Poor broadband and phone connection

[elin]

Thanks everyone,

You have given me the confidence to phone Virgin!
They checked the reading from their end and I should have been getting
7.3 download and 0.8 upload.  On the receiving end it was 1.91 and 0.72. 

They have sent me an email with a lot of checks to carry out and I need to get back to them if I do them all to no affect.

I don't understand them all  but hopefully my son will when he has time to have a look for me.

Thank you,

Elin

[Nick29]

Elin, you really need to find out what speed your router is connected to your phone line at.  Speed tests will be influenced by what your computer is doing - many of us are oblivious to what our computers are doing in the background - downloading email, getting new virus definitions, downloading Windows updates, etc - and if your computer is doing any of these, it will affect any speed test.  Broadband is also a shared service, so the download speed you get at any given time will be affected by how many other people you are competing with.

Getting the 'line stats' from your router is done in a slightly different way for each brand of router.  If you follow this link it will give you instructions on how to get the stats from a wide range of router models.

The most important numbers are :

• Sync Speed (sometimes called 'Line Rate') - this will be two numbers, giving the connection speed in both directions
• SNR Margin - this is a number representing the amount of unwanted signals on the line. It should ideally be no larger than 6dB.  A larger number would suggest instability on the line.
• Line Attenuation - the amount that the signal is being reduced by the line length and the quality of the cables.  The lower the number, the better. 

A high SNR margin (more than 6dB) could indicate that the internal house phone wiring is picking up AM MW radio signals, and these signals are always stronger at night.  It could also indicate the presence of noise caused by faulty or wet cable joints in the network, or picked up from other sources of interference.

It's important to do these tests twice - once in normal usage, and once in the 'test socket' which was mentioned in one of my earlier posts, to establish whether the faults are in the house phone wiring (which is your responsibility), or the comms provider's wiring (e.g. BT), which is their responsibility.

 

[Redroger]

Thanks for the link Nick.

[elin]

Thank you very much Nick!  I have checked the link to find my router but it
doesn't seem to be listed. 

I'm a bit of a technophobe  but I am going to print out this thread along with the email from Virgin and hope my son will take a look at the weekend.

Thanks 

Elin

[Nick29]

Quite often the bigger companies use routers which are made especially for them, although the innards are often the same as off-the-shelf models.  Routers also usually have their own web pages for setting them up, which are usually accessed by putting their local address in your browser, and this address is typically 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254. 

I notice you mention that you get your service via Virgin - this could be part of the problem - Virgin is one of the companies that are known to throttle speeds at peak times.  You might get a better service if your exchange has services which are 'LLU unbundled' (i.e. not a BT service being resold by someone else).  These unbundled services include O2, Bethere (BE), Sky and AOL, and they tend to work better than re-badged BT products (I'm using BE, incidentally). 

You can find out what LLU services are available at your exchange by visiting http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search - just type your town name into the box.

[elin]

Hi Nick,

Thank you, you are a mine of information!!  I checked the Link to find out what LLU services are available at my exchange and it told me that my nearest exchange is Morley which is very nearby.  Are you saying that Virgin might not be using that exchange? 

I am probably stuck with Virgin for at least another seven  months or so because of my contract.

I wasn't able to check out the router web page because my connection cut out each time I tried. I'll have another go at that later today.

Thank you so much for all your help, it is really kind!

Elin

[Nick29]

Erin, there are two sorts of ADSL broadband that most people can get in the UK via a copper phone line.

The first thing you have to know is that in the beginning of broadband, the only company that supplied it was BT, and other companies complained about BT's monopoly, so Ofcom forced BT to sell its product at wholesale rates to those who wished to re-badge and re-sell it.

So, the first sort is of broadband was either a BT product (like BT Broadband) or a re-badged BT product which the ISP buys from BT Wholesale, and re-badges with their own name.  You can get these products at any BT exchange because they are BT products.  Because both BT and your ISP (e.g. Virgin) are making a profit, you are less likely to get as good a deal as you would get from BT themselves, because you have a 'middle man'.

The other sort of broadband is what us known as 'unbundled' or 'LLU'.  LLU came into being because it was ruled that re-selling BT products again gave BT a sort of monopoly, and BT were forced to allow equipment from other suppliers into their exchanges.  LLU doesn't use BT's exchange equipment, and it does not use BT's optical fibres for distribution - it uses the ISP's own network.

The snag is that some BT exchanges don't have enough physical space to accomodate the equipment owned by other ISP's, so not all LLU providers will be available at all exchanges.  If you look up your exchange using the link that I provided, you will see a list at the bottom right showing all the LLU services that are available at your exchange.  Note that you can search for your exchange by phone number, and it's not safe to assume that you will be connected to the nearest exchange 

Virgin do both a re-badged BT and an LLU product, and if they have an 'LLU presence' at your exchange, they may well allow you to transfer to their LLU product without any financial penalties.  But you won't know unless you ask