How to find out maximum speed your local excange can support?

[Buchanan0204]

I would like to find out what my local telephone exchange is equipped to put out. The reason I ask is. I live a town called Kilwinning, Ayrshire. The most anyone has ever been able to receive for years has always been 8Mbps. Until last night when I was in my friends house and did a speed test, they were receiving 14Mb. I couldn't believe it!

I am still only receiving 8 regardless of being with sky broadband on there unlimited package. She does live a little closer to the exchange than myself but not enough for that sort of margin. Is there any possible reason Why I am not receiving the full potential amount.

Her telephone line has been in for years aswell, so nothing to do with new wiring. I have also connected to master socket to see if that makes a difference but the most I get is 8. Other people in my area on various ISP's also only receive upto 8 and never exceeding.

Can anyone shine some light on this for me please.

 

[Buchanan0204]

The physical distance from the exchange has next to no bearing on a) the length of the phone line or b) the quality of that line, both of which will have a huge impact on the speed the line is capable of.

If you post the connection stats (line attenuation, noise margin etc) that your router is reporting someone should be able to tell you if they're sensible for the performance you're getting.

Any idea how to go about obtaining that from a manky sky router... latest generation little black one.

 

[Buchanan0204]

 

[Buchanan0204]

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WSKIW

Couple of LLU operators tho so possible they are providing higher than ADSL speeds.

I am with Sky, one of the few providers offering LLU services. My friend who received the 14Mbit is also on the same sky package/contract. So surely I should receive the same or similar speed.

We both signed up for sky within one week apart, so no differences in time or install etc.

Any ideas anyone what I need to do to get 10Mbit plus?

 

[Buchanan0204]

Get LLU or FTTC and be close to an exchange and have a good downstream attenuation or cable if you can get it.

Im on BE LLU service, 333meters straight line distance from exchange, 22db downstream attenuation, I get 19mb obviously with a few tweaks that I have done myself through the ISP an the wiring on my master socket at home

Contract/package is nothing to do with what actual speed you will get, just because your mates on the same package wont mean you will get the same as him. Its all down to the individual phone line, the quality and distance from your exchange

What do you mean by "get LLU" How can I just get it. I didn't realise it was something I could obtain? I was mentioning the fact we are both on the same package and signed up at the same time to eliminate the fact it has nothing to do with the broadband provider i.e sky. There is obviously something more to it than being slightly further away from the exchange to create a difference of 6Mbps downspeed.

What would I need to do to gain this extra speed, my exchange obviously supports it as does my ISP... what's gone wrong.

 

[Buchanan0204]

If you have LLU services available in your area then you could hop on to a provider like o2 or sky and get potentially "up to" 24mbps, dont get it confused with an ADSL Max connection which is up to 8mbps, LLU means Local loop unbundled which means the provider hosts their own kit in the exchange rather than using BT's

Best thing to do really is put your details in here, go the LLU page and post what LLU services are available to you

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

Thank's for this. Like I have already pointed out a few times now. I am already with sky, They do provide an LLU service in my area, as referenced by samknows and also by the fact my friend is obviously utilising this technology as she is on 14Mbps. I have pointed this out several times, we are both with the same ISP (Sky) and we both are on the same exchange in same area.

 

[Buchanan0204]

Is this your Exchange OP?

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WSKIW

I see Sky has LLU'd the Exchange, but don't know much abou they configure their equipment.

Is your router set to use ADSL (G.992.1 / G.992.2)? Is there an option to set it for 922.3/45 (ADSL2 / ADSL2+)? Or may be your account isn't allowed to go above 8Mbps?

It is indeed my exchange. I had a look in the settings page, can't seem to find anything on that. I have been looking at a way to extract the username and password from there router which they hide so well so I can use my own and hopefully that may help. Thank's for the tips though

 

[Buchanan0204]

I have made a new discovery after scouring sky's website. I logged into my account section and realised I am being restricted to 8Mbits. I have no idea why. They told me I would receive the 10-20 speeds and yet restricting me to 8. Here is a screenshot of the page. I have contacted sky regarding the matter and I await a response. Can anyone on here work out why I would be capped. According to a post by one of the members above, he tells me my line attenuation and noise margin is capable of adsl2+ speeds no problem.

 

[Buchanan0204]

Buchanan0204 you are defiantly on there max (LLU service) otherwise your upload speed wouldn't be like it is.

For some reason your line is being capped, i would give sky's broadband department a ring to see if they can up your speed, they are very good and helpful, they will do there best to give u a better speed error free, but bare in mind, the cap may be there due to erroring at faster, so really all depends on what they say when u ring, but dos'nt hurt to ask them to check for you.

Edit:

Just saw that you have allready contacted, try again, and if the person can't help, try asking to be put through to Tier 2, as they are the true techs.

That's what I thought. As far as I was aware the max upload speed for traditional adsl max is 400 and something Kbps. I thought it was a little strange that they capped the downspeed and not the up. I also thought maybe they have capped it due to errors on the line and adsl2+ would be unstable.

I'll await there response via e-mail, surely someone qualified will be replying to the e-mail. I will give them till tomorrow to reply (supposed to be 24 hour reply)

Failing that, I'll grim the telephone with them.

Will keep posting the results.

 

[Buchanan0204]

There first level tech guys are good, but if you can talk them into connecting you to the main guys (tier 2), these are the guys that can really do stuff, and most will bend over backwards to help.

If the e-mail route dos'nt work, just call say that you are not happy with the speed as u where expecting more, and see if they can tweak it abit, i remember my line was capped to 4mb, but since calling months ago i got them to cap me at 5mb (still error free).

So wish u the best of luck, just keep at them, u will get there eventually, really all depends on how many errors show up when they test for you.

Cheers, let's say just for talks sake at the moment that there are too many errors to let it go the full hog. What is causing these errors... the quality of telephone line in my house?

What would be the procedure to get it cleaned up and make it error free?

 

[Buchanan0204]

For your line attenuation you should get 18Mb+ easily. You simply need to get through to the 2nd tier of Sky support and instruct them to put you on ADSL2+. It should only take a few minutes. I was in the same position when I first got Sky.

Very promising news. I really hope so. I will definitely be phoning them tomorrow. Will keep you posted.

 

[Buchanan0204]

Well.... After 3 attempts at trying to get through. I finally managed to get it resolved. Apparently the line had a few faults at first when they synced it and it just never got put back to what it should be. They have now capped it at 18Mb, but router is only syncing at 13.5. I'm happy with that anyway.

It was actually Tier 1 that sorted it out. The first girl transferred me through to another department which I presumed would have been Tier 2, turns out she was just a bit thick and couldn't understand anything.

Anyone think plugging in my netgear dg34g would help improve anything over the skys dlink. I have exctracted the username and password from it, so no problems there.

Thanks to everyones support and advice.