Broadband connection speeds

davidmcg2u

Hi guys,

I'm looking for a bit of advice.

I'm currently with SKY & have the MAX package as my line is supposed to be capable of connecting at 16MB.

Anyway, in recent times I had carried out several tests & found that my speed never exceeds 7.8MB. When I queried this with SKY they palmed me off with "depends on distance from exchange" + "quality of line" etc. I was told I'm near exchange & should achieve 16MB by both BT & SKY.

Now I called them today & asked that since I constantly achieve 7-8MB on my connection speed tests would it be beneficial for me to reduce my package to MID package which should give me 8MB - their answer was yes & that the change would approx. take 3-4 hours.

So far I have check my speed & it seems to be at 4.9MB at present but I know it may be a busy time of the day. If I don't get 7+MB I will change back to the MAX package.

But can anyone tell me why I seem to be losing so much in terms of connection speed?

Thanks

espresso

davidmcg2u wrote: »

Hi guys,

I'm looking for a bit of advice.

I'm currently with SKY & have the MAX package as my line is supposed to be capable of connecting at 16MB.

UP TO 16MB

Anyway, in recent times I had carried out several tests & found that my speed never exceeds 7.8MB. When I queried this with SKY they palmed me off with "depends on distance from exchange" + "quality of line" etc. I was told I'm near exchange & should achieve 16MB by both BT & SKY.

Now I called them today & asked that since I constantly achieve 7-8MB on my connection speed tests would it be beneficial for me to reduce my package to MID package which should give me 8MB - their answer was yes & that the change would approx. take 3-4 hours.

So far I have check my speed & it seems to be at 4.9MB at present but I know it may be a busy time of the day. If I don't get 7+MB I will change back to the MAX package.

Well you won't necessarily get the same speed on ADSL as you did on ADSL2.

But can anyone tell me why I seem to be losing so much in terms of connection speed?

Is your router connected to the master socket?

Thanks

..................

davidmcg2u

Hi,

It's connected to the master socket.

Thanks

espresso

Try using these speed predictions tools for ADSL and ADSL2

Avoriaz

Do you really need 7 mb plus?

I am on TalkTalk free broadband and get about 5 mb on average which is plenty fast enough for everything I do.

TalkTalk reliability and customer service are awful but that is another issue. When it works I am happy with the speed.

penrhyn

How are you measuring your speed? BB speedtesters aren't that reliable.
You need to log in to your router, http://192.168.0.1/start.htm
User= admin, Password= sky, and have a look at your basic statistics.

You will then know the actual speed your router is synchronising with the exchange, your line attenuation etc..
BTW connecting wirelessly can also adversely affect your speed.

shammyjack

Also check out my post on this thread for a possible problem when a short line will not sync at near max speed.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=953897

shammy

davidmcg2u

Avoriaz wrote: »

Do you really need 7 mb plus?

I am on TalkTalk free broadband and get about 5 mb on average which is plenty fast enough for everything I do.

TalkTalk reliability and customer service are awful but that is another issue. When it works I am happy with the speed.

Hi,

It's not really a case of what I need more of a case of am I getting what I'm paying for & if not why not?

Also, if I can only get 7mb then fair enough but I wanted to know if by scaling down to the 8mb package (MID) if I could still achieve 7mb - 1st impressions is I'm not - less than 5mb since I down graded.

I don;t know enough about the technical side of this, for example ADSL & ADSL 2 - hence the questions here.

I don't use the wireless option so I can rule that out too.

Lokolo

Sky uses BT lines. BT lines use ADSL.

Basically theres a big broadband place in your local area somewhere run by BT. The further away you are from it, the slower you speed. The nearer, the faster. If you are down the road from it you will get the speed advertised, otherwise you will get lower.

NTL do it differently and run on different cables so the further away you are doesn't make a difference to speed.

bigkasper

Sky dependant on where you live will most likely use LLU or SMPF which will allow you to get adsl2, if the mid package is only plain adsl the speed will decrease, this would explain why max is 7mb and mid is 5mb.
Unfortunatly speed is all relative meaning if everyone in the exchange gets faster speeds eventually all the bandwidth will be used causing congestion and a drop in speeds.
what you could do is check your router for the line noise levels and loop loss in the main socket then try removing the front faceplate and plugging straight into there to see if there are any differences in the noise and connection speeds.
Unfortunatley as was mentioned before speeds do tend to decrease the further you are from the exchange.
find out how far you are try http://www.samknows.com