Broadband Speeds

[Ben]

Hi all just a little post here about the good old broadband speeds in the UK. I currently work in the telecommunications industry working as 1st line support for a small ISP and it is can be quite challenging sometimes i can tell you!  :lol:

I started from knowing very little and have gradually managed to learn more about the what makes broadband good/bad etc, and am still learning new stuff even now.

I finally decided to buy a BT I-Plate for my broadband connection (with O2 upto 20Mb). Before i was getting about 4 - 6.5Mbps (on a good day) which is quite good for us as we are on the outskirts of town, now however since putting the device in i managed to get 10.1Mbps which is quite an achievement! So for any of you who are suffering from poor speeds and/or lots of disconnects then i would highly recommend it.

Now for a bit of competition, who can get the fastest speed with which ISP?  

Here's mine (with O2 Broadband) :)

[Temujin]

Nice find Ben :thumbup:
I might try one of those or at least rewire my router so its directly off the master socket rather than an extension
BT Iplate


Let me amaze you with my speeds

[melter65]

A good topic to discuss, Ben. But could people also quote how much they are paying monthly for their broadband and what connection speed they are supposed to be getting?

We pay £18/month for 10Mbps (cable)

[Ben]

Thanks for adding the link to the BT I-Plate Temujin  :)
I should have added one so you guys can see what it is / does etc.

You can buy the I-Plates from many places, but one of the best ones for price is (also please note this WON'T work for people on cable connections or for people with a BT mastersocket which splits the adsl / phone signal at the socket itself - see Temujins BT link for further info):
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Sh ... uctID=7256
more cheaply as well)

[UBT - mickyb69]

£15 on virgin cable  :lol:

[Ben]

Nice find Ben :thumbup:
I might try one of those or at least rewire my router so its directly off the master socket rather than an extension
BT Iplate


Let me amaze you with my speeds

No problem John, glad i can offer some advise of how to improve it. :]

Some of the problems we encounter are when people put their routers on extension sockets in the house (only sometimes). These tend to pickup more interference from everyday radiation and in affect act like a giant ariel. One quick test to see if anything improves for you is to take off the master socket faceplate (the lower half which is unscrewable), and plug the router into the test socket located behind it and see if that boosts your speed. If it does then it suggests the wiring/sockets are not as good as they used to be.


Other information for others to help identify why their speeds might not be quite what you are expecting include:
- Old extension wiring (aluminum - this is awful for broadband speed). Also it only takes 1 socket to be faulty and it can have an effect on all the others!
- The bell wire being used (again only on older cabling but still included in some older properties, the I-Plate will cancel this out automatically).
- Microfilters, you wouldn't believe the difference a microfilter can make. I thought a microfilter is just a microfilter.. How wrong was i though, they make ALL the difference for a connection. Bad quality, cheap microfilters are responsible for alot of broadband speed / drop outs. (See here for a high quality one and read the reviews, you might be quite surprised).
- And one of the biggest culprits... Telephone extension leads, the sort of cheap stuff you can buy to run along the floor to phones which aren't wireless. These are truly awful for broadband and i wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. Fine for phones but just don't put routers on them as it tends to be cheap and made from aluminum which as mentioned above is not good at all.

Hope that might help some of you.  :D

[Ben]

Also we pay £12.50 for broadband with O2. :]

[UBT - Rick Horn]

£14.99 AOL

[fellie]

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW  :D



50mb cable via Virgin... Not sure of the cost, its part of the XL/HD/ recording tv, XXL BB, unlimited phone and an extra tv box package... about £70 pcm.

[hgblade]

A very unimpressive ....



As for the cost - it's bundled in with our phone package, which comes to about £60pm.

[Ben]

A very unimpressive ....



As for the cost - it's bundled in with our phone package, which comes to about £60pm.

Whats your setup like Keith? Might be able to give you a few pointers. :]

I.e where the router plugged into etc

[Joshrandom]

Again my broadband is part of a bundle with the TV and phone, which comes to around £50 pcm.

[hgblade]

A very unimpressive ....



As for the cost - it's bundled in with our phone package, which comes to about £60pm.

Whats your setup like Keith? Might be able to give you a few pointers. :]

I.e where the router plugged into etc

Our line comes into the kitchen at the rear of the house. Main telephone socket in there. BT then ran a line from there, on the outside of the house round to the front, to come into the dining room/office. A socket supplies a second line for the fax machine, and also for the router to plug into.

[Ben]

Our line comes into the kitchen at the rear of the house. Main telephone socket in there. BT then ran a line from there, on the outside of the house round to the front, to come into the dining room/office. A socket supplies a second line for the fax machine, and also for the router to plug into.

Might be worth trying a few things to see what you "upto" speed is and going from there, if you goto the link here (http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome) and put in your broadband phone number it should give you a rough estimate of what your line supports. ADSL is upto 2Mbps, ADSL2 is upto 8Mbps, and ADSL2+ is upto 24Mbps, so it will depend on what service you have bought into.

If it is quite alot different from what you are actually getting in your speedtest then it might be worth plugging the router into the main socket (even just temporarily if it causes problems connecting devices etc). If this makes no difference what so ever you could try:
- Plug the router directly into the test socket behind the bottom half of the main BT master socket. (This will stop any extension lines from working whilst this is done).
- Try an I-Plate and/or new microfilter, 'almost' everyone i have recommended it to has noticed it has improved performance, and certainly stability.

If the estimate line speed is roughly in line with what you are getting now +/- a Mbps then unfortunately it is probably more down to the distance you live from the exchange or the quality of the wiring going back to the exchange.

Hope this might help

[melter65]

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW  :D

WOW! I'm very jealous

We were offered 30Mbps down speed for £35/month but Mrs Melter put the kibosh on that so we got 3 Blackberry Curves for £15/month each instead.

[fellie]

3 curves instead of BB .. strange choice, women ehh lol..

As nice as it is , it's purely an indulgence. They upgraded it from the 20 for free for 6 months then £1 a month extra after that, daft not to.  :D

I guess the fact it supplies my main pc, and 2 laptops wirelessly, various mobiles and itouches etc kind of justifies the 5 of us having such a speed.

[melter65]

I had mine upgraded from 10Mbps to 20Mbps for a year free, but that's just run out and I'm back down to 10Mbps. I only honestly notice the difference when the Daughter is streaming video to her laptop.

[Zydor]

Just really for the record, and a tip of the hat to Ben for providing some motivation to get off my backside

I switched from BT to Utility Warehouse as  ISP, all part of a wider plan to simplify life by having all utilities via one providor.  Works well by the way, worth investigating to see if it suits individual circumstances - pros and cons as always, but take all utils through Utilities Warehouse, and its a good deal.  It was Which's raving about them that first caught my eye. (Utility Warehouse Home Page).

Did all the switching over - which took about 5 weeks in all, finishing off around the time of Bens post. Noticed within a week or so a drop in Broadband speed.  My exchange is a DSLMax enabled ADSL exchange, and will be one or two years before SDSL or ADSL 2+ comes along as its only a small exchange.  Had ferret via www.kitz.co.uk , and the exchange was showing Amber (in BT terms that means "unreported exchange fault, inform BT").  Did the Speedtest facility posted by Ben, and followed up with the BTw test from the Broadband termination test socket.  Sure enough, it was foul - matched the worsening performance I was getting - it was down to 192Kb/sec download (!)

Time to go on the warpath ....  rang Utilities Warehouse, who were superb. Talked it through with their Tech Support, pointed out the Exchange internal fault display, and the two speed tests.  They went through the same process whilst I was on the phone, agreed that BT had fouled up, and got on to them immediately.  It was a no brainer as the Internal BT equipment was flagging up the error.

Now for the usual long wait ......  or so I thought.  Strike me vitals (!), could not have been more wrong, 4 hours later, by this time about 8pm, speed suddenly went to 240Kb  - oooh, could actually stream once more!  Hope springs eternal ..... and sure enough at about 11pm it lept up to 650Kb.  Hit the pit, reasonably happy something was heppening.  Checked it in the morning, and it had gone up to 1Mb.  Over the next few days it continued improving, and I am at 5mb now.  In fairness, whilst it was an obvious BT error (affecting the whole exchange), once they found out, they moved quickly.  I suspect the fact that it was UW rattling their cage helped as well - but nonetheless, well done them.

Moral of the tale I guess is reinforcing Bens message, check and follow up to get what you paid for, and I would add a tick in the box for Kitz.co.uk with its access to the internal performance of BT exchanges and easy access to PlusNet User Tools.

Regards
Zy

[Ben]

Just really for the record, and a tip of the hat to Ben for providing some motivation to get off my backside

No problem sah You may as well get your moneys worth!

Had ferret via www.kitz.co.uk, and the exchange was showing Amber (in BT terms that means "unreported exchange fault, inform BT").  Did the Speedtest facility posted by Ben, and followed up with the BTw test from the Broadband termination test socket.  Sure enough, it was foul - matched the worsening performance I was getting - it was down to 192Kb/sec download (!)

Another one of the many things we have to get onto BT about Sometimes you might see the term 'VP' described (virtual path). When these are lit up as amber or red then it usually indicates a problem.

Moral of the tale I guess is reinforcing Bens message, check and follow up to get what you paid for, and I would add a tick in the box for Kitz.co.uk with its access to the internal performance of BT exchanges and easy access to PlusNet User Tools.

An excellent website which i often use at work, defiantly a thumbs up! :thumbleft:

If you see some of my earlier posts on this thread you could see if an I-Plate might help it further.  :D Although to be fair 5Mbps is very good! Much better then your original speed  :shock:

[Zydor]

I'm only 1.7Km from the exchange, so pretty well on its door step, so the speed from a nominal 8Mb ADSL service should be good - a fact that assisted my ringing and moaning about it.

The termination socket has the infamous Openreach logo on it, so it should be ok, probably won't bother with the face plate in light of that. As you point out 5mb is fine. To be honest 2mb does me, there's only me really that streams et al.  ADSL 2+ @20mb+ etc will be the icing on the cake, and certainly good to get eventually. However looking at speed response on friends terminals, unless there's 4 or 5 streaming furiously on HD 7x24, there's really no real world difference (as such in a real world sense) between a well provided up to spec ADSL 8Mb service and ADSL 2+ to justify the extra cost in my view. Faster for sure, but nothing I would die for.

Another unashamed plug for Utilities Warehouse .....  it really is good, I get one (very detailed itemised) bill every month for gas, electric, phone (all my landline phone calls are free 7x24 - less premium rate numbers of course), mobile, broadband and a discount card used in major stores (up to 7% discount from spend there towards the UW utility bill). Overall its a bit of a no brainer frankly, wish I had gone to them earlier - 'WHICH' were spot on as always.

Regards
Zy

[Zydor]

John101 is spam -  links to ad campaign and no credits attatched

[UBT - Rick Horn]

John101 is spam -  links to ad campaign and no credits attatched

Thanks Zy.