How Can I Find Out my Internet Package Speed

Naf

robmar0se wrote: »

You're joking of course? You maybe right on cable though. The large proportion of BT exchanges are still plain old vanilla adsl.

8Meg was the last big thing advertised before 20Meg. I don't mean 8MB (although this is roughly what I get on my 100Mbit), I mean 8Mbit. The UK average is only 2Mbit.

Ladywriter1968

Mista_C wrote: »

The 14MB or 20MB you mention is supposed to be 14Mbps or 20Mbps (Megabits Per Second). ISPs cause a lot of confusion to people who are fimilar with filesizes being measured in Megabytes (MB).

In your case your line speed would be the 3.09Mbps. Don't rely on a single test though as the results can be deceptive. Run a series of tests at different times over several days as the results can be affected by a number of factors including, number of hops (the amount of 'junctions' between your router and the test server), number of people currently connected to the test server, contention ratio (the number of people connected to your 'pipe'. It's unlikely, as a home user, you'll have a dedicated line and you'll share a main 'pipe' with other customers connected to the same exchange).

There are other factors to consider but if you run a number of tests at varying times of the day over say a week you should be able to get a rough idea of your average line speed from that.

ETA: To get an idea of how fast your average file download should be (the one you see in your browsers download manager) you would normal divide your line speed by 10. So if your line speed is 10Mbps then, in perfect conditions, you could expect a download speed of 1Mbps.

Where is my download manager? I tried looking cant find it?

Ladywriter1968

thanks for all your answers, lots of information there. I have netgear router, wired/wireless and I am with aol.

espresso

robmar0se wrote: »

You're joking of course? You maybe right on cable though. The large proportion of BT exchanges are still plain old vanilla adsl.

Wrong! "Exchanges serving 75% of UK homes and businesses are enabled for ADSL2+ with broadband speeds of up to 20Mbps" more details here and here

robmar0se

Ladywriter1968 wrote: »

thanks for all your answers, lots of information there. I have netgear router, wired/wireless and I am with aol.

So give AOL, aka talktalk, a call. (i) find out what package you're on, (ii) what your line is capable of, and (iii) what better deal is available to you (intimate that you're thinking of moving - quite often that make 'em a little more interested in doing something for you).

Of course if you are already on 8mbps, and your line is too far from your local exchange (and its not adsl2 enabled) there maybe not a lot you can do, especially if you're rural.

Let us know how you get on please.

GunJack

look, the OP needs to post her line stats so we can see what's going on... on a netgear the IP address will be 192,168.0.1, default login is admin/password. Find the line stats and post them - we need connection speed up/down, line attenuation up/down and snrm up/down. Netgear put them in a handy pop-up box within the router interface

Ladywriter1968

Line Stats: Of which I found

connection speeds
downstream 5792 kbps - upstream 448 kbps

Line Attenuation
downstream 41 db - upstream 13 db

snrm - cant find this one.

snrm - take it this means the noise one then?
Noise Margin 9 db - 26 db

bod1467

Your sync speed is just under 5.8meg, which is about right for 41dB attenuation and 9dB noise margin. Also, since you have 448k upload sync then this means you're on ADSLMax (up to 8meg).

If you're getting nothing like 5meg throughput (download) speed then it sounds like the connection from your exchange in congested - only your ISP can do anything about this. (Or you can, by going to a different ISP).

If you check on samknows.com which ISPs are available to you?

GunJack

sounds like the OP is on an IPStream service, on one of the 25% of exchanges that BT hasn't rolled out 21CN yet, and NOT on LLU. IF they were on a 21CN exchange, then that'd be automatically applied to the connection, and the upload and download would be more. Same if they were on an LLU connection.

Although bod (above) is probably right and the lack of throughput is down to congestion at the exchange (which is FAR more likely on an IPStream (i.e. non-LLU) connection), there are other factors both in the router setup and your pc that can have similar effects. For example, in the router setup, the MTU may not be optimal or you may suffer from localised wifi interference, and your pc could not have the MTU optimised.

From the OP's point of view, you need to eliminate the factors you control (pc, router, wifi) before asking your ISP to investigate

smos585

GunJack wrote: »

For example, in the router setup, the MTU may not be optimal or you may suffer from localised wifi interference, and your pc could not have the MTU optimised.

For AOL I believe the MTU is set to 1400, certainly AOL used the abridged version of the old Netgear DG834 router. Did the OP mention both wired and wireless in one of her posts? If she hasn't already, she could run a speedtest with a wired connection to see what speed she has?

Would it be worth checking the speed with the router connected to the master NTE5 test socket, thus eliminaring internal wiring etc which can cause probs, at least then she wouild have an idea of what the speed might be - accepting the 5.8mbps may be her limit at present?

Incidentally in regard to yr comment that 25% still not adsl2 enabled, I heard that it was much higher and BT were being just a little economic. They classify the exchange as enabled as long as 10 cabinets are upgraded, which maybe only 20% of the exchange. Any truth in this, and where did you hear the 25% figure?

When I moved to Xilo last year, I got a significanmt pick up (at a lower cost) and no my exchange is not enabled either!