Wrighty
Member
Registered: 28th Feb 04
Location: Howden
User status: Offline
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Im experiencing issues with my home broadband, connectivity, slowness etc to the point where im thinking of switching ISP's. Im paying for 8mb connection and getting 2.42 mb/s download and 0.38 mb/s upload (just myself connected) which is poor to say the least.
Iv seen some providers are doing up to 20mb which sounds inviting especially as there are now 3 users of the internet at home. How can i find out what speeds my line can take? and who is offering the best 20mb broadband deals at the minute? i need a fair bit of usage as i download music (legally) and my rents seems to love streaming media on their laptop
someone point me in the right direction?
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N3CRO
Member
Registered: 12th Apr 07
Location: Sandy, Bedfordshire
User status: Offline
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Give O2 a call. They'll tell you honestly what your line can take.
BT told me my line could only take 0.25Mb, O2 told me 16Mb max and I've been getting a consistent 13-14Mb ever since I've been with O2.
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Wrighty
Member
Registered: 28th Feb 04
Location: Howden
User status: Offline
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good call thanks
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Dom
Member
Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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Unfortunately you pay for a "up to" service which is pretty much standard with ADSL broadband. I would phone your ISP and get them to do a line test and see if there is a fault with your connection. But i suspect the reason for you having a poor sync rate is because of you being a fair distance from the exchange or line degradation in which case i wouldn't get up hope on increasing that swapping to another ISPs.
Best bet would be to look up your exchange on the SamKnowns website and see what ISPs are available to you and a give a few a call and get them to do a speed check.
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Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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Don't bother looking for a new ISP. Follow these steps first:
1. Check what maximum speed you can get.
2. If your maximum speed is indeed greater than your current sync rate, you MUST check your internal BT socket wiring is OK.
3. Make sure your ADSL filters and any extension wiring is good (routers normally come with a couple of filters) - if you are using an extension lead, as a test plug the router and filter directly into the BT socket. If speed is still shit, open the BT socket up and connect the filter to the test socket inside the box.
4. Still having slow speeds? Plug a known good phone into the test socket directly and dial 17070 (it's BT's line test number). Press 2 for the quiet test, and listen for any crackling or other noises on the line.
Your line should be silent - if it's not, then you will need to report the fault to BT who will then send an engineer out to check your BT socket and internal wiring, and also the wire going from your house to the telegraph pole/cabinet in your street.
To give you an example of what we are currently experiencing here:
We can sync up to 8Mb on our line, but recently the DSL link keeps dropping and a lot of the time it'll only stay connected (for like half an hour) at about 2Mb (and this is with O2 broadband as well). I've followed the above steps and have concluded that the noise on our line is causing problems. Phoned up BT last night and they said normally if we fucked up their socket we'd have to pay £130-odd for the engineer to fix it, but it'll be free as they can confirm that the noise on the line is something we've not done.
Hope this helps.
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