Hi Weaver - more backstory:
I've lived at this address since before broadband existed... when ADSL 1 came on the scene, I got about 512K download. When ADSL 2 appeared, I got about 1.5mbps.
About 3 yrs ago, I chatted to an Openreach engineer who was doing some work up the road and he was amazingly helpful: he removed all the extraneous wiring from the property other than the master socket, he changed the physical line between the property and the DSLAM and he even gave me a Db-noise loop to put on the master socket to get the DSLAM to 'work a bit harder' and when I removed this after a few days, I was getting 3.5mbps.
When our local DSLAM was upgraded and e got Infinity on it, I upgraded (to the 'Faster Broadband' service, as previously mentioned) and I actually got 7mbps for a few days with a perfectly stable line but the automatic killjoy in the system decided I couldn't cope with such blistering line speed so it dropped over the course of around 14 days to 5.5mbps.
And that's what I get today, so long as I use the HH5(a).
Given the history and all the above, I'm not certain that, however abysmal my current service is (I live almost exactly 2kms outside of the M25, so we hardly remote although it's delightfully rural
), I'm not going to benefit from going back to a flavour of ADSL?! I'm 2mbps up on the best service I've ever received on ADSL and my neighbours, who all thought they could do better on one of BT's competitors, get 15mbps at best.
I really just want to understand what I might do to connect an Openreach modem at the same speed as the terrible HH5... I have both types (ECI and HG612). I believe our DSLAM is ECI (the smaller one, right?)... or to find someone who has experience of using the HH5 as a modem service to the BIPAC that always gave me A+ ethernet and WLAN service.
I'll always look at anything that could up the speed as well, but history suggests that I'm getting what I get at 5.5mbps until we either get FTTH as has happened in other rural parts of Surrey, or another DSLAM gets installed a little closer to my front door (as local roadworks teased would be happening but no further action has ever been seen!).
S