Poor connection speed on ADSL

Streeteh · 3 Apr 2011 at 15:12

Hi guys,

Unfortunately i know nothing about ADSL, but did attempt as much research as possible before forking out and felt confident i knew what i was getting, sadly i was wrong.

I checked the location of my exchange (around 3/4 of a mile away) and checked on the BE website for a rough estimate of my expected speed. It claimed 22meg on a 24 meg package. Obviously i didn't expect these speeds but sadly my line has now been connected at 11meg and that's with my profile set to 'optimise for speed' which is far less than i'd hoped for.

Is there much i can do to improve this? I've contacted BE and am awaiting a reply. Is it worth trying my own ADSL router/replacing the filters or will all this make no real difference? I've checked my BT socket which is one of those really old ones with a junction box, no test socket or anything, so perhaps that's causing my issues?

Also, am i right in thinking if i ask to be downgraded to their 12meg package i'll still connect at around 11meg, or is it a pecentage thing? Ie i'll get 50% of 12meg so connect at 6meg?

KIA · 3 Apr 2011 at 16:29

Post your line stats.

It isn't a percentage thing.

Streeteh · 3 Apr 2011 at 16:57

These any help:

DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,386 / 11,910
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,390 / 11,404
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 18.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 14.0 / 30.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 4.0 / 3.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 14 / 193,802
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 14 / 19
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 20 / 13

lay-z-boy · 3 Apr 2011 at 17:19

Poor connection speed on ADSL

Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,386 / 11,910

11 Meg is poor? :confused:

What tier does my 1.5/2 meg lines fall into then I wonder.

As for your 'poor' speeds, turn off gaming mode/fastpath and keep your BE profile set to max speed. Use a BT filterplate as opposed to a filter dongle. Don't use shoddy cables, keep the runs as short as possible and don't have powerlines crossing all over the place around your modem. That's my general checklist.

Your theoretical max at that db is roughly 15 meg with a throughput of, again roughly 13 meg. So you're not too far off.

Streeteh · 3 Apr 2011 at 17:25

lay-z-boy said:
11 Meg is poor?

What tier does my 1.5/2 meg lines fall into then I wonder.

As for your 'poor' speeds, turn off gaming mode/fastpath and keep your BE profile set to max speed. Use a BT filterplate as opposed to a filter dongle. Don't use shoddy cables, keep the runs as short as possible and don't have powerlines crossing all over the place around your modem. That's my general checklist.

Your theoretical max at that db is roughly 15 meg with a throughput of, again roughly 13 meg. So you're not too far off.

It's quite poor when BE indicated i should expect 22meg

(yes i know it was never going to be that high, but half of what they suggested seems a little naff to me.) With 11meg i might as well have signed up to their cheapest service and saved £4/month (yes it's not much, but every little helps!)

As stated in the op i've got one of those old master sockets that don't have the engineers socket, which makes fitting one of those filter plates impossible as far as i know. With that said my parents had problems with their ADSL a while back and bought some decent quality filters, i'm fairly sure they've got one spare so i'll nab one. I was originally stuck at 10meg, but changing my profile to max speed wangled an extra 1meg out of it, before posting those stats i also updated the firmware on the supplied ADSL router and that seems to have added an extra ~0.5meg, might be a coincidence though.

I'll have a tinker and clear as much away from the modem as possible, thanks for the suggestions/helpful input.

Nightglow · 3 Apr 2011 at 18:03

Moved house last year, it had the old type of BT socket when I phoned BT about it , they replace it free of charge, plus wiring to the pole.

I then changed the faceplate to a ADSL Nation XTE 2005, it gave me a 1mb increase with my Be connection.

If you have the old style BT socket isn't the wiring a bit grotty then, as was mine, which had a alumimum conductor & was badly corroded.

Also which Be box you using?

Streeteh · 3 Apr 2011 at 18:09

Nightglow said:
Moved house last year, it had the old type of BT socket when I phoned BT about it , they replace it free of charge, plus wiring to the pole.

I then changed the faceplate to a ADSL Nation XTE 2005, it gave me a 1mb increase with my Be connection.

If you have the old style BT socket isn't the wiring a bit grotty then.

The wiring is shocking. Someone told me they charge £129 to replace the socket but your experience has persuaded me to get on the phone tomorrow to see if i can wangle a free overhaul.

Fingers crossed!

Nightglow · 3 Apr 2011 at 18:22

Streeteh said:
The wiring is shocking. Someone told me they charge £129 to replace the socket but your experience has persuaded me to get on the phone tomorrow to see if i can wangle a free overhaul.

Fingers crossed!

They do in most cases when they don't find a fault, but in my case when the BT engineer turned up & saw the condition of the wiring in the house, & apparently it was even worse in the cabinet it was replaced FOC.

Just be firm with them & don't let them mess you around.

EDIT: I had the old style Be box which had started playing up, phoned Be & they sent me a nice new 587n V2 box.

zipp0r · 3 Apr 2011 at 19:36

you can try a quality x1fe filter and you might get abit more, a fresh line and socket may give more as well, but your line is at its limit at the moment. 3snr gives no spare capacity.

Streeteh · 4 Apr 2011 at 17:20

I've got my hands on a XF-1e filter and for some reason it doesn't work at all - i get no dial tone nor does my modem connect. I'm assuming it's a dodgy filter, nice waste of £7!

I've also taken the time to disconnect my ring wire which has pushed my connection up to 13mbit, a much larger difference than i expected.

zipp0r · 4 Apr 2011 at 17:49

sounds like that filter is broken, ive got one and it works fine, i also have cheapy 99p ones that work very well and i have the ones that came with the netgear router that although work, they just clock up 1,000 fec/crc errors a second lol

13mbit sounds pretty good to me on a 30db line

Streeteh · 4 Apr 2011 at 17:53

Aye, i think i've done pretty well considering the condition of the line, it's just a shame i believed the Be website and expected a connection that made forking out the premium for a 24mbit connection worth it.

Ho hum, at least i'm now outstripping 12mbit so i'm at least getting something for my £4/month extra.

zipp0r · 4 Apr 2011 at 18:20

your connection would be more responsive on fastpath, if you can have 12mbit on fastpath u could save £4. if they dont let you, whinge and whinge untill they do

derfderfley · 4 Apr 2011 at 19:12

Streeteh said:
These any help:

DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,386 / 11,910
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,390 / 11,404
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 18.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 14.0 / 30.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 4.0 / 3.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 14 / 193,802
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 14 / 19
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 20 / 13

Your SNR margins are razor thin, I'm surprised your line is stable at 11Mbps, and your racking up downstream errors at a heck of a rate.
My gut feeling is that your going to need to change your router to get any more speed out of that line, it may be worth asking around your workmates and seeing if you can borrow a different model of router (preferably with a broadcom chipset to match the far end) for an evening to see if the stats are any better.

zipp0r · 4 Apr 2011 at 19:56

derfderfley said:
Your SNR margins are razor thin, I'm surprised your line is stable at 11Mbps, and your racking up downstream errors at a heck of a rate.
My gut feeling is that your going to need to change your router to get any more speed out of that line, it may be worth asking around your workmates and seeing if you can borrow a different model of router (preferably with a broadcom chipset to match the far end) for an evening to see if the stats are any better.

be have a target snr of 3, too low for a longer line imo. it didnt say how long he was connected for to get all those errors, 0kb data sent recieved meaning connected for only a minute? not good if thats the case.

OP, do you have a control panel to change snr to 6? does "routerstats" work with your router?, can watch the errors totting up in realtime and see if what u changed worked.

3dcandy · 4 Apr 2011 at 20:11

just a quick question, have you disconnected the bell wire in your socket? That would probably improve it a little...google is your friend

Streeteh · 4 Apr 2011 at 20:27

derfderfley said:
Your SNR margins are razor thin, I'm surprised your line is stable at 11Mbps, and your racking up downstream errors at a heck of a rate.
My gut feeling is that your going to need to change your router to get any more speed out of that line, it may be worth asking around your workmates and seeing if you can borrow a different model of router (preferably with a broadcom chipset to match the far end) for an evening to see if the stats are any better.

To be honest i'm surprised too, but i've never suffered a single line drop... yet. The uptime with all those errors was small, but apparently the router supplied by BE has an error when reporting them, something like it doesn't reset the error count when you reset the connection, so if that's true then the errors came from a weeks use.

I've got access to a DG834G, will that do? I don't know what version number it is sadly.

3dcandy said:
just a quick question, have you disconnected the bell wire in your socket? That would probably improve it a little...google is your friend

As stated previously i did this today, it made a 10% increase to my line speed.

3dcandy · 4 Apr 2011 at 20:49

Right, yeah missed that....it *may* improve a bit too. Took mine a week to finally top off in speed!

zipp0r · 4 Apr 2011 at 22:39

Streeteh said:
I've got access to a DG834G, will that do? I don't know what version number it is sadly.

thats what i use and they are supported, version number is onthe sticker, probably v3

Zarf · 4 Apr 2011 at 23:52

How far are you from your local exchange? Samknows.com can tell you where this is. Unless you're within a couple of hundred meters there's no chance you'd get 22Mb/s. If you do turn out to be on its doorstep, then there may well be a line issue, but if you're getting over 11Mb/s BT isn't going to care - it's still a significantly above average line.