Slow broadband with Eclipse Internet/BT

wibbler

My parents live in a relatively new estate (built around 2 years ago) and there were discussions at the time that the broadband speeds would be slow as BT hadn't upgraded the exchange.

Their internet runs at around 0.5Mbs, which cannot even stream a video, let alone IPlayer or anything similar. Eclipse Internet (their provider) say that if they upgrade from the Basic package (and therefore a new 12 month contract) we will get faster internet. All the "speed predictors" on Eclipse and Virgin and BT websites indicate that they should be getting up to 3.5Mbs. I am wary of this in light of the discussions on slow internet in the area.

So, my questions:
1. Is it the case that BT still needs to upgrade exchanges and that there are areas that can only get very slow speed internet?

2. Is there any alternative (they are also not in a cabled area).

3. Eclipse/BT/Virgin say they can't guarantee speeds. What rights do I have if we change providers/tariffs and there is no speed increase?

Thanks in advance!

kwikbreaks

What they are talking about is provision of ADSL2+ rather than just ADSL.

If the line is really only capable of 0.5Mbps then ADSL2+ will give no better speeds.

If you can find and post the line stats they will show if the low speed is line length only or if there could be some internal cabling improvements possible (basically ring wire isolation).

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

wibbler

Hi,

thanks for the info. It's a Netgear DG834GT and here are the stats:

kwikbreaks

With that sync the download speed delivered should be about 4Mbps. Use a reliable speed tester such as http://www.speedtest.net/index.php and test offpeak (say morning on a working day) and again in the evening.

The 9dB noise margin could indicate some past instability or it could just be that noise levels are lower now than when it last synced - often there is more electrical noise pickup in the evening than daytime.

ADSL2+ would deliver a higher speed but you really need to figure out why it is only getting 0.5Mbps at the moment if indeed it is and the most likely reason is that the ISP is trying to cram too many users onto too little capacity - if speeds are good offpeak and poor at peak times look to moving on. The best deals usually come from LLU operators - check availability - http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

bod1467

Get DMT v8.07 and use that to get detailed graphs and stats from the DG834GT. Copy and paste the stats from tab Info2 (click on Send first) into the checker at adsl.tin2tin.net then copy/paste the results to this thread. This gives stats in an easy-to-read format and may help us give better advice on what the line is capable of. (My example stats are below).

Uptime:			99h 47m 03s 
Modulation:		ADSL2+ - Interleaved on Annex A
				(Up Stream)	/	(Down Stream)
Sync:				1399	/	17290
Data Transferred:		/	
Attenuation:			14	/	25
SN Margin:				3.5	/	3.7
Power:					12.4	/	18.6
Vendor:					/	
Modem:			an unknown modem with adslctl
LoF:					0	/	0
LoS:					0	/	0
Error Sec.:				20413	/	551
FEC (Uncorrected):			58272
FEC (Corrected):				231420433
FEC (RS Counter):			4082499666

HEC (Errors):				9184	/	442
Data Cells:				240251542	/	176258316

CRC (SFerr):					28276	/	632
Supper Frames:			22229202	/	22162611

But as others have said, the internal wiring may also need to be looked at.