Unacceptable reduction in broadband speed

KarinHerts

We have a BT package which is unlimited broadband and anytime phone. For the last 4 weeks our broadband speed has diminished considerably from approximately 2Mb. Last Friday we made two telephone calls to BT some five hours apart to try to rectify the problem. On both occasions we were informed we should be receiving at least a 1.7 Mb download speed. We ran a number of tests with an ether net cable on the advice of the technicians outside the UK. We still were not able to achieve a satisfactory download speed. Having explored a number of internet avenues including BT wholesale speed test to check out our broadband speed we still only achieved a maximum of 0.47, which decreased on a further the speed test to an unacceptable 0.02:mad: for the package we are paying for.

We have also checked on the internet - speed tests achieved in our location and another BT customer in our village is obtaining 2.8Mb! Which is, as you may expect - most infuriating considering our problem.

We have been informed it is not a router problem and they will not agree to replace, however, we have also not been advised that the cabinet will be investigated to ascertain if any other provider has created a problem with our service. All we have been told is to leave it some 48 hours and keep re booting the router. Well, we have done that and the Test is still showing as below.......... 0.47Mb!

How can we get BT motivated to solve our problem - any ideas?

LazyTyper

How long did you have your broadband at your normal speed, before this problem came along?

Have they not yet sent an Openreach engineer to do some tests also? You will normally only be charged if the fault is proven to be with your internal wiring.

It might be worthwhile writing a formal complaint to BT, as that normally gets handled by UK-based staff, and things then get looked at properly.

kwikbreaks

Any thunderstorms recently?

It could have been a short period of high noise that has messed up your profile. It will eventually (supposed to happen within 5 days ) return to normal assuming your router is now syncing at the original rate (presumbly about 2Mbps).. If it has been low for all of the 4 weeks then this isn't likely to be the reason.

The first thing to check are your line stats to see what the sync rate is.

KarinHerts

Hi Kwikbreaks,

Please would you be kind enough to explain your last line....... 'check line stats and sync rate'....... what does that mean and how would we do it?
Thx

forgotmyname

In the routers control panel.

Are you connected wirelessly or with a cable?

How often do you switch your mode/router off?

TooTallTim

My download speed with BT has slowed down further and further, and looks like no chance of super fast any time soon

[Deleted User]

forgotmyname wrote: »

How often do you switch your mode/router off?

I agree switching the modem/router off regularly will certainly slow the connection until it recovers.
Definitely better to be constantly connected.

kwikbreaks

KarinHerts wrote: »

Hi Kwikbreaks,

Please would you be kind enough to explain your last line....... 'check line stats and sync rate'....... what does that mean and how would we do it?
Thx

Most ADSL routers are able to display information about the phone line and sync rate the modem has managed to achieve. How to get that from many routers is shown in http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php If your router isn't shown you should be able to find how to get this info from a google search.

The important figures are..

Attenuation - this is a measure of the signal loss between the exchange and you and is primarily dependent on the length of your phone line to the exchange. The higher this is the lower yoursync rate (below) and possible speed will be.

Noise margin - this should normally be around 6dB. If you have had some instability the line management routines may increase your default which will lower the speed but make it more resilient.

Sync rate - this can be anything up to the maximum the product supports and is the limiting factor on your download speed.

There will be numbers for each of those for both upstream and downstream. In general upstream on ADSL gives few problems and it's the downstream numbers that are more important.

Copy/paste the results here and I or somebody else will offer an opinion on what they actually mean.

C_Mababejive

Have you interrogated your ADSL routers setup pages and checked what the line synch speed is? If so, what is it?

Can you still use your pc and other data receiving equipment satisfactorily?

penrhyn

OP As advised post your routers' line statistics.