Internet Connection speeds

[josh451]

Wonder if any of you chaps could offer some advice....

My internet connection speed is shocking, a measly 325 ish kbps! The broadband is tiscali, who have apparantly merged with talk talk, and this speed is constant throughout the day, with the odd fluctuation of around 10kbps.

When you ring them up, they say disconnect everything from the master socket, which i do, except the line which my computer and a phone are on. I unplug the extensions, and the speeds are still the same, however, we have an extension wired directly into the BT socket, which a guy came and did for us about 15 years ago. We also have another socket in the conservatory, but i can't fathem out what or where it is connected to?

So, a few questions...
1.. Why is the internet connection speeds so low?
2. Should the extension line be wired directly into the master socket and will it affect my speed?
3. We have ADSL filters on all the sockets, is there anything were doing wrong?

Thanks in advance

Josh

 

[Lectrician]

Have you actually tried removing the lower half of the master socket? This automatically disconnects any extension wiring which has been hard wired into the master socket.

Try your router directly into the test socket behind the lower half you removed. Don't use any extensions - don't be lazy, move your router!

Check to see dial tone has vanashed from all your extensions.

Try that and see what speed you get.

 

[JOHNBOY42]

Try
http://www.speedtest.net/
Also look at
http://www.adslnation.com/

The problem could be one of your extensions or equipment plugged into it

 

[DeadJoe]

Lectrician is right - plugging direct into the test socket on your mastersocket will give you a clean connection, but in my experience it might take a while for things to settle down enough for you to see an improvement, during which you'll have no telephone. On the other hand, it might make a difference very quickly.

Do you know how to access your router's configuration pages? If you do, do you know where to look for the stats on your line - the speed you are synchronizing at, and the noise figures?

Helpful information would be your attenuation and noise figures from your router for (a) as you have it now, and (b) plugged into the mastersocket. From these, it should be possible to work out if the problem is in your home or outside.

 

[plugwash]

Did you have a fast connection previously?

I had a similar experiance with pipex shortly after they merged with tiscali when they were in the process of moving everyone from BT wholesale to tiscali LLU in our area. The router we were using stopped being able to connect at all and another very old router we had was only able to connect at an abysmal speed.

Pipex kept promising to get an engineer to call us but never actually did so. Eventually we gave up and switched too another provider (and back onto the BT wholesale network as part of doing so). Switching provider fixed the problem immediately. I suspect tiscali ****ed something up during the migration to LLU.

My advice is to switch providers.

 

[TicklyT]

Are you talking about the downstream line speed, upstream speed or the throughput rate?

Line speeds are limited by the physical characteristics of the wiring connecting your router to your local exchange.

The throughput may be under the control of your service provider, or limited by bottlenecks elsewhere in their core network.

Assuming it's the line speed:-

How far are you from your local exchange?
What is the predicted ADSL coverage / speeds for your area (often assessed by postcode)?

Long lines may only allow very limited speeds. Very long lines may not allow any ADSL transmission at all.

Multiple telephone extension sockets can have very adverse effects on ADSL speeds, especially if they're wired in a 'star' instead of 'daisy chained'

As Lectrician advised, try your router at the NTE test socket, with all your phones disconnected, and see what the router statistics show there.

 

[plugwash]

Line speeds are limited by the physical characteristics of the wiring connecting your router to your local exchange.

Broken or badly installed equipment can certainly do it too. If you have had a sudden reduction in speed on a provider that is known to be switching people to LLU as they grow thier LLU network through mergers this would be my first suspicion.

Whatever the cause though unless the problem is within your house (unlikely unless you have changed something recently) you aren't going to get things sorted with a provider as unhelpful as tiscali. So it's time to ask politely but firmly for the migration authorisation code and move to a better ISP.