Really slow broadband - recommendations please

LucianH

I would like some advice as to whether changing my broadband provider will make much difference. I'm with TalkTalk (signed up with F2S but they are now part of TalkTalk) and the speed in the evenings is frustratingly slow. An example of speeds over the last couple of days (using mybroadbandspeed.co.uk):

Today..08:16 Up:3862 kbps (483kB/s) Down:703 kbps (87.9kB/s)
Fri....17:00 Up:1017 kbps (127kB/s) Down:703 kbps (87.9kB/s)
Thurs..21:11 Up: 964 kbps (121kB/s) Down:703 kbps (87.9kB/s)

As you can see, evening speed is about a quarter of what I've measured this morning.

I live in a small village and do not have the luxury of cable. Popolation about 450 (so say about 200 homes). SamKnows says that I'm about 1.7miles from the exchange (by road - 1.2miles as the crow flies).

The real question is: is there any way of determining what factors are reducing the performance. Would it be the providers' servers/service or the bandwidth limitations of the phone network (and bandwidth used by other users).

Another factor could be that I've got a very old Netgear DG834 router

Bottom line, I would like to know whether switching provider and/or getting a new router would make a significant improvement.

If the answer is yes to switching provider then what's poeples' view of Virgin? I have an old free dial-up account with them so already have some email addresses that are still being used and would make dumping TalkTalk a bit easier.

For further info, SamKnows provides the following summary of services available:
BT Total broadband
TalkTalk non-LLU
Sky Connect (non-LLU)
AOL broadband (non-LLU)
Pipex broadband
Plusnet broadband
Tiscali broadband
And many more...

And the exchange details summary is:
Serves (approx): 2,024 residential premises and 109 non-residential premises.
Broadband availability overview:
- ADSL: Yes
- SDSL: No
- LLU services: No
- Cable: No
- Wireless: No
BT Wholesale information:
- ADSL status: Enabled as of 28/01/2004
- ADSL Max status: Enabled as of 31/03/2006
- SDSL status: Not available
- 21CN WBC status: Not available
- FTTC status: Not available
Wireless broadband availability
- None available
Cable Broadband Availability
- None available
LLU operator presence
- None available

paulday

First thing that is worth a try is to post a request in the talktalk forums for them to check your line and maybe switch your line on to a faster profile to see if that improves the speed at all.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=215

Your download speeds are staying constant, its just the upload which is dropping off.

Paul