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[aeiuk]

Hello,

I am a new user but have been aware of the forum for quite some time.

I am looking for some advice on what do about my current internet connection.
The connection itself is stable but very slow. My maximum download speed is 212kbps and never goes above this limit. When I first got broadband I did have line stability problems which were eventually resolved after a 6 month debacle with BT. I switched to Sky over 2 years ago.

I am at my wits end with this connection as my family keep acquiring new bits of tech (which all use the internet to some extent) illustrating that the connection cannot be used by more than one person.

My line stats are:

ADSL Link                       Downstream           Upstream
Connection Speed         2045 kbps            604 kbps
Line Attenuation                 63.5 db              42.5 db
Noise Margin                      7.1 db              8.3 db

I have 8 months remaining on my sky broadband contract and part of me is terrified to going back to having an erratic broadband connection which drops every couple of minutes (what I originally experienced back when I first got broadband in 2002).

My question is; going on the information here, what do I?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

[Jonny]

Take it you have contacted your ISP and logged a fault?
Stuck IP profile?

[les-70]

  Your speed seems consistent with the attenuation so it is unlikely that you can do much better unless cable or FTTC is available to you.  Some modest improvement may be possible with changes to your home wiring.  If you have an NTE5 master socket try connecting the router directly to the test socket behind the lower part of the face plate.  If this gives an improvement the easiest approach is to fit a filtered faceplate to the NTE5 and site the router there or nearby on the data extension.  If you don't have an NTE5 Wiring improvements are possible but more effort. You will find lots of information of optimising house wiring on the web and in kitz, here is one link http://www.rob-r.co.uk/other/UKphonecatwiring.htm.  Good luck.

[roseway]

The real problem here is that the actual download speed is a lot less than the connection speed, and that suggests the possibility of a stuck IP profile as Jonny said. Either that, or the ISP is applying a cap for some reason.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to optimise your internal wiring as mentioned above, to get the best out of a long line, but it's not going to fix the problem with download speed. You should take this up with your ISP.

[snadge]

Just too add to whats already been said.... 

might be worth asking the OP to re-verify the speedtest as some people can accidentally interpret 212KB/s as 212kbps - where 212KB/s will be 1.7Mbps and spot on for his sync rate

any chance of a screenshot of a speedtest from www.speedtest.net ..? (most of its hosting servers should cope on a 2Mb profile and give a reasonable result, I use Milton Keynes as seems to give good results on high speed lines at all times of the day) - when running tests make sure no-one else has devices connected which may be running background tasks, only the testing device should be using the connection, and make sure you use Ethernet and NOT Wi-Fi.

Another thing would be that you may get slightly higher sync from ReADSL2 (G.992.3 Annex L) instead of ADSL2+ , I dunno which router you have and whether or not you can force this profile yourself, but if not you can ask your ISP if they can (you would probably have to call them anyway to restart DLM on on ReADSL2 as your probably locked to a 2Mb profile connection at moment) - ReADSL2 (Reach Extended ADSL2) allows slightly longer lines access to broadband; but also can give a little bit extra speed compared to ADSL2+ on long lines such as yours, somewhere from as little as 200k to as much as 1,000k is not unheard of for a line around the 60db-70db mark (yours is 63db)

Also, SKY are having peak-time latency & throughput congestion and dropouts on certain exchanges, you can check if yours is one of those exchanges here.

if it turns out you ARE getting 212KB/s in speedtests (or thereabouts) - then it sounds like you have to many devices using the web/wifi and your connection cant cope with the demand, kids using laptops streaming videos and gaming consoles using online gaming will all eat up bandwidth quickly if used simultaneously, Or, your using Wi-Fi over a poor signal range..but would have to be really poor if its restricting a 2Mb connection.

also, if you tell us which exchange your on we can do a search and see if there are any Fibre/Cable services in your area.

P.S. -> I may be wrong but I dont think SKY LLu get the 'stuck profiles', that phenomenom is related to BT's IPstream profiling system where profile would be much lower than what its supposed to be for the sync rate - SKY LLu do use a profiling system but not the same as BT's IPstream one, as his upload is 600k I can guess that he is on SKU LLu and not on SKY CONNECT (which would be prone to stuck profiles), but like I say Iam not 100% certain, Iam going off the fact that BT's profiling system set a profile slightly under the sync rate, SKY LLu ADSL2+ profiling does not, it simply sets a profile which caps the sync rate itself, so the OP is on a 2Mb profile and can not go above it if his line could cope (without ringing SKY anyway), as far as im aware it does not work same as Bras profiling and therefore doesnt suffer stuck profiles (but I could be wrong ).

[jeffbb]

Hi
quote My maximum download speed is 212kbps if this is from downloads then as Snadge has said it is spot on as Download speeds are usually shown in BYTES,KBYTES . If this is from a speedtest site then there is a problem with your throughput.
Regards Jeff