Plusnet wanting to leave-slow speeds

Bosie

Been with Plusnet for 18 month's but the last month the speed is not poor it's almost non existent. Only 240kbs, have rung and spoke to technical help, tried different microfilters, then I thought it could be the computer, so tried the newer laptop, just the same!
They said they can charge up to £144 for a engineer visit, so worried at that option. Anyone had exceptionally slow speeds with Plusnet, they're part of BT these days too.

The phone line seems fine, no crackling on line, so have requested a MAC key and they said up to 5 days, but worried if I go to Sky as their offers look good, will the problem go away as there would be a new router?

Could the router from Plusnet be the problem? Not good on knowledge regarding routers.

Mark_In_Hampshire

There may or may not actually be a problem, ADSL broadband starts from 135kbps so you get more than that. It is within acceptable range. However, it is very slow as you say.

If there is no fault and the speed is simply because of the quality and/or length of the phone line then no provider is going to beat what you have significantly (except Virgin Media Cable, if you can get it, or Fibre-to-the-Cabinet if you can get that - the former is much more widespread)

To check these things we'd need to see the statistics from your router and what else is available in your area.

For the former, see http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

For the latter, put your postode in to the Virgin Media website to see if you can get cable ("Great! You're in a fibre optic area" or similar is the result you want, not "You're not.... but you can still get...") and put your phone number into the BT Wholesale checker here: http://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html and see if it mentions anything at all about a fibre service.

In any reply, make sure you remove your phone number from what you paste.

Bosie

Thanks Mark, so connect the router with ethenet lead and this will test my router to see if it is that. I've read to also go to the main socket take the plate off, is there another socket at the back to test for faulty wiring?

PS the download spead used to be around 7mbs?

Mark_In_Hampshire

With regard to the socket, there may or may not be a "test socket"

Some houses have what's called an NTE socket which has a BT logo and a stripe, which is the "master socket". That has a pull-off front part.

Some houses have no identifiable master socket and are one piece so there's nothing to remove.

When you log into the router you should be able to see some statictics: especially relevant are Modulation Type, Attenuation, IP (or line) Profile and Downstream/Upstream values.

Getting those while the router is plugged into the master socket, if there is one, will enable us to see how the line is performing.