slow internet connection

closed

there was an outage for most of the day about 10 days ago. if you do stay with adsl, you might be able to get a discount by ringing retentions, £22 is on the steep side nowadays.

grumpycrab

soolin wrote: »

..if I decided to have cable (which we have in our road) how do they get it into my house?..Would they have to dig up the drive or would they expect to just run it somehow across the drive?.

Experiences vary but the provider will normally do the quickest and simplest method. This may involve an overground (protected) cable but they wouldn't lay it where a car would run. Others may have a view?

Other than following closed's advice the reason we've asked you to use the TEST SOCKET is as follows. (Assuming you can access it by gently removing the lower part of the MAIN SOCKET as described in a couple of posts above). Your provider (Virgin in this case) will only get BT in to look at the line from the MAIN SOCKET to exchange if they are 110% sure that there isn't a wiring fault in the house. Using the TEST SOCKET ensures that other house extensions are excluded from the picture.

The current stats at your modem are
ADSL LinkDownstream/Upstream
Connection Speed 7315 kbps/863 kbpsLine
Attenuation 32.5 db/14.7 db
Noise Margin 6.3 db/6.4 db

If the stats at the TEST SOCKET are very similar to the above data then the house wiring is OK and you should be able to convince Virgin to send a BT engineer AND you should not be charged for any fault found. If the data is different (e.g. Connection Speed 11000) then there's something wrong with your house wiring.

soolin

I've had a bit of a weekend but I have now taken the cover off the main socket and plugged the router directly into to test socket. I get the following results

download speeds 7.97
upload speed 0.99
latency 52.75

soolin

I did the next bit as well and it says







1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.


Download Speed7.89 Mbps

0 Mbps21 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 7.89 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 11.59 Mbps
2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.


Upload Speed0.99 Mbps

0 Mbps0.83 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 0.99Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 0.83 Mbps

We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.
It is possible that any problem you are currently, or had previously experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion on the Internet or by the server you were accessing responding slowly.
If you continue to encounter a problem with a specific server, please contact the administrator of that server in the first instance.

Please visit the FAQ if you are unable to understand the test results.

grumpycrab

Ok, no major improvement. If possible can your provide the router stats (like you did on page 1).

Click on the above Show Statistics link and cut and paste the line stats here.
Default username = admin, password = password

EDIT: Then
1. are you still getting errors? If so, you need to take the PC downstairs (again) and check that PC <-> router using a CABLE is no better. (**)
2. The upper speed of your line is 11.59Mbps as noted by yourself above. So you should be getting about a max speed of 11Mbps.
The fact that you're getting about 75% of this and you're getting errors and we've ruled out the house wiring means there's an issue with the BT wiring (between house and exchange)
3. The next stage is to find a couple of spare hours and get ready for a long talk with Virgin. And when they say you need to test at the test socket and don't use wifi you can say yes, already done that.
Note that they will insist that you keep connected to the test socket (and not use wifi) while they do their tests (or you should just lie to them on the basis that you know there is no internal problem.)
Hopefully the result will be to send a BT engineeer out - you may have to push for this - but be polite and courteous etc etc.
4. OR upgrade to cable...

(** Virgin won't look at your line unless you confirm to them that you have tested your connection with a CABLE between router and PC)

soolin

OK, thank you for that.

I am going to have a think about what to do here, I may even phone Virgin and ask how they would cable my property to see if that is an option. It might be better to look long term rather than go for a fix now and then upgrade later anyway.

I need to speak to my OH and see what he thinks.

closed

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm

soolin

I've spoken to Virgin (I went into their shop) and they have drawn me a diagram of how they would run cable to my house. It is a bit long winded , but obviously the distance doesn;t really matter. The route they say they would use looking at a photo of my house would end up on the top of a garage ceiling height to a downstairs room when it can go in through brick.

For £2 more than I am currently paying I can have 30mb unlimited and they can upgrade me for free.

grumpycrab

Based on the experiences I've had with getting BT Openworld to fix obscure line issues, I'd go for the upgrade. A couple of things to check
1. Virgin says it will be "for free". Is that with a 12-month contract?
2. I don't know what package you've been quoted but may be worth checking out competition. eg http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/

soolin

grumpycrab wrote: »

Based on the experiences I've had with getting BT Openworld to fix obscure line issues, I'd go for the upgrade. A couple of things to check
1. Virgin says it will be "for free". Is that with a 12-month contract?
2. I don't know what package you've been quoted but may be worth checking out competition. eg http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/

They were not quite sure whether it would be a 12 or 18 month contract as I would not sign up for the upgrade there and then. They said I could talk about contract etc when I sign up.

They also confirmed they do a brief site visit and if it is not possible to do this neatly then I do not have to proceed and can stay as I am.

As for BT, I agree. We had severe phone problems about 7 years ago and the trouble we had getting them to sort it was incredible. In the end a friend of a friend who was a BT engineer came round and phoned up himself and told them what the matter was- and we finally got an engineer out to redo something or other with their wiring and we had a new box inside the door installed.