Interenet speed, I know , lets make it stupidly complicated.

[TheForge]

It would seem something is periodically stealing your Internet!

What devices do you have connected to the Internet? Playstation 3s are good at stealing all available bandwidth for updates/online play even when not playing online!

 

[MdB]

How do I get them , it's a belkin.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/routers/belkin_commands.htm
http://192.168.2.1/ADSL_status_main.stm
(change ip address if necessary)

However, I see you have found your stats.

As others have said, you are getting far lower speeds than you should. With a sync of 6.6Mb/s you should get something like 5.8Mb/s of actual download speed. It would be useful to know if interleaving is switched on or off as this will give an indication of the number of errors on your line but it isn't that important.

Another thing worth noting is that your 448kb/s upload speed tells me that you haven't been LLU'd to Talk Talks kit. This makes it easier to move to another ISP if you wish as you are still connected to BT's equipment - you just need to get a MAC code from Talk Talk.

The good sync speed also shows that the problem is not with your wiring inside of your house nor is there a problem with the connection to the exchange. The problem is either at the exchange or upstream from the exchange and hence getting an engineer out is pointless. You can try shouting at Talk Talk to do something but I wouldn't expect much - if you do, use the Talk Talk forums (UK based support) rather than the phone (Indian I think) as it appears to be far better.

If it was me, I would check the length of contract I was one and then move to another ISP. If you want the best then go for Zen though they are expensive. It would also be potentially worth looking at going LLU as your stats suggest you should get significantly higher speeds with ADSL2+ (which LLU use), maybe 10Mb/s with luck. http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search will tell you who is in your local exchange.

 

[Me!]

I suggest you try the BT speed tester at - http://www.speedtester.bt.com/ Be aware that you can only run it once per hour, so make sure you save the results with a screen capture.
It will show you the speed of the line between your exchange and your router, and separately it will also show you your actually acheieved download speed. I also live in Suffolk, and something has gone very wrong with the connection to the internet around here for the last couple of months. Before the problems I regularly actually achieved 4Mb download and 0.4Mb upload speeds, but now I only get about 0.7Mb down and 0.02 up. I am with BT and have logged the problem with them about 9 times I think over the last couple of months, but got nothing except for requests to re-repeat stupid diagnostic tests, taken days off work to wait for engineers who don't turn up, and fault logs closed saying they think there isn't a problem when their own test page shows them there is!
When an engineer did actually turn up last week, he told me he knew of "several other people locally having exactly the same problem". But, has anything been done about it, NO!
The trouble with BT seems to be that they keep testing my line and saying it is fine, and yes, they are completely correct in that. The speeds both up and down to the exchange are very good, but it is their exchange or beyond that is completely stuffed!

 

[robgil]

Nothing else using my connection , just my laptop (vista). I am using Internet Explorer now and it seems to be a bit quicker.
The problem is when I press a link to change web pages it hesitates before starting to dowload the page, this hesitation can vary from a second or two to quite a while.

 

[robgil]

That BT speedtest site took ages to DL. I will have to run it later as the lappy needs to be hard wired into the router, which is downstairs, in the darkness, on a pile of bricks, in the cold cold depths of my building site home.

 

[Me!]

it hesitates before starting to dowload the page, this hesitation can vary from a second or two to quite a while.

Yup, exactly the same as what I get. Please do try the BT test in my previous post and post the results on here. The output is gives is much more detailed than any other speed test I have seen, and it also saves the results straight to BT so they can't pretend it didn't happen!

 

[MdB]

I've edited my post above with more stuff in case you missed it - should have put it here.

 

[Flyfisher]

If your little'un happens to wake you in the middle of the night Rob, it would be worth repeating the speed test in the early hours when your neighbours are less likely to be using the internet. Also, I'm not familiar with your router model and don't know the basis for the speed stats, i.e. whether they are instantaneous speeds or averaged over some time. Might be worth checking to see if they can be reset. Failing that, switching off the router for a few seconds will force it to disconnect and then 'renegotiate' its connection speed with your exchange.

But all of that will probably only confirm that your actual line speed is pretty good, as would be expected by your proximity to the exchange, and that the real problem is somewhere else.

 

[Me!]

Just to show the level of detail that you get from the BT tester (and how rubbish my download is at the moment!), the results look like this -

I believe the DSL connection rate figures are what BT check (and remeber you are still with BT for this even though you go via talk talk) when they "test your line and it is all fine". However, as you can see, my download speed is anything but fine, my upload is even worse, and I suspect yours will be similar.

 

[MdB]

I believe the DSL connection rate figures are what BT check (and remeber you are still with BT for this even though you go via talk talk) when they "test your line and it is all fine". However, as you can see, my download speed is anything but fine, my upload is even worse, and I suspect yours will be similar.

The BT tester is useful as it removes your ISP from the loop. As like Rob, your sync speeds are good, your house wiring and the connection to the exchange is fine. As the BT tester has removed your ISP from the loop, it isn't their problem. The issue is between the exchange and the exchanges connection to your ISP which is purely down to BT. As you have found, this can be difficult to get sorted.

If you moved ISP but kept with BT's line, your speeds wouldn't improve as the problem is still with BT. However, if you went LLU, there is a fair chance that this would solve the problem as this moves the exchange kit away from BT. Look for O2 LLU or Zen LLU in the exchange checker. Warning though - it can be rather expensive to move away from LLU if you decide that they are rubbish too.

 

[Me!]

If you want to try some further diagnostics Rob, you can try this. Open a cmd prompt by clicking the Start button, then select Run, then type cmd and press OK, which will give you an old-fashioned (period?!) window with white writing on a black background.
Then type tracert google.co.uk and press return. After a few seconds it should start to respond with something like this –

Tracing route to google.co.uk [209.85.147.94]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms api.home [192.168.1.254]
2 11 ms 12 ms 28 ms 217.47.90.122
3 10 ms 10 ms 12 ms 217.47.93.193
4 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms 213.1.69.6
5 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 217.41.168.102
6 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms 217.41.168.37
7 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms 217.41.168.107
8 10 ms 11 ms 12 ms acc1-10GigE-0-2-0-6.l-far.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.1
59.249.101]
9 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms core2-te0-15-0-2.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.2
49.19]
10 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms peer1-xe0-1-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.2
54.132]
11 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms 195.99.126.107
12 90 ms 60 ms 12 ms 209.85.252.186
13 13 ms 11 ms 12 ms 209.85.253.90
14 18 ms 17 ms 20 ms 72.14.232.134
15 18 ms 18 ms 17 ms 216.239.49.45
16 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms 216.239.46.117
17 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms bru01m01-in-f94.1e100.net [209.85.147.94]

Trace complete.

You can either wait for it to complete, or press the Ctrl and the C buttons at the same time to stop it after the first few rows, because you only need the second IP address it gives you. (The first one is your router).

Then type ping –t 217.47.90.122 (but substitute this number with the second one on your list) and then press return.

You will start to get a trace like this –

Pinging 217.47.90.122 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=53ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=129ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=169ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=2970ms TTL=126
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=4209ms TTL=126
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=3819ms TTL=126
Request timed out.
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=3933ms TTL=126
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=2561ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=1021ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=422ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=126
Reply from 217.47.90.122: bytes=32 time=3344ms TTL=126
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 217.47.90.122:
Packets: Sent = 22, Received = 14, Lost = 8 (36% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 31ms, Maximum = 4209ms, Average = 1628ms
Control-C
^C

What you are looking for in the trace is the time= bit and also any Request timed out messages. As you will see above with mine, it starts fine with time=32ms when nothing else is happening on the connection, but then all I did was a Google image search and you can see what it did to my times and timeouts! (You press the Ctrl and the C buttons again to stop the ping when you’ve finished).

If you get this sort of degradation in your ping times to this first IP address, AND you get a clean bill of health on “your line” from the DSL stats in the BT page, … then I would be 99% sure that the problem is in your local exchange (or very close to it).

MdB - Thanks, I will check out LLU, but I don't know if it available around here. I've just looked at the Zen site and it wasn't clear from that.

 

[MdB]

MdB - Thanks, I will check out LLU, but I don't know if it available around here. I've just looked at the Zen site and it wasn't clear from that.

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

Then type tracert google.co.uk and press return. After a few seconds it should start to respond with something like this –

You can also play with pathping though it does take a few minutes to run.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\colin>pathping news.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to newswww.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.80]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  0  colin-laptop17.Riverside [10.0.1.33]
  1  . [10.0.1.2]
  2  loop-l2tp.fb1.newnet.co.uk [212.87.69.130]
  3  lns0.th.newnet.co.uk [212.87.69.193]
  4  thn-core1.dsl.newnet.co.uk [212.87.79.174]
  5  62.121.4.5
  6  rt-lonap-b.thdo.bbc.co.uk [193.203.5.91]
  7     *        *        *
Computing statistics for 150 seconds...
            Source to Here   This Node/Link
Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address
  0                                           colin-laptop17.Riverside [10.0.1.33]
                                1/ 100 =  1%   |
  1    7ms     2/ 100 =  2%     1/ 100 =  1%  . [10.0.1.2]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  2   30ms     1/ 100 =  1%     0/ 100 =  0%  loop-l2tp.fb1.newnet.co.uk [212.87.69.130]
                                1/ 100 =  1%   |
  3   27ms     2/ 100 =  2%     0/ 100 =  0%  lns0.th.newnet.co.uk [212.87.69.193]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  4   32ms     2/ 100 =  2%     0/ 100 =  0%  thn-core1.dsl.newnet.co.uk [212.87.79.174]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  5   44ms     2/ 100 =  2%     0/ 100 =  0%  62.121.4.5
                               98/ 100 = 98%   |
  6  ---     100/ 100 =100%     0/ 100 =  0%  rt-lonap-b.thdo.bbc.co.uk [193.203.5.91]

Trace complete.

C:\Users\colin>

From the above, you can see I have a small amount of packet loss, but my average ping time is small (42ms to bbc.co.uk) which is one of the reasons why I get good speeds. Me!'s awful ping times show that there is a major problem in the first hop. i.e. within the BT connection to the internet before the ISP.

 

[Penners]

Here I go, venturing into amateur guesswork territory again, but if we've established that Rob's router is achieving far greater downstream speeds than he is experiencing (objectively or subjectively) at his computer, is it possible that his router-computer connection may be suspect?

Rob, if you're using a wi-fi connection to your router, what sort of signal strength is the computer reporting? If you're at the limits of the wi-fi network's range, this could be slowing down your internet usage.

I also live in Suffolk, and I normally get approaching 3 Mbps downstream and 450 Kbps upstream - but I am only about 2 miles from the exchange. LLU is not available here, and my ISP is BT.

 

[garnett]

Hi

Have you tried the bell wire trick?

At the BT master socket there will still be a 50v orange and white cable on connector three. This used to ring the bell in the old days. If this is extended throught the house it causes massive interferance to weak broadband.

I was getting 1.2mb download speed on TalkTalk. By removing the bell wire it immediately went up to 3.2mb and I am 3 miles from the exchange.

It really is worth a try. If you don't fance this, you can by an iPlate which does the same thing.

Good luck.

Garnett

 

[MdB]

Hi

Have you tried the bell wire trick?

At the BT master socket there will still be a 50v orange and white cable on connector three. This used to ring the bell in the old days. If this is extended throught the house it causes massive interferance to weak broadband.

I was getting 1.2mb download speed on TalkTalk. By removing the bell wire it immediately went up to 3.2mb and I am 3 miles from the exchange.

It really is worth a try. If you don't fance this, you can by an iPlate which does the same thing.

Good luck.

Garnett

This is a good trick but only worth doing if you have a low sync. This isn't the problem here (for either Rob or Me!)

 

[Penners]

But if I do that, how will my phone ring?

 

[MdB]

But if I do that, how will my phone ring?

By putting a 47uF non polarized capacitor locally to the bell wire connection.

(you did ask...)

 

[Flyfisher]

We have fairly long cable runs between our master socket and the telephones. I fitted an i-plate and it increased the line speed by about 1Mbps, though I admit it wasn't a particularly noticeable difference in practice - but we were already getting about 5.5Mbps before. However, it didn't stop the phones from ringing - perhaps modern ones all have an internal capacitor as MdB described?

If anyone wants want to know if an i-plate would make a difference, just plug the router directly into the BT master socket.

I believe that the latest BT master sockets already have this functionality built-in, so a brand new installation is unlikely to benefit from an i-plate. But they are only about £5 so it's not a big expense to give it a try - certainly a lot cheaper than calling out an engineer.

 

[MdB]

However, it didn't stop the phones from ringing - perhaps modern ones all have an internal capacitor as MdB described?

I did come across a touch tone phone which needed either the bell wire or the capacitor to get it to ring but I doubt there are very many of them - it was rather old. You can also get faceplates with the cap built in them which gets around this problem also.

An iplate is worth doing if you want to improve your sync speeds a bit but as before, it won't help Rob / Me! with their current issues.

 

[Penners]

a 47uF non polarized capacitor

The last time I saw one of those, I think Michael Faraday himself was holding it. :wink: