Aweful Internet connection

[Danny McGee]

Any advice on how i may be able to improve my internet conenction apart from the obvious switching provider.

At the moment the computer thats connected directly via LAN is only kicking out 1.4mb download and 0.6upload. The wireless is even worse. Which is prooving to be a nightmare when im playing any on line games

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Danny

[jim76]

Have you contacted the current provider and asked why? Most offer up to 8mb now, compared to the old 2mb that used to be standard. Maybe they forgot to up yours?

[RCRacing88]

Count yourself lucky! I get 1.2 and 0.3!!! It's sucks living in the middle of no where

[kek23k]

First thing I always do is find the master socket and remove the fascia. Plug your router directly into this socket and re-test the connection speeds. This eliminates any noise/etc from extensions you have running round the house. If it's still really low when connected like this then you will probably have to live with it. Unless you can move to fibre/cable provider like Virgin. Moving to a different ADSL provider will have little to no difference on the connection speeds because they all use the same infrastructure. The main differences between providers are the package costs and what's called traffic-shaping (This is a way for the ISP to restrict different types of internet traffic on your line). BT employ a fairly aggressive policy at peak times, to ensure that everyone has adequate bandwidth. So for example between the hours of midnight to 6-7am I can download at almost 2MB/s but round tea-time I'm lucky if I can get more than 50KB/s.

[pro4nut]

Wow, just checked mine and its running at 17.1mb download and 1mb upload.
Playing around with router settings can have an impact, but i'm not expert, for online gaming i have set my PS3 to run outside of the router DMZ which did help.

[Big G]

when we 1st moved into a brand new house it was terrible. 1mb max down with constant line drops. after many calls to BT and our ISP we had a visit from a BT engineer who after an hour heard some noise on our line. he swapped the line from the house to our exchange and instantly my net jumped up to 7mb down and nearly 1mb up.

[U1timate PigDog]

Hi, there are quite a few things that could possibly slow your connection down, but I have a couple of questions firstly has it always been like this? have you tried a different router on the line, your wireless should be just as good as your ethernet at these speeds (unless the issue is with your wireless on either the computer or router, also what company are you with for your broadband?

I would try the following to get to the problem.

disconnect all equipment from the phone lines/extensions in the house, then open the master socket and plug the filter in there for testing (as said this will eliminate noise from the extension socket etc in your house)

Plug the router in and test here (also try an alternate router aswell if possible), if it is still slow then the problem will be most likely with the cable outside of your property, you could get this tested but it can be a pain to get them to test a line that is working, unless you can hear interfence/noie on the line?)

If the speed goes up then you need to narrow down the problem within the house.

There is a difference in speed between certain ISP but it depends where you live, i.e. sky and talktalk both have there own equipment installed in bt exchanges that allow them to provide alot higher speeds than bt do to your property, almost all other ISP provide there service using bt lines and equipment and therefore the difference wouldn't be noticable on the ame package, but like i said it depends where you live.

good luck and let us know how you get on.
Graham

[Mr Eccleston]

How far are you from your exchange, sounds like you could be at the limit. I used to get 1.5Mb download when I was 7km from exchange (that's cable distance, not as crow flies), switched to infinity and get 35Mb download. It's costlier with infinity but is worth it for me.

Also remember that your speed will be less on wireless compared to hardwired.

[Danny McGee]

Originally Posted by Mr Eccleston

How far are you from your exchange, sounds like you could be at the limit. I used to get 1.5Mb download when I was 7km from exchange (that's cable distance, not as crow flies), switched to infinity and get 35Mb download. It's costlier with infinity but is worth it for me.

Also remember that your speed will be less on wireless compared to hardwired.

Ive just plugged into the master socket and am now getting 3mb's and 1mb upload. So seems better. I think for this area No2 (02) are pretty crap. As im renting at the moment its just a pain but hopefully this will make it better.

As for the exchange, google says im 2.4miles from it so thats not too bad right?

Thanks for the info. All very much appreciated

Danny

[cigbunt]

bt can install a accelerator socket on you master socket that will cut the broadband noise going down the extension.

pros are it'll increase your line speed
cons are that you'll only be able to use your broadband on the master socket

[Richard Lowe]

Originally Posted by Mr Eccleston

Also remember that your speed will be less on wireless compared to hardwired.

Even basic wireless G has bandwidth way beyond most people's internet connection, unless you're right on the edge of your router/AP's range it won't make any difference to outright throughput - pings are usually worse mind which is what matters for gaming

[Andrew Twigger]

If you're able to get into your modem and post the line stats this can also help to figure out what we're dealing with. Particularly the noise, attenuation and sync speeds.

It's possible you can get even more with a little bit of tweaking etc.

[bodgit]

If you stick your postcode in here you can check what sppeds other providers are supplying in your close area.
http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co....n_my_area.aspx#

[Col]

Originally Posted by bodgit

If you stick your postcode in here you can check what sppeds other providers are supplying in your close area.
http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co....n_my_area.aspx#

I've got the fastest in my area

[MatJohnson]

Originally Posted by cigbunt

bt can install a accelerator socket on you master socket that will cut the broadband noise going down the extension.

pros are it'll increase your line speed
cons are that you'll only be able to use your broadband on the master socket

Is that not the I plate?

You can use both, depends on your microfilters though. You can get them off internet for about a Tenner.

[Mr Eccleston]

Originally Posted by Danny McGee

Ive just plugged into the master socket and am now getting 3mb's and 1mb upload. So seems better. I think for this area No2 (02) are pretty crap. As im renting at the moment its just a pain but hopefully this will make it better.

As for the exchange, google says im 2.4miles from it so thats not too bad right?

Thanks for the info. All very much appreciated

Danny

2.4 miles could be your problem, that's almost 4Km, and that will probably be as the crow flies, the cables won't go in a straight line. I guess you could be a the end of the ADSL limit.

Check your expected speed here with BT:

http://www.productsandservices.bt.co...?topicId=25795

[U1timate PigDog]

I-plate bt accelerator same thing, it replaces the cover on your standard bt master socket, wont make a massive difference depend on your internal wiring but they were available from bt for just the price of postage at one time, I think about £3. I'd run it off the master socket if possible tho.

Like someone previously said wireless capabilities are far beyond the the speed of your broadband it should be working fine as long as you haven't got a problem with your router/receiving wireless card.

Your distance from the exchange will be a major factor in your speed but it really all depends on the quality of the copper to be honest, I've certainly seen lines that are further than this that work fine. There is a site where you can get a close estimate on your actual distance from the exchange but I cant remember the site, sorry.

For gaming hard wired is my personal preferred method however the xbox wireless seems to work perfectly fine.

[bodgit]

You can get a straight line distance from the exchange here but you may have to leave a space in your postcode ch4 space xxx
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/distance.php

[bodgit]

I fitted an I-plate from ebay under £6 posted and its made quite an improvents to my laptops performance so it was money well spent.
Just 2 screws 2 mins job done.

[rondoolaa]

i am in torquay devon and i'm 700 metres from my exchange and with speedtest.net connecting to the london exchange i get 30ms ping, 10.34mbps download and 0.88mbps upload speeds,

dont know if these are good or not these days, but it works so i'm happy