The ups and downs of moving house :(

[snow patrol]

For the past 3 years, i was living in NW london, less than a mile from my exchange and with apparently excellent telephone lines. I was on ukonline 22meg adsl, and woud usually sync at upwards of 19-20mbit, and achieve 1.5megabytes per second + download speeds. The service was uncapped, and i was happy.

But...the area we lived in was a bit 'dodgy' to say the least (harlesdon, anybody??? ) and the flat a bit pokey, so we decided to move.

Moved in a couple of weeks ago to a new place in Harrow, about 8 miles north. Phoned up UKo to get a new line and was told that i would have to be downgraded to an 8meg line, but that from 'my stats' it looked as though i would at least achieve the full 8meg. Not the end of the world, i thought...and at least the service was still uncapped.

Just got activated today, but i can't seem to sync at more than about 4.2 megabits roughly a quarter of my previous speed. My line stats are:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4256 kbps 768 kbps
Line Attenuation 47.0 db 28.5 db
Noise Margin 6.7 db 17.0 db

not that great at all huh?

One thing i haven't tried yet is plugging the line into the BT master socket in the house - or indeed the 'test socket' which is located behind it. I can't do that at the moment because i can't find my telephone extension lead - but it that likely to even make much of a difference?

I know for many of you, 4meg internet may still seem pretty good, but it's a tough one to bear when i'm used to 4 or 5 times that speed Any way...just thought i'd get that off my chest

 

[snow patrol]

well, ran an extension to the master socket and managed to get a tad under 5 megabit which is an improvement i suppose. I think i'll stay with this for a year and then see whether NTL / virgin cable can offer me...

 

[phi1]

I guess thats not to bad, its always a bit slow when you first get connected try again in 7 days and show us the results.

Phil

 

[snow patrol]

I guess thats not to bad, its always a bit slow when you first get connected try again in 7 days and show us the results.

Phil

ah, i didn't know that. Hopefully it can get a bit closer to the 8meg mark within a week then

 

[Trifid]

How long is the RJ11 cable you used (small phoneline one.)? As you want to keep that as short as possible. You need to leave it 10days from activation to see your final speed.

 

[snow patrol]

How long is the RJ11 cable you used (small phoneline one.)? As you want to keep that as short as possible. You need to leave it 10days from activation to see your final speed.

do you mean the cable that goes from the filter to the router, or the one that goes from the filter to the phone (master) socket?

The former - about 5 foot - just the standard one that came with the router
The latter though - probably about 30 - 40 foot!

 

[Trifid]

I mean all cable to the router. lol. If you have a long ethernet cable, plus the router into the master socket and use CAT5 cable to your PC. This will give you the best indication of what your line can support.

 

[snow patrol]

right, so given that the master socket is about 20 ft from my pc - am i right in thinking it's better to have a long ethernet cable leading as close as possible to my master socket, and then put the router there, with a short phone wire leading from the router into the master socket...

...rather than having the modem close to the PC via a short ethernet cable, but having a long telephone extension lead going to the master socket. Right?

 

[Trifid]

That is the ideal solution. In reality I have no idea how much it will help, but I know its the best way!

 

[Phil99]

I guess thats not to bad, its always a bit slow when you first get connected try again in 7 days and show us the results.

Phil

It is

It shouldn't change at all just down to the time since the line was connected

 

[HangTime]

It is

It shouldn't change at all just down to the time since the line was connected

I think he's referring to the training period on BTW MAX adsl connections. I don't know if things have changed lately, but it used to be entirely possible to see lines being artificially capped at too low a level because the threshold was set too low when the line was first connected.

To the OP: Dropping down speed is never a nice thing, but 4.2mbit isn't THAT bad. You're talking over 10gig a day which is a fair amount of data.

 

[Phil99]

I think he's referring to the training period on BTW MAX adsl connections. I don't know if things have changed lately, but it used to be entirely possible to see lines being artificially capped at too low a level because the threshold was set too low when the line was first connected.

To the OP: Dropping down speed is never a nice thing, but 4.2mbit isn't THAT bad. You're talking over 10gig a day which is a fair amount of data.

I think that's more of a data rate cap rather than line sync rate cap. With his current SNR Margin though I think it's safe to say he won't be getting much more without playing about with wiring (and I think some models of routers handle low margin lines better than others).

 

[snow patrol]

hmmn, well at 3pm yesterday my noise margin was 6.1, at 1am this morning it was 6.7. Just checked now and it's 7.8 so it's getting better. Hopefully it'll settle down and obviously the higher the better I know that it can vary but it's surprising that it was higher at 9.30 on a friday morning than at 1am isn't it??


Last night i managed to connect at 4800kbps, this morning i've just reconnected at 5024 kbps so we're getting there

In my old flat, my noise margin was something like 20, mind!

edit: hmmn, even though i've connected at my hghest speed so far, just checked and the noise margin is back down to 6.8.

 

[hyper_piper45]

I know what you mean. In my house at the moment i am on 17mb. When i go back home i take a drop to 512kb! It's like going back in time!

 

[snow patrol]

quick, somewhat strange update!

My wife is coming back from her mums tomorrow so i decided i should really get rid of the long extension wire going to the master socket. So i plugged back into the socket next to my PC (the one previously connecting me at sub 4meg) and all of a sudden i've now connected at 6.6 megs! And my Line Attenuation has gone from 47db (a few days ago and today from the master socket with extension cable) to just 15db Unfortunately my SNR hasn't gone up but still, things seem good! I'm too scared to reconnect now as i fear this might have just been a fluke

edit: just reconnected and getting the same stats. So it's looking like what people were saying about 'waiting for the line to settle down' might be true afterall.

 

[HAz]

gone from 8 meg to 512k 61db loss here
oh and now im wirless too so more fun lag and disconects