Slow Line Speed

mikeyd

I have been trying to get DSL in my new flat and the BT broadband website says i should be able to get up to 8Mb on my line but everyone else says 512k or 1Mb, and BT's own "internal system" when I contacted them says the line will do a maximum of 1MB. At my last flat which was just up the road (I live at No. 1, used to live at No. 14) I had 2Mb DSL and the line would have supported 5.5Mb if I had wanted to upgrade to DSLMax. Both lines are connected to the same exchange.
Why would there be such a big difference in the speed which the 2 lines would support and is there anything I could do about it?

Any help would be appreciated
Thanks

Browntoa

it's partially down to cable quality as well as distance

the new address may be on an identified crappy cable, unless you can convince them to reroute it then you are stuck with it

sheedatali

Same exchange does not always gives you same speed on diffirent lines, actually it is very rare. The reasons are line quality, noise on your line or nearby equipment, and distance from exchange. ADSL1 is pretty good on distance tolrance, most exchanges in UK are within 2Km of user premesis, and ADSL1 can work pretty well upto that distance. The problems start when you have that kind of distance, you will get patches and breaks in cable which causes line noise and interference. All variants of ADSL use very high frequencies which are very sensitive to line noise and changes in singnal strength. Unfortunately there is no way for you to find out yourself, how much noise you have on your line untill you get the connection activated by BT or your provider. Another alternative is to raise a ticket to BT and ask an engineer to come down and check line noise. BT are very reluctant to do that although they do help but it is not very common. If you do not plan to switch your flat for some time in near future and want to get a broadband connection as well, then you try some things on your side.
When you get ADSL activated....
1) Connect the modem to main BT socket (not an extension)
2) There are some better BT face plates avaiable which improve the user end slightly, i think they cost from 5 to 15 £. ADSLNation does one which is very popular.
3) Do not put your modem or filter close to any thing electrical which can generate noise, not even your computer.
4) At the extreme you can buy some graphite coils which you can get for couple of quid from Maplins, you insulate the modem cable and filter cable. This will help to filter out any noise which might interfere with modem.



I know people who after doing all this have achived better speeds, i can not say how much gain you will get, but i guess this the situation you should be around 2Mbps or above easily.