I have had a few issues with dropped connections and fairly slow speed to my long term ISP, Zen Internet. I put it down to be out in the sticks on aluminium cabling to a an elderly, small exchange (Prees in north Shropshire). Thanks to this site I myself found a dodgy connection from the BT ADSL socket and things became a little better. The other day Zen rang to say they were performing a speed increase on the line and this was not a user choice, all customers on my type of ADSL line would get it. I had this "bad feeling".... The e-mails came saying the speed increase was about to occur and I need do nothing at my end. Well, initially my routerstats showed a change in the noise margin from an average of about 5 dB to about 20 dB and speed did increase. But within a day things had deteriorated to the level where 10 e-mails took maybe 2 minutes to download, and video like YouTube was all but unusable, even the YouTube home page taking ten minutes to come up. I rang Zen and they said their logs showed I had been suffering drop outs for many months, (which I knew), and that I needed to plug the router in the master socket, do a quiet line test, blah blah. I have had the router in the master socket and it made no difference. The line test showed no audible noise. They then suggested my May 2005 sourced Netgear DG834v2 router was known to not be compatible with the new line changes and I should buy a new Thompson one off them. I fear I am en route to a frustrating and expensive wild goose chase and am seriously contemplating binning a BT line connection and investigating a satellite based ISP link. I use the net a lot for pleasure and business, and being out in the sticks I use it more than most for shopping and Ebay. Ebay is particularly galling as when you are about to make a last minute bid you can be sure the line will either drop or be on go slow! I just don't have time or inclination to go on a self funded experimental journey buying new this and that with no guarantee of a positive result.
I am sure I am not alone in such connection experiences, and I am after advice as to whether satellite is a viable alternative, and whether a new router is likely to be the magic elixir to getting things working properly again.
I am quite pragmatic about all this, I just need a reliable, if not blisteringly fast connection. Years ago when I lived in south Manchester I took part in a small trial of fibre optic broadband, long before it was mainstream, sharing a huge pipe with maybe 50 other houses. It was an eye opening experience, but I realise I forego that sort of thing to live amongst woods and green fields, in peace and quiet. Trouble is, Internet wise, it's too damned quiet here, right now
Help! Thanks.