Broadband connection speed?

continentalgal

georgiac wrote: »

Not even I could be that dumb!!! No, it just seems incredibly slow to me, I'll give tech support a call.

Uh, I hope you didn't think I was implying that! Like Wilco said, speeds may vary (although 495kbs is a joke, true), you should monitor your connection over a few days at different times, record the speeds you get and present this to your ISP. I'd also suggest you first read their 'terms & conditions' because quite often, the actual 8mb offer has an asterisk after the number which leads to a disclaimer which says that the speed will be only around 2mb in areas where you can't get 8mb yet. Be prepared to get to hear this lame excuse.

To be on the safe side, you should check if your area is already upgraded for 8mb speeds and furthermore, you'll need to know how far your home is from the nearest BT exchange because the further you're away, the slower your connection speed. Unfortunately, I lost the link to the site that had this kind of info, I'll see if I can find it or maybe someone else here knows.

Connie

Millionaire

You may want to try the speed tests a few times at different times of the day to get a better idea of what your getting as it can vary hugely.

Theres many factors that affect the speed you recieve and majority of people dont get anywhere near the upto 8MB advertised.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm

P.S: The icons are available even if you use a router. Just need to set to show in network connections and it will appear on your taskbar

x_Wilco_x

espresso wrote: »

Not true, you can have the two monitors icon when using a router if it is set to display in your Local Area Network connections properties.

I learned something new today

This is interesting article about BB speeds in UK...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6924866.stm

continentalgal

Just ran a quick search and came across this site. Looks quite comprehensive and seems to give all kinds of detailed information about the BT exchanges in Britain. WRT distance from your nearest BT exchange, if you live within 2km of it you should get the full speed that exchange has been upgraded to.

globalds

You can show your results to everyone like this
[URL="http://www.speedtest.net]"][/URL]

by copying the URL into the "insert link"

random456

i also get the 2 tvs icon on both wireless and wired

symy@nufc

distance is shorter than the other one

im on supposed to be 8 mb and this is slow

penrhyn

All ISPs quote their speeds as up to x mbps, infact you will never get the quoted maximum due to overheads in the ADSL signal.
There are several reasons for poor speed, distance from the exchange, noise on the line, and your own internal wiring, extensions etc.
If you can log on to your router you will see the actual speed that the router is connecting to the exchange equipment(DSLAM). The actual speed you achieve via one of the speed test sites will be lower than this due to overheads as stated before, contention ratio (how many people are sharing your connection) and the capacity of the network.
Some useful DIY tips for improving performance can be found here:
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/socket.php

An explanation of connection speeds/attenuation etc can be found here

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/router-stats/14441-sky-router-stats-speed-noise-attenuation-explained.html

Its written around the Sky router but the principle remains the same.

georgiac

Thanks guys, I've been onto the tech support people who said

Disconnect router and reinstall modem. (took ages finding it, plugging it in and then realising I needed to download drivers via internet I couldn't now get on!)

Take cover off BT telephone box and use socket inside (didn't attempt this one!)


Tried speed test again and got -


[URL]http://[/URL]

so no real improvement, in fact everything seems slower to me.

BUT at least I have my 2 TV's back!!!!!!!!! and more importantly they say speedtouch connection 7.5mbps

That sounds incredible but if so, who's retuned my tv's and nicked my bandwidth!

georgiac

penrhyn wrote: »

An explanation of connection speeds/attenuation etc can be found here

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/router-stats/14441-sky-router-stats-speed-noise-attenuation-explained.html

Its written around the Sky router but the principle remains the same.

I tried this and only got as far as the password box which it didn't accept - even though I'm on a netgear router????