Do I need a new router?

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
160,202
Hi guys,

My internet is beginning to annoy me. It never syncs at more than 1200kbps, and about twice a day it loses sync with the exchange and has to reconnect. Sure, this takes 20 seconds, but if you are in the middle of a game it's more than frustrating.

Often I have trouble with iplayer saying I don't have enough bandwidth. Other times it works fine.

I've had my router for a few years now. It's a Thompson Speedtouch 580i and was chosen on the recommendation on this forum as apparently its good with crap phone lines. I am nearly 6km from my telephone exchange.

Are my problems:

a) Because my router sucks
b) Because my ISP sucks
c) Because my line sucks
d) Something else?

Should I get a new router?

This might come in handy:

DSL Flavour = ADSL over POTS
Reserved Bandwidth (kbit/s) up/down = 448 / 1184

Properties
Output Power (dBm) up/down = 11.5 / 16.0
Attenuation (dB) up/down = 31.5 / 63.0
Noise Margin (dB) up/down = 15.0 / 9.5


I already have every phone extension in the house disconnected and the router plugged directly into the master socket with the faceplate removed.

Annoyingly, despite there being a BT phone exchange only 3km from my house, I am connected to one the other side of the city.
 
c) Your line sucks.

63dB attenuation (most routers don't read much more than 63dB so could be more).
Also, 9.5dB margin is dropping your speed in favour of a little more stablisation.
 
[TW]Fox;14704598 said:
I don't know, can I?
Click to expand...
Give 'em a ring for a service call for sure. I used to terminate 500m coaxial runs with < 0.9db (or was it 0.09? It's been awhile.) loss per run, even through a barrel connector. So surely they can clean that line up somehow.
 
Maybe the other exchange was only built after your house was wired up?

Sadly, you're not going to get switched over. As it would involve physically rerouting your line, and technically BT is already fulfulling its obligation to you, they're not going to do anything.

You should be able to sort out the loss of sync, though. When you lose sync, is it generally at night or in the evening? Lines tend to get noisier in the evening, which can cause a loss of sync if the connection is marginal. I'm guessing the figures you posted are daytime figures, as you posted at lunchtime? Check your noise margin again late in the evening. If it's dropped below 6dB then you're more likely to have problems.
 
[TW]Fox;14706606 said:
So there is absolutely nothing I can do to improve my internet service?
Click to expand...

If there's noise on the phone line during regular telephone conversations, BT will fix it. They might fix it if you can't use the line for faxes as well, although they're only obliged to maintain voice communications.

Alternative options - costing £££
1. Ask for an ISDN service, I think the the phone line has to be better to provide this. Once you have it working reliably (probably a minimum 12 month contract), cancel it and hopefully your line will be better as BT will have fixed any problems.

2. You could ask for a second telephone line. If you're lucky it will come from the closer exchange. Then get broadband on the new line and cancel the old one. You'll have a new phone number though.
 
When you get a new/2nd telephone line installed they don't run a brand spanking new cable from the nearest exchange direct to your house lol.
 
Report it as a fault, get an engineer out. I had similar issues to you with respect to low speeds and random dropping out, but it ended up being my old telephone line that connects the house to the post outside. This was corroded and had broken wires in it. I got a new cable from the post to my house then down into the socket and this fixed my issues. THey also noted how old the box on the post was and have since replaced that.

I'm not saying you have the same issues as I have no idea how old you house, lines etc are but it's worth getting all aspects checked out.

Although, a key part of my problem was a crackling telephone line when making calls. How is your telephone line when making calls?

Also, I reported it initially to BT broadband my ISP but the first engineer was useless. I then reported it to BT as a telephone fault and the second engineer was great a resolved the problem.
 
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I had a recent problem that sounded fairly similar to yours. I called up BT ( voice ) and told them there was interference on my voice line and also that the broadband was only syncing at 100 kbps. They checked the line, found a fault and sent an engineer. He had a look in the box a few hundred yards up from my property and found that the card (that's what he called it) had been damaged, probably by another engineer being a bit carefree. It's worth giving BT a call mate, if not you could try reporting an intermittent fault with your ISP and they may be able to do something for you. :)
 
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