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[grumpy old man]

Over the last week my connection speed has dropped from 5/6 mps to 1/2 mps.  The first time happened and my connection slowed to a crawl I switched my router off and back on and the problem was solved.  However since then this doesn't solve the problem.  Have just run speed test with result of download speed 2056kps.

I assume my first port of call is BT to ask them to check the line.  Is there anything else I should check?

Thank you

gom

[roseway]

The general advice for diagnosing this sort of problem is here and the associated pages. A big sudden change like this indicates a significant problem such as a line fault or a new piece of electrical equipment causing a lot of interference. If there is audible crackling on the telephone, then it's probably a line fault, and a call to 151 is the best thing to do. Otherwise I suggest that you work through the advice in the link I gave above.

[HPsauce]

I assume my first port of call is BT to ask them to check the line. 

No.
What do you mean by speed? Sync speed or download test speed or something else?

If you are on a BT connection run a BT Speed Test and report the results here.
Do you know what your connection (sync) speed was before and is now?

Who is your ISP?

[kitz]

iirc he's with Plusnet.

I think we need to see GOM's line stats to see if we can see anything obvious.. and whether its a sync problem, or a throughput problem.

May also be an idea GOM if you can do a BTw performance test to see if we can see what your IPprofile is.

[grumpy old man]

Thank you for all your replies.  Will follow up on your suggestions and will post back shortly.

Have run speedtest this morning and currently getting 3899 kp/s download and 381 kp/s upload.

gom

[HPsauce]

iirc he's with Plusnet

Well they have a lot of advice (and information) available online to assist with tracking down such problems, not to mention their own forums with staff in attendance. I'd advise starting there (might even see me   ).


See: http://community.plus.net/blog/2007/07/02/broadband-speed-faults-how-to-diagnose/

[kitz]

lol - guess who was asked to proof read that article before it went live 

[jeffbb]

I wonder who???   

[grumpy old man]

Thanks for all your responses and sorry for delay in responding.

I have now used the BTw performance test with the following results:
            7616 kps (downstream),  448 kps (upstream)
             IP profile 6500k
             Actual IP 2879 during test

Statistics using Kitz's link are

WAN  Status       PPPoA
          TxPxts      10724
          RxPxts      19076
          Collisions           0
           TX B/s          820
          RX B/s        22730

LAN     Status    10m/100m   
           TxPkts          379
           RxPkts              0
           Collisions            0
           TX b/s              49
           RX B/s              0

WLAN     Status         11M/54M
              TxPkts            19694
              RxPkts             11291
              Collisions                 0
              TX B/s              21650
              RX B/s                  844

Connection speed  7616 kbps downstream  446 kbps downstream
Line attenuation           5db downstream         2db upstream
Noise margin                13db downstream       19db upstream

I have just checked speed using speedtest.net with the following results  1430 kbps downstream 365 kbps upstream.

Kitz you are right I am with Plusnet.

Hopefully  I have posted the correct information

Thanks

gom

[roseway]

Your attenuation is so low that I can only guess that the exchange is in your front room. Your connection speeds are (sort of) OK but your throughput is far below what should be possible, so either you are being throttled by your ISP, or there is serious congestion somewhere. There are probably some things you could do internally to optimise your connection, but the underlying limitation is elsewhere.

You can check the current status of your exchange here.

[Mick]

If the speed tests indicate a higher throughput early in the morning (before 9) then the most likely cause is traffic shaping applied by the ISP.  This increases both latency and download/upload speeds.

I have noticed that Plusnet's ellacoyas go out of tune every now and then and some gateways get hammered, while others are free flowing.  In this case, the fact that your speeds improved when you resync'ed was probably such a coincidence - you ended up in a less throttled gateway.  These symptoms are usually worse in the evening and weekends, when everybody goes online.  After a while and a lot of grief from users on  the forums, their switches balance out or they add more pipe capacity and speed improves across the board.

[TiMeTraVeLeR]

Yes at Line attenuation 5db downstream you are really close to the exchange so why have they put interleaving on? that shows by the 7616 kps downstream cap when u should have 8128 kbps being that close to the exchange.

[grumpy old man]

Yes, I am very close to the exchange, about 200 metres.

Have checked exchange status with your link Roseway and not problems are being reported.   VP is green with no capacity problems, no major outages over last month.  Exchange has been upgraded for max DSL.

Just checked speed and it's 1183 download and 366 upload. 

I will contact Plusnet to see if they can help.

gom

[kitz]

>> Just checked speed and it's 1183 download and 366 upload.

Thats very low... if you were seeing speeds like that due to PN throttling then I would have expected to have heard about it by now.
http shouldnt be affected anyhow.

AFAIK capacity should be ok as they have recently lit several new pipes and have been regularly lighting pipes over the past year.

>>> why have they put interleaving on?

Interleaving is now applied by default on all max lines..  if you raise a ticket they will happily remove it.

[grumpy old man]

Thanks for your reply Kitz.  Not sure what interleaving is but will ask Plusnet to remove and see if that increases speeds.

AFAIK capacity??

Have just checked speed and much the same as last night at this time.

gom