Advice on web speeds

[NWSRG]

Hi folks,

Recently moved to the sticks in Northern Ireland. We're on the end of a rural BT network, so I don't expect to get fabulous connection speeds, but I'm curious as to what I should be getting.

When we signed up (with Sky, though using a BT connection - Sky don't have a rack at our local exchange), it was suggested that we could get a 4MB connection. Now I took that with a pinch of salt...and sure enough, once we were up and running, 1MB was more the norm. On a couple of occasions I did see 4 or even 5MB, but that was rare.

Anyway, a line fault last week dropped me to 0.1MB download and 0.4MB upload. Then it gave up totally. Sky got the BT man out, and he repaired a termination on the pole. Back up and running. I'm now getting 0.4MB down and 0.4MB up. When we came back on initially, it was 0.9MB down and 0.4MB up.

I had heard about the BT I-plate / Accelerator, so I got one fitted at the weekend. Apparently it can take some time to see the full benefit, but I'm wondering is it reasonable to see a shortfall initially?

Any help / advice would be welcome! We're located about 1.5 miles from the exchange, and I use ThinkBroadband to monitor the speed.

Thanks!

[green granite]

Just keep complaining.

[M.Mouse]

I have been with Nildram since 2003. They were taken over by Tiscali, then Talktalk and now Opal. My service had, until recently been ultra reliable up to 8Mbps contract giving a usual 5+ Mbps. One outage in all the time I have had the connection, until recently.

In the past three weeks I have been lucky to get 0.5 Mbps. Opal are utterly, utterly useless. I have had two 24 hr. outages in the past month since Opal took over and gave up on technical support on both occasions having spent over an hour trying to get through each time. Their ring back service rang me back once and put me on hold! Opal say the line is faulty. BT, who I have spoken to several times, have been very helpful and run various tests and claim the line is fine.

After two weeks of being passed backwards and forwards with no resolution and an abysmal connection I have given up and asked Opal for my MAC code in order to leave. They then tried to persuade me to have my telephone service with them because then they would be able to solve the problem! Been waiting for my code for three days now.

I am going to go with BT, upgrading to their new fibre optic (alleged) 40Mbps service. My reasoning is that with one service provider to deal with for line and BB service I can at least just have one company to complain to.

Sorry for the diatribe but it might be the path to tread in your case, go with BT alone.

[mixture]

NWSRG,

Get yourself over to BT SINet (SINet (http://www.sinet.bt.com)) where you will find BT's official definition of the services they provide.

For example, broadband delivered under their "IPStream Max" product (http://www.sinet.bt.com/386v3p1.pdf) , is defined as having acceptable download speeds between 288 and 8192 kbps (i.e. 0.2 - 8Mb).

Therefore, although frustrating, you may not actually have any leg to stand on when complaining due to their broad service definitions.

[parabellum]

You can check your speeds at this free site:

www.speedtest.net (http://www.speedtest.net)

[mixture]

It should be borne in mind that speedtest.net (and other sites of that nature) do not by any stretch of the imagination provide results that can be considered scientific. Nor can their results really be used as evidence against your ISP.

The problem is that there are so many points at which contention, bottlenecks and throttling can occur between you and the speed test website that even two tests conducted one after another can provide vastly different results.

As I've said before on this site, a more realistic test is to try a large download from a well connected CDN (e.g. Akamai). Or even better, a large download from a server hosted on your ISPs own network.


Just remember. *DSL speeds are NOT guaranteed and will always be subject to rate limiting, packet shaping and all sorts of other wizardry (even mroe so for residential customers). You get what you pay for in this life. Invest in a leased line if you want 1:1 contention and "guaranteed" speeds.

[NWSRG]

Guys,

Thanks for the replies...I know there are a lot of variables in the equation, so I'm just trying to do what I can to maximise things.

On the BT I-plate, have any of you any experience of how it works? As I said, I've heard it takes a while to get the most from it.

Cheers...

[Mike-Bracknell]

Guys,

Thanks for the replies...I know there are a lot of variables in the equation, so I'm just trying to do what I can to maximise things.

On the BT I-plate, have any of you any experience of how it works? As I said, I've heard it takes a while to get the most from it.

Cheers...

The i-Plate merely disconnects the bell-wire that was present in older home wiring (and contributes somewhat to the noise on the domestic end of the line). if you've rewired your house you probably don't need it. You can easily check if you don't need it by working out whether you're using 2 or 3 wires in the BT socket.

[The Flying Pram]

The bell wire is the one on terminal 3 of the sockets. Just disconnect it at the master jack (the one with extra components). Or if you have the later NTE5 with a split front plate remove it from that.