ADSL Jargon and Speeds

debitcardmayhem

Hintza wrote: »

DSP Firmware VersionA2pB025f.d22kDMT StatusNo Defect
Operational ModeADSL2+
Upstream1022
Downstream8191
SNR Margin(Upstream)9.9
SNR Margin(Downstream)6.7
Line Attenuation(Upstream) 17.8
Line Attenuation(Downstream)32.0

Hintza wrote: »

Even 2 miles from exchange?




It's not a new line we knocked house down and rebuilt. I was a bit of a naughty boy an changed a lot of the wiring outside the house (pole made from CSL, wires up trees and laid along the ground etc). So when we moved in I tought I had better go legit (mainly because the line is knackered and they are out so often). I'm first name terms with half the guys now and a cup of coffee an half a dozen eggs works wonders....;)

Should do on that Attenuation, however since you are BT line you will be stuck at 8 , LLU will give you more (at a cost perhaps depends on who are in your exchange I got a good 1 year deal from TT when they upgraded my exchange) I I can sync at 17+Mbps on 28.5 atten and that means I can get a good 14.5 Mbps down.

GunJack

LucianH wrote: »

GunJack - this has been extremely useful, thank you. I will go through the details in the link and sort out the wiring etc. I do have one further question though - do you think my 8yr old Netgrear router will be capable of achieving the extra 2.5 meg or do I need to consider another one.

It should handle it ok, just ensure you have the most up-to-date firmware

GunJack

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

I I can sync at 17+Mbps on 28.5 atten and that means I can get a good 14.5 Mbps down.

show-off

LucianH

GunJack wrote: »

... as you quite rightly understood, you should be syncing an extra 2.5 meg higher than you are, so the main factor WILL be your house wiring...look at the links I posted above for how to sort it out, do it now for the speed boost, and it'll then already be done for when your exchange gets done for ADSL2+ and the almost doubling of speed you "should" get when it happens

Just fell off my chair after talking to BT. I wanted to know how much it would be for them to come 'round to tidy up the wiring by disconnecting the unused 24m spur and fit an NTE5 master socket (and in doing so clean up or replace 1970's External Block Terminal). Was quoted approx £140 for the visit which rocked me in the chair a bit - but what pushed me off completely was when they quote approx £75 for the NTE5 socket. Now I could get this from TLC Direct for aout £10 - does anybody know any reason why a BT engineer would not fit one that I had bought?.

Also is there any other checks that I or BT could do to check if it would improve the broadband performance?

GunJack

the bt bod will only be allowed to fit the nte bt supply. you could look for a local telecom guy to do the same work for a fraction of the cost (and they're almost all ex-bt anyway )

in terms of your bb performance, you can't check effect without doing the work unfortunately..but if you fit an NTE5, have any extensions (if you really can't do without them) wired to the faceplate NOT the rear of the new socket, and most important DO NOT connect ANY bell wires at all, you could be confident that your internal setup should be as good as it can be....and should get the performance improvement.

LucianH

GunJack wrote: »

But, as you quite rightly understood, you should be syncing an extra 2.5 meg higher than you are, so the main factor WILL be your house wiring...look at the links I posted above for how to sort it out, do it now for the speed boost, and it'll then already be done for when your exchange gets done for ADSL2+ and the almost doubling of speed you "should" get when it happens

Gunjack thanks for your previous advice and it's produced some results:beer:.
I now have got a better "connection speed" but now I'd like to understand what this means in real terms. I've had the wiring tidied up (removed the long unused spur, no bell wire connected, etc) and the router is now giving me the following stats:

Downstream:
- Connection Speed: 7616kbps (up from about 5600)
- Line atten: 31db
- Noise Margin: 6db
Upstream:
- Connection Speed: 832kbps
- Line atten: 9.5db
- Noise Margin: 9db

And when I do an "off peak" broadband speed test I get results such as:

- 4160kbps (bbc iplayer test)
- 4230kbps (broadbandspeedchecker)

This dropped to around 2500kbps at a peak time (yesterday early evening).

So I'd appreciate a bit more guidance. Is the "real world" speed of circa 4.2mbps the max I'm likely to get with a router given a stat of circa 7.5mbps? And is the reduction at peak times limited wholly by the ISP provider or have I still got "infrastructure" problems?

The bottom line question from my perspective is that do I need to look at another service provider? Although I obviously want to get the maximum possible speed, the 4ish mbps works ok for streaming iplayer and lovefilm to a 46" Smart TV (which is what I really want to be able to do and am very pleased with the result) - what's really bugging me is the inability to use lovefilm/iplayer at peak times.

debitcardmayhem

Your sync rate(7616) should allow you a max "real" rate of 6400Mbps (approx 85%. Looking at your exchange on samknows then at the moment you are going to be stuck with that. I would guess that the speeds you are getting will be the best you will get bearing in mind the location of the exchange a fair bit outside the residential areas and you have observed that at peak times the speed really does drop off. GJ and someone else will probably come on and give their opinion too and may have suggestions on squeezing more out of your set-up.

GunJack

as you're on an IPStream product, I'd ask your ISP now for a line retrain or reset now you've done the internals and got your sync up. As dc says, you should (with no extrnal factors) get an IP profile of 6000, maybe 6500. Try the bt speedtester and post the results

http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

LucianH

GunJack wrote: »

as you're on an IPStream product, I'd ask your ISP now for a line retrain or reset now you've done the internals and got your sync up. As dc says, you should (with no extrnal factors) get an IP profile of 6000, maybe 6500. Try the bt speedtester and post the results

http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

Well, from my point of view, the posts in this thread are certainly addressing the title of "ADLS Jargon and Speed". The term "IP Profile" is new to me. I've just ran the BT test with the following result:

- Download speed achieved during the test was - 3.89 Mbps
- For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 1.2 Mbps-7.15 Mbps.
Additional Information:
- Your DSL Connection Rate :7.46 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 832 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
- IP Profile for your line is - 4.5 Mbps

It appears that I'm getting performance close to my IP Profile but is the IP Profile "set" by anybody (ie, BT or the ISP) or, again, is this dictated by hardware/infrastructure? I'm hoping you're going to say that it's set by the ISP and I can go back to them and do something about it (but I'm preparing myself for disappointment and the recognition that I'll have to live with what I've got - but let me down gently if that's the case!).

GunJack

IP profile is set by the automated systems that manage the line, hence why I said about asking for a retrain/reset - be warned, if they do, it'll mean another (up to) 10-day training period of leaving router on 24/7