BT tester

peter_the_piper

I've used the Metronet line tester to see if my line is suitable for 2meg. When I type in my number I get amber lights only, if I type in my neighbours number I get green lights. As she is only 20m nearer the exchange this seems strange. (her line is longer, by the way, as the pole is in my garden) does anyone know a more reliable tester?

sco0ter

Line testers are only a rough guide. You would really need to get the 2 meg and see how it goes. I got my line tested and was told that the max I could get due to line length was 5MB. I am currently on UKOnline 22MB with a download speed of 18MB and all is well with me downloading files from Adobe and Ahead at pretty much full speeds.(342 MB trial in 3mins 25 secs). I was told by UKOnline I am 2.1KM from the exchange. Speed of your line will be affected by length as well as quality.

tigermatt

Here is a good Broadband Checker: http://www.broadbandchecker.co.uk/

Don't forget they are only a guide though and can't determine abnormalities in the line that may reduce the speed that is available to you.

Rex_Mundi

If you're getting slowdowns at certain parts of the day. There is a way of testing whether the slowdown is from contention at your ISP, or contention at your exchange (as long as you have a BT phone line).

First of all, go to https://www.adslguide.org.uk look on the left hand side menu bar and try the speedtest on this site. Remember your result.

Then try this............

Go to your modem or router. Log out of your broadband (make sure you remember your login details). Reconnect to broadband using these details....

Username: speedtest@speedtest_domain
Password: (leave blank)

When you connect to this network. Open your browser (normal web pages wont load on this network) and go to the page http://speedtester.bt.com/ You will be prompted for your phone number. Enter this and click Go. When you finish this test. Logout of this network and reconnect to your normal broadband.

This second test will give you your broadband speed on the BT network before you get to your ISP. If the results are slow for both tests, it could point to contention on your BT exchange (nothing your ISP can do about this). If the BT speedtest gives good results, and the adslguide test is slow, it could point to problems on your ISP network.

thesealeyboy

peter_the_piper wrote:

I've used the Metronet line tester to see if my line is suitable for 2meg. When I type in my number I get amber lights only, if I type in my neighbours number I get green lights. As she is only 20m nearer the exchange this seems strange. (her line is longer, by the way, as the pole is in my garden) does anyone know a more reliable tester?

My dad works from home and as a result has threee phone lines going into the house (1 private 'home' phone, and 2 buiness lines). Bearing in mind that these 3 phone lines all start and end in the same place, and in fact the two business ones were installed at the same time, when the BT eng came to test the lines for Broadband they were all different lengths, and the difference between the two business lines was something ridiculous like 600m!!! Never-the-less he had BB installed on the shortest line.

J