3 months ago I was on an estimated 3mb line... now im on a 1.5mb line

MissWorzel

I remember months ago before I renewed my contract with AOL, i checked my line capability with one of the many websites where you enter you phone number and you get an 'estimated' line speed...

Months ago, I was getting a reading of 2.5mb or 3mb, and this is OK for me, im not an AVID internet user anymore and do not need 5mb/8mb as some do.

I checked again out of curiosity, and now nearly every site is saying 1mb/1.5mb... What could've caused such a drop?!

Could it be due to the fact that my parents have recently taken out a line contract with Sky instead of BT?

I'm baffled!

reserved

More importantly, what is the actual speed you are getting with AOL?

Try testing here:http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/

MissWorzel

I'm not at home at the moment, I'll check that when im back.

I've had download speeds of around 290-300kb/s on a VERY GOOD day, more often than not my download speeds are around 130-150kb/s, but this could be due to the servers im downloading from...

My upload speed is 47kb/s max, I've never got faster than this.

penrhyn

There are many reasons why your speed may have dropped, speed testers are not very reliable, especially if you are connecting wirelessly.
Can you establish your download sync speed? To do this you will need to log in to your router and find your router statistics.
That will give you the actual speed that you are connecting with the exchange.
There is a list of routers here:-
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

Paying Sky for your line rental will make no difference, its just an accountancy excersise, nothing changes on the line, BTW do you know if your AOL is LLU or via BT.

Do an exchange search and it should tell you,
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

MrsBartolozzi

Missworzel,
when you do the download check, make sure you are using IE or Firefox, or another non Aol browser. I have been having terrible problems with the Aol software since a recent software "upgrade" that I no longer use it. You will get a truer reading than through the bloated software that is aol and might find that you are just as fast as you used to be.

HTH, MrsB.

reserved

Try the BT site if you can get on it: http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

MissWorzel

Sorry, I should've made myself clear, I've not really noticed a drop in speed myself as I dont use the internet for downloading much anymore, just watching videos/browsing the internet.

I was just curious as to why 3 months ago the DSLzone/BT/AOL/O2 websites said I could receive around 3mb, now the same sites are saying I can only get a max of 1mb. Why would this decrease?

I connect directly to the socket and only use IE/Firefox, but will check my speed once im home, as well as my router snyc.. although im sure last time i checked it said something like 3488/422 or something along those numbers! but ill confirm this later.

I can only get Talk Talk on LLU... and im signed into an 18 month contract with AOL anyway so I couldnt move even if i wanted to.

penrhyn

Talk Talk owns AOL in the UK, they may have moved you onto their network, which could (although its doubtful) account for the change in performance.