Sky Base too slow - Upgrade to Sky Mid, or move to someone else?

jd87

We're on Sky Base package broadband and even though it is advertised as being "up to 2Mb", speedtests show that we're only getting just over 1Mb/s which really isn't fast enough for us. We're not exactly heavy users, so we don't care about download limits. If we upgrade to Sky Mid for an extra £5 a month, is it likely we'll notice things speed up much? Or would we be better off moving to someone else completely?

The Plusnet site gives an estimate for our line of 4Mb/s on their basic £5.99 package. Perhaps we should move to that? Any advice?

I think we're quite a long way from out exchange, and the only LLU operators at our exchange (according to Sam Knows) are: AOL, O2/Be, C&W/Bulldog, Orange, Sky/Easynet and TalkTalk.

penrhyn

It will make no difference at all.
You need to investigate why your speed is as slow as it it, distance from the exchange noise on the line and poor internal wiring all contribute.
Log onto your router find the show router statistics screen and post the results.

jd87

Thanks for the reply penrhyn. I'd rather not post the whole page as I'm not sure how secure that would be, but I'm guessing you are looking for the following info which I just spotted:

DownStream Connection Speed 2048 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 416 kbps

Obviously that looks pretty good, but why am I not get 2048kbps in speedtests?

penrhyn

OK you will never get 2mbps, this is down to overheads in the datastream.
You are synchronising with the exchange at 2mbps so things are looking good.

The two other important pieces of information needed are the Downstream Attenuation and the downstream noise margin.
Downstream attenuation will give an indication of the maximum speed you might expect.
Noise margin is a measurement of the difference between the broadband signal level and the noise on the line, the router has to have sufficient margin to operate.

jd87

Just figured out how to get the other stats using the pinger.exe from skyuser:

Line Attenuation 49.0 db 31.5 db Noise Margin 8.9 db 14.0 db

mrJ_5

will need more information than that, like line noise...

should be secure, just don't post IP address, MACs, username/passwords, wireless keys, and you'll be ok

jd87

Actually the downstream noise seems to vary. Just ran it again and got 16.5db

penrhyn

With you downstream attenuation of 49db, you should be able to get a downstream sync of between 6 and 7mbps on an ADSL2 service.

jd87

Ok thanks Penrhyn. Well we've upgraded to Mid for now and they said we can get about 4mb on that. Already getting around 3 on it and hopefully it will get even faster over the next few days. I've also pulled the ring wires on both my sockets to help.

penrhyn

You will be on dlm (dynamic line management)for a couple of weeks whilst the system determines the optimum speed for your line.
Best to leave the router turned on during this period.