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[martinpeter]

I live close enough to my exchange that my ISP has told be I should get good ADSL line speeds, but I struggle to get more than 3200 sync speeds.  I have tried new ADSL modems and altering the SNR parameter on my router to no avail.

My wiring consists of the BT cable coming into a grey box (picture 1) and inside the box (picture 2, the front had nearly fallen off anyhow, so I didn't have to prise it open).  It then goes through a junction box (picture 3) outside the houses still, and then into an old style BT junction box, where it is star wired to 4 exensions (image 4).

This all looks very old to me, and I don't seem to have the "master socket" everyone speaks of.  Is it worth me calling BT, and if so, what do I ask them to do, and can I get them to do it for free?

Thanks.

Martin



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[kitz]

>> my ISP has told be I should get good ADSL line speeds, but I struggle to get more than 3200 sync speeds.

Hi and welcome

Can you post your line stats please.

.. and then can you go to the adsl checker, input both your phone no and post code and from the results on the left hand side let use know what it returns for
 ~ Distance:- Direct:   
 ~ (appx)* By Road:
 ~ BT Line speed Estimation

[martinpeter]

Line stats:

System Up Time 72:41:41
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 611021 802083 0 465 3429 66:21:13
LAN 100M/Full 935921 738466 0 3692 578 72:41:40
WLAN 11M/54M 11724 0 0 9 0 72:41:36
 

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 3232 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 57.0 db 31.5 db
Noise Margin 10.2 db 12.0 db
 

From ADSL checker:

Distance:- Direct:    1.92 km
    (appx)* By Road: 2.9 km


BT Line Speed Estimation:

Fixed ADSL:  1024 kbps (1 Mb) 
 DSL Max :   1500 kbps (1.5 Mb) 

Hmm... these Line Estimation speeds look a bit funny?

[roseway]

Your ISP may have slightly misled you (not necessarily deliberately). Your attenuation is quite high at 57 dB, so a connection speed of 3232 kbps is quite respectable. The speed estimates are just that - estimates - and have no effect on the actual performance.

[martinpeter]

Might the attenuation be affected by my cabling, both inside and outside my house - or is that dominated my the line from the exchange to the house?

[roseway]

It's very unlikely to be due to your own cabling. A badly corroded joint (for example) could do it, but this would almost certainly have a more devastating effect on the ADSL performance, and would probably interfere with the phone as well. It's far more likely that your connection to the exchange follows an indirect route, so the actual distance is longer than the straight line or road distance.

[martinpeter]

So - summary: this is the best I will get and I need not worry about calling an engineer?

[roseway]

I think that's the hard truth. If you enter your attenuation (57 dB) in to this checker you'll see that you are getting just what's expected. You might tweak a little more out if you were to get BT to put in a modern NTE5 master socket, but they would charge you for doing the job and the return would be small. Sorry I can't bring better news.

[martinpeter]

that's fine, now I can repaint my hallway, without worrying about moving all the cables about later (why I started this project!!)

Thanks very much for all your help.

[roseway]

You're very welcome.

[kitz]

I've nothing much more to add I'm afraid, Eric has beaten me to it.. in that your attenuation is an indication of the length of your line all the way from the exchange.  In your case it looks like it takes a long route around the houses and theres not much that can be done about that.

[Ezzer]

at least in the grey block (bt66) the old terminals have been bypassed and the drop wire has been crimped through which is a good start. I would assume in the next block (BT16) it's crimped in a similar fashion which again would be ok unless the're the old "blue bean" crimps.

The next block (can never remember the name) looks to be the smaller type so no chance it has an old alarm filter, although the star wiring may be a hinderance.

57db loss is quite high so unless the snr is exceptionaly good then you will get a slower connection speed.

The only other thing assuming the exchange you've measured to is the actual exchange your connected to is if there's another cable which you can be switched to with a lower line loss, particuarly if your going though some aluminium cable along the route, but this will need to be passed to Openreach via your isp to looked into