Quick outline of speeds.
Check what speeds your router states your getting back to the exchange.
The online speed testers give you the speed including between the router and exchange, but also through to your isp, the set up run by the group who's on line tester your using and all the way back.
Generaly if ther's a major discrepency between the 2 results then this would tend to be an issue with your isp's set up
Unless the on line speed tester gives you a constant reading of approx 135 or 248 kbps dispite an apparent connection to the exchnge a ahigher speed.
These
specific speeds would indicate a throttle back created by the DLM at the exchange. the reason this would occur is the dlm has picked up some sevear and nasty events on your dsl stats repeatedly
and rather than have a service that drops connection all the time, you get connection although slow, would hopefully be sturdy enough to plow through the issues.
I liken it to driving on the motorway when you think you felt black ice, although you can do 70mph you do 20mph to avoid falling off the road all together, until you get a long enough journey to regain enough confidence to speed up without having a accident.
In such a sitation then over the DIY checks you can do as listed on thsi web site, you need to raise this with your isp to get a broadband engineer out to investigate what the problem is.
Other slow speeds would predominately tend to be an issue with your isp and usualy involves contention at their server or maby capping due to the package versus usage situation.
Incidentaly the microwave dish you mentioned at the exchange is typicaly ISDN30 link for a business somewhere and runs via a completely different system to our broad band and will have no influence with your results
I know I can waffle but I hope this may make things clearer so you can find it easyer to resolve. When comming up against a new field of info things can seem overwhelming and any problems would naturaly enduce a number of ideas, we all have to start somewhere when learning about something new
but at least here if you ask a question hopefully things can be laid out to help.
