Use a good quality ADSL2+ router (Draytek) with GigaEthernet ports.

Some routers are better than others but what matters is the quality of the ADSL circuitry, not whether the lan side ports are fast ethernet or gigabit (both of which are massively faster than ADSL)

Dump the Install disk that your ISP send you, don't use it!

This is a good idea for your computer's general health but it shouldn't affect your broadband speeds much.

Make sure your computer is a desktop with a GigaEthernet port. Do not use a Laptop,

BS, a decent laptop is more than fast enough to process data faster than a domestic broadband connection can deliver it.

Do not connect your computer to your router wirelessly

Wireless can in some cases have a substantial impact on speed, in other cases it will make no real difference, all depends on the quality of the equipment and the RF environment.

Having said that for reliable performance i'd reccomend sticking with wires.

use Cat5e or better Ethernet cable connected at both ends to GigaEthernet Ports.

But as I said above FE vs GE is largely irrelevent.

Change your Computers Power Option to High Performance.

Uninstall ALL your browsers toolbars and plugins and extensions accept Java and Flash.

Stop all unused or infequently used applications from starting and running when you start your computer. Don't have Skype, Messenger, iTunes, Bonjour Service, Rapport, all toolbars, Office, etc etc running unless your actually using them, only start them when you want them, when finnished shut them down altogether.

This is reasonable general computer performance advice but if computer performance is having a significant impact on your browsing experiance i'd be looking at a better computer.

If you do need telephone extensions, Use CW1308 or CW1128 Spec cabling or Cat5e cable. ONLY connect a pair of wires up, one wire to terminal 2 and the other to terminal 5 at each end, DO NOT connect up any other wires.

This only applies if the telephone extensions are in the unfiltered part of the wring.

Replace filters twice a year.

This seems like BS to me.

DO NOT run telephone wires along side electrical cables or over a floor that has underfloor heating.

It's generally good practice to keep power and phone cables apart, of course it's not always practical

 

[akwexavante]

None of my advice is BS.

I've seen so many bizare unexplained improvements in download speed and bandwidth by simply doing one or more of the above suggestions.

Uninstalling a toolbar can make a huge difference, why, i have no idea! I've seen it happen so many times.

Using a different Router can make a huge difference either way, why i don't know but i've seen it happen so many times.

Changing your LAN from a 100mb/s LAN to a 1000mb/s LAN does make a significant difference i've seen it happen so many times over the years and theres no obvious reason why it should make a difference i know. I don't understand why but it can make a huge difference indeed.

November 2011 i saw a Win98 Time Machine (Desktop) download a 300MB file in a third of the time it took an Acer Laptop with an i3 CPU and 6GB ram connected via the same 100mb/s LAN.

I've listened to so many BT Broadband customers complain about slow downloads, uninstall the BT software, jobs a good en.

AntiVirus software can have a huge impact on downloads too.

Using a completely different OS on the same line / LAN can make a huge difference. If i want to download a file over 3GB i'll use my Linux box to do it, it'll download in half the time it does on a Win7 OS. (The hardware is exactly identical in every way in both boxes and both OS's are 64bit) Always does.

Software, Applications, Plugins and browser extensions can and do make a difference to download performance. In certain circumstances and times of the day a security toolbar installed with free antivirus software can cripple browsing and download speeds.

I've seen the addition of and the removal of telephone extensions make a big difference to download speeds for no good reason. Changing from one pair of wires to another in the same telephone cable can have a big impact on speed too, again why!? i have no idea but i've seen it happen.

A house just recently had 4 extensions, all were wired up correctly, line voltages OK etc bell wire removed, new filters but the speed was poor. I removed one extension and the bandwidth soared and i could not find an explanation. Changing the cable for a new run, changed the faceplate too and down it went again! remove it and up it went. No explanation could be found at all!

Christmas / Newyear is always busy, all those flashing lights, even those temporary traffic lights out on the street as much as a 100yrds or more away from the house can have an effect! Your neighbours heater in there tropical fish tank can effect your broadband!

 

[bernardgreen]

You need to recognise the difference beween :-

[1] speed on the ADSL connection, the number of bits ( or bytes ) per second moving between the telephone exchange and the modem in the router in your house. That is ADSL data rate.

[2] download speed, the time taken for a file to travel from the remote server over the internet and onto the disc ( or RAM ) in your PC. That is download speed.

The cabling between exchange and you house and the internal wiring of your house only affects the ADSL data rate. ( with the proviso that if it reduces the ADSL data rate to far it might reduce the download speed )

What you do between the router and the screen / disc drive of your machine affects only the download speed. ( with the proviso that the maximum download speed is limited by the ADSL data rate )

even those temporary traffic lights out on the street as much as a 100yrds or more away from the house can have an effect!

There is a small virtually zero chance that if the temporary lights are wireless linked to each other then the short bursts of transmissions between the light may cause a few milliseconds of disturbance to a wifi receiver very close to one of the lights.

 

[akwexavante]

There is a small virtually zero chance that if the temporary lights are wireless linked to each other then the short bursts of transmissions between the light may cause a few milliseconds of disturbance to a wifi receiver very close to one of the lights.

Normally i would agree with you and i'll bet that 999 times out of a thousand your absolutely right.

Temporary mobile traffic lights can reduce even completely block access to the internet on rare occasions. I've seen it happen twice. On the last occasion 6 houses couldn,t get internet access for 10 days or so. As soon as the lights were switched off all 6 houses regained internet access, there were no holes in the road. It might not of been the lights themselfs it could of been the generator but i do know that when the equipment was not being used all houses could get online and when the equipment was turned back on nobody had internet access, i know its very unusual but it happened.

Perhaps the equipment was in someway faulty at the time.

I've seen the download speed of a computer more than double when the LAN switches from a 100mb/s network to a 1000mb/s network. The ADSL bandwidth remains unchanged.

Heres another one for you, Wednesday last i went to a house that had no internet access, i talked to the customer for a while as usual to get a little background info on events. They had a power failure and since then they had no internet access. They did have local access. Switched off the router, waited a couple of mins then on again, no joy. Changed the router, still no joy. Talked a little more, they had to buy a new chest freezer as a result of the power failure, switched off the freezer, back online!

People bundle up the the routers wires and cables with the wires and cables of there phones with bits of string etc, this sometimes makes a significan difference.

Heres another one, A chap installs his own new telephone extension using CW1308 2 pair cable from the front of the house to the back via the loft. The cable traveled through the loft area via the apex of the roof structure. On an evening his download speed was crippled but he had access to net but it was slow. Durring the day no problem. He had no problems before he installed the new extension. This one had me baffled for a while as i could find nothing wrong with anything he had done, his PC was fit and healthy too. a couple of weeks later the problem disapeared all on its own for exactly a week. The customer was aware that a neighbour was on holiday / away because the neighbour had an unusual vehicle that was missing, on its return his problem returned.

The neighbour was a HAM radio enthusiast and was using his radio equipment on an evening. We lowered the telephone cable in the loft to the ceiling joists, on an evening his bandwidth suffers but not as much as it used too. Other things had to happen along the way, his lines broadband service had to be reset by the ISP a couple of times or so etc.