Sky broadband sluggish speeds

ninedarter · 10 Sep 2009 at 17:11

I'm on 8meg from Sky and I'm getting speeds of 0.4mb according to speedtest.com. I've just scanned my whole computer and have no viruses, and no one is hogging my connection either as I've limited the MAC addresses which can access my connection, hidden the SSID and so on, all my neighbours are old folk or people I know who have no interest in computers to be smart enough to steal my connection. I've tried all the other usual stuff like resetting my router, leaving the power off for a prolonged period and so on. Up until the last few days my connection has always solid if unspectacular.

Just wondering any ways I could solve this and if I can't what are Sky's helpline like for solving stuff like this? I've also heard that if you threaten to cancel your subscription which for us is the full whack on the tv package (6 mixes, sports and movies) and broadband too obviously, they'll offer you discounts on things in order to keep you with them. We've had sky for a few years now anyway and are under no prolonged contract.

Couple of test results I did earlier today. Done a few last night and the day before with similar results:

Any help is appreciated.

tolien · 10 Sep 2009 at 17:18

Forget Speedtest.net, it's useless. Try a decent test like Thinkbroadband's Java tester, their test files or this.

ninedarter said:
I've limited the MAC addresses which can access my connection, hidden the SSID and so on

I presume that by "and so on", you've enabled some real security such as WPA2 with a decent passphrase?

You're not "on 8meg", you're on up to 8Mbps - what does the Sky router say it's connected at (it'll say somewhere inside its web interface)?

ninedarter · 10 Sep 2009 at 17:31

tolien said:
Forget Speedtest.net, it's useless. Try a decent test like Thinkbroadband's Java tester, their test files or this.

I presume that by "and so on", you've enabled some real security such as WPA2 with a decent passphrase?

You're not "on 8meg", you're on up to 8Mbps - what does the Sky router say it's connected at (it'll say somewhere inside its web interface)?

Downstream connection speed - 6803kbps
Upstream connection speed - 606kbps

Yes I do have have WPA2 encryption.

dustofnations · 10 Sep 2009 at 17:34

ninedarter said:
Downstream connection speed - 6803kbps
Upstream connection speed - 606kbps

Yes I do have have WPA2 encryption.

You'd expect in the region of 850K/s max download speed

ninedarter · 10 Sep 2009 at 18:09

dustofnations said:
You'd expect in the region of 850K/s max download speed

I don't really download much to be honest, but I stream a lot of stuff, last year streaming some stuff online I was getting rates of upto 2.4MB whilst streaming live NFL games.

I spoke to a mate who said they had a problem with their Sky and they phoned them up and said they moved them upto to ADSL2 and that improved their speed a lot, could anyone try and simplify what he possibly could have meant? He was very vague in his description.

tolien · 10 Sep 2009 at 18:27

ADSL does up to 8Mbps and ADSL2+ does up to 24Mbps, both rates obviously depending on how good your line is, so if you have an exceptionally short line you could potentially get 3 times the speed.
You definitely aren't going to get 2.4MB/s out of an up to 8Mbps service - it's ~20Mbps.

wonko · 10 Sep 2009 at 18:27

Your sync speed to the exchange looks sensible. Are you connecting wirelessly? Worth ruling this out as the cause first - try a cabled connection to the router and see how it is then.

ninedarter · 10 Sep 2009 at 18:35

wonko said:
Your sync speed to the exchange looks sensible. Are you connecting wirelessly? Worth ruling this out as the cause first - try a cabled connection to the router and see how it is then.

I've got a problem with both. I must add the exchange where I live is on the otherside of my town, although thats only like a mile and a half at a push...

wonko · 10 Sep 2009 at 20:26

Not sure I understand - do you mean you have a speed problem with both wired and wireless connections to the router?
Suggest you do the speed tests suggested above both wired and then wireless, and post the results along with the full router stats including noise margin. Should then be able to tell where the problem is.
Also, which package are you on? Sky Everyday/'Mid' (LLU) or Connect (via BT)?

Mattus · 10 Sep 2009 at 21:16

Do you have any problem with the connection other than what SpeedTest says? What speed do you get if you download an actual file from a reliable source like those linked above?