Talktalk. We live in a village and it’s always been slow, I accept that some folks in a metropolis will have faster than us but I measured it on TT’s speed tester – 0.12 download, 0.28 up. So is this because everyone in the village got a tablet for Christmas and they’re busy streaming films or is something bust?

A hour on to TT in the middle of the night established that the line is ok. Plugging and swapping wires, etc into the main socket makes no difference so do I conclude it’s the router? It is probably 5+ yrs old and wasn’t a top spec one then and we leave it on all the time. Should I just buy a new router and hope?

Ta.

Move out of the sticks.

Find out how to login to your router, once logged in there will be a status page of some description on which there should be the speed at which the router has synched up to the equipment in the BT exchange.

If it is a line fault or your a silly distance away from the exchange then the up and down speeds will be just a little more than your current speeds. If the sync speed is for example 4.2Mbps down and you are getting 0.12 on your download then it would tend to suggest your ISP has capacity/routing issues, try a few different speed tester sites just to be sure.

On the status page:
‘Downstream line rate: 6464kbps
Upstream line rate: 448kbps’

Broadband speed checker 0.146 down, 0.319 up
Broadband speed test 0.802 down 0.267 up
Broadbandmax (also ookla?) 71kbps down 272kbps up
Speedtest.net. 0.10 down 0.36 up

Not great is it?

Neils – thanks 😉

And I thought I was having a hard times on 1 Mbps. What really pisses me off is that I’m paying the same as those on at least 20x that speed. This BT monopoly of the infrastructure can’t be right.

This won’t help but Virgin told me that my BB speed is being increased for no extra charge. I only have their basic service but going up to 60mb from 30mb will be nice. 😉

I recently moveed to “the sticks”, signed up for Sky and got a big fright. Sometimes, I’d just get sites timing out and no service at all. It soon became apparent that it was ToD related as it would be fine after midnight and almost all day – until the school kids got home. Sky couldn’t do anything about it as it was on the BT network.

I moved to BT and it’s since been great – well, as good as I can expect (6Mbps normally).

On the status page:
‘Downstream line rate: 6464kbps
Upstream line rate: 448kbps’

Broadband speed checker 0.146 down, 0.319 up
Broadband speed test 0.802 down 0.267 up
Broadbandmax (also ookla?) 71kbps down 272kbps up
Speedtest.net. 0.10 down 0.36 up

Based on your line rate your download should be about a max of about 5700kbps upload about 390kbps.

Is you PC directly plugged in via an Ethernet cable to the router to discount any WiFi problems? and have you tried a different device/PC also? I’ve know so called Internet Security programs to cripple download speeds before now.

If you have already tried all of those then I’d be bending the ISP’s ear as that looks like a capacity/traffic issue in their network.

Oh forgot try this speedchecker and see what you get

http://www.speedtest.btwholesale.com/

Yes, tried it on various devices and with Ethernet cable connected or not. Always the same. Bending the ISPs ear isn’t easy as the only way to contact them is phoning, or possibly tweeting but they don’t respond much to that.

Do you think it’s worth replacing the router anyway?

Thanks for you help.

What did you get on the BT speedtest?

I’ve had routers that have got a bit slow to respond after an uptime measured in weeks that have been cured by a power off wait a couple of mins and power up. But I guess that trying another router is usually part of the diagnostics that an ISP requests.

Have you tried a trace route on any slow to respond sites?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162326

It’ll work on website names as well as IP addresses, hop 1 will be your router at about 1 – 5ms, hop 2 onwards you should be interested in, try some UK based sites, all the hops should be in the region of 30-40ms within the UK, anything above could be a pointer towards a congested router/link.

BT speedtest download 0.1 upload 0.36 ping latency 51.50

I haven’t heard of that tracer test but I’ll have a look at that. I’ve had a glass of Bushmills though so it might have to wait!

Try the further diagnostics button at the bottom once you get the BT results, it’ll come back with results including min-max acceptable ranges along with you configured IP profile.

Very interesting that. Perhaps I just need to suck it up.

Download speedachieved during the test was – 0.1 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.05 Mbps-0.25 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :6.43 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.45 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is – 0.14 Mbps

Nope there’s your problem! ask Talktalk to reset your Profile.

For some reason its at 0.14Mbps when it should be about 88% of your downstream connection rate. Could be there’s been a pile of errors on your line so its been automatically stuck on a low speed until the problem has been sorted OR there’s been a muck up of some sort.

I dont think I’ve ever seen a download speed lower than upload never mind the size of the difference you are seeing. Good spot by @Russell !

Co-incidentally in France “satellite” tv is delivered mostly by broadband and during peak evening max download is about 0.5mps whereas at quieter times of the day it’s 5 times that. Still way less than quoted speeds so it’s not just a UK issue.

Thanks folks that’s great! What’s the chance of me being able to ring up and tell them to reset my profile and it taking less than 2hrs?!

Depends if you get someone on the end of the line that’s allowed to do it. Some ISP’s their support staff have all the tools to hand and have lots of experience other ISP’s put drones on the end of the line to filter out the cruft. Like most things you pay for what you get!

My ISP (Plusnet) I’ve rang up asked them to do it and given the reason why and they have done it there and then.

Don’t take any Cr*P off them your IP Profile is wrong for your line sync rate, it should be somewhere in the region for 5.7Mbps, if they can’t explain why its down at 140Kbps they should just reset it.

Couple of simple things to try… Is the router plugged into the main socket and have you tried disconnecting all other sockets? You may need to whip the front plate off the master socket to do this (modern ones have a test socket behind them)

With nothing else connected except your router to the main socket what speed are you getting?

Slim to non-existent.

Ignoring the fact that Talk talk are generally are a shower of shite, when they reset your profile, the line will go through a process of trying to figure out what is the optimum speed, and it can take a couple of days to eventually stabilise again. And make sure you don’t turn your router off when it’s doing this.

It’s also worth checking that your phone line is in a reasonable state too. Perform the BT line noise test as detailed here:

http://support.zen.co.uk/kb/Knowledgebase/Performing-a-Quiet-Line-Test

Your line could have synced to the slow speed because excessive noise as mine did, despite reporting a decent “Downstream” speed, it decided the profile should be pants. Using the Master socket allows you bypass “stuff” on your side of the phone socket (i.e. dodgy extensions etc.) so if you get the same result from the normal, and master socket, it could still be a problem with the BT end of things.

Yes hence why they should be able to explain why its so low, due to lots line drops or big bursts of correctable or uncorrectable errors.

It’s also with checking if the bell wire is connected and if so disconnect it – I can’t remember what colour it is but you only need two wires. Many older installations and properties have a third or even fourth wire connected; these are known to cause interference; modern phones don’t need the bell wire to ring. When i disconnected mine the line speed doubled.

Right. Apparently they have now discovered faults on the lines in my area and have escalated this to the network engineers and all should be resolved within 72 hours.

Many thanks to all who have contributed to this, esp Russell, and allowed me to try and sound like I know what I’m talking about!

I’ll ask an engineer about the bell wire if they come into the house. Thanks wurzel.

interesting thread and handy links Russell.

I too am in the sticks and am resigned to slow speeds but at least nothing as bad as the OP.

One day we might get fibre to the cabinet 1mile away. Then we might get c.20Mb here…

Download speedachieved during the test was – 2.11 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 0.4 Mbps-2 Mbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2.69 Mbps(DOWN-STREAM), 0.45 Mbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is – 2 Mbps

Oh and a lot of ISP’s have a service status page, so if you know your telephone exchange name then it’s worth a look on there to see what might be going on.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/servicestatus/

Engineer visit sorted us.

We’re out in the ‘sticks’ too – moved into the house and speeds were atrocious at < 500kbps most of the time, reaching a giddy 1MB at it’s peak. Turns out the chap who’d extended the house had bodged the connections together and removed the master socket etc.

I booked Openreach to come out – 2 hours, a new master socket and replacing the cable connection where it met the house with something ‘proper’ and weatherproof. Turns out we’re bang opposite the cabinet and all the connections to the cabinet from the exchange were replaced in the summer at a cost of 200K which is a bit odd as we’re in the middle of nowhere.

Anyhoo – speed immediately went up to 8.2MB. Engineer had not seen such a vast improvement so quickly.

My ISP is XILO – £17 a month but I had real problems previously with Sky when working from home more so steer well clear of TalkTalk/Sky/BT etc. It’s a monthly rolling contract which means no hassle changing if needs be. They’re excellent and well recommended – know what they’re talking about and you can speak directly to the chaps who can actually do something technical their end, rather than 2nd/3rd line helpdesk support…

Worth thinking about. You might be able to see whether there’d be any benefit by checking your router stats for noise and attenuation

(Cut and paste explanation below of the usual terms if you want to seem like you know what you’re talking about)

Noise Margin (AKA Signal to Noise Margin or Signal to Noise Ratio)
Relative strength of the DSL signal to Noise ratio. The higher the number the better for this measurement. In some instances interleaving can help raise the noise margin to an acceptable level.

6dB or below is bad and will experience no synch or intermittent synch problems
7dB-10dB is fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions
11dB-20dB is good with little or no synch problems* (but see note below)
20dB-28dB is excellent
29dB or above is outstanding

* Note that there may be short term bursts of noise that may drop the margin, but due to the sampling time of the management utility in your modem, will not show up in the figures.

Line Attenuation
Measure of how much the signal has degraded between the DSLAM and the modem. This is largely a function of the distance from the exchange. The lower the dB the better for this measurement.

20dB and below is outstanding
20dB-30dB is excellent
30dB-40dB is very good
40dB-50dB is good
50dB-60dB is poor and may experience connectivity issues
60dB or above is bad and will experience connectivity issues

DSL Rate ***/tx/rx/Rate
The actual service data rate that your ISP has provisioned.

Attainable Line Rate
This is the maximum rate at which your modem can connect to the DSLAM if there was no service provisioning limiting the bandwidth. The higher the number the better.

Occupancy
Occupancy is the percentage of line capacity used. Each DSL line is capable of a certain maximum speed or “capacity” dependant on line distance and other varying factors. The occupancy is an expression of your current sync rate setting over your maximum capacity. There are occupancy rates for both upload and download. The lower the figure, the better. Because of error correction and other factors in the DSL protocols, a margin is required so that a connection can be maintained under varying line conditions. If the occupancy approaches 100%, any interference can cause the ADSL sync to be lost. A useful measurement to monitor when sync problems occur. [AFAIK the billion SNMP utility does not give a direct measurement of occupancy 🙁 ]

This is all very interesting as we have recurring issues with our broadband (not in the sticks)

Over the past year we have had no end of trouble and been in touch with Sky numerous times. Apparently the max we can expect to achieve is 4mbps. Most of the time we are less than 1mbps, and then it can even drop out completely. Each time we contact Sky they obviously do something (by the sound of it resetting errors on the line) and we get up to about 3mbps. These then slows over time. Openreach came out about a month ago and replaced all the sockets and wiring inside the house, and Sky sent out a new router.

Still however the problem has occurred again.

Really fed up with it all now as we spend hours on the phone to Sky each time.

You’re connecting at 6mbps and getting a real-world transfer rate of 0.1mbps. It should be sixty times faster than that.

First thing I’d be doing is plugging the router into the test socket and rebooting it. I’d probably be looking at what’s connected to the wifi next, see if the neighbours or your kids are torrenting the arse out of it.

Cougar we wondered if some one could be using ours too. Its a secure network. How can we tell what devices are connected to it?

Using my phone as tethered wifi around the M60 seems so fast! Looking forward to getting home to see if the engineers have been out yet.

Cougar we wondered if some one could be using ours too. Its a secure network. How can we tell what devices are connected to it?

My router has a page on the config named something obscure like “connected devices”, but it’ll be proprietary to each different make of router.

Try switching off the wireless, see if it still does it when you’ve only got one machine connected with a cable. Try more than one machine (individually) if you can. Basically you’re trying to rule out variables.

Oh,

Do a ping test. Open a command prompt, type

ping 192.168.0.1 (or whatever your router address is; .0.1 or .1.1 is typical but it could be anything)

Let it run, you should see something like:

Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 1ms

Then do the same with an external website. Eg, the BBC.

ping www.bbc.co.uk (ignore the http:// bit, the forum is adding that).

On mine, I see:

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.90] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.246.90: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.246.90: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.246.90: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.246.90: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 212.58.246.90:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 39ms, Maximum = 40ms, Average = 39ms

Post the results here (right-click to ‘mark’, drag the highlight around the text, and right-click again to copy to clipboard).

For an example on my router the list of connected devices is under Wireless LAN/Station List, currently there are 4 devices, a laptop, PC and two Smartphones connected to my router so for me if there was a number greater than I was expecting I’d investigate further.

And on a Geek note here’s my ping

It’s a UK site so the response times are in the ballpark at 40-50ms for a broadband connection.

Hey, we’re up to 0.5 😯

What’s your IP profile now?

Says 5.5mbps now for the IP profile. And 0.86 on that test. Some way to go then but still 8x faster than it was.

Profile is spot on now for your sync speed, worth a 5 min power off/on on your router, then try speedtest.net to a few different sites (you get a choice of try another

Still about the same. I’ll hang on a day or so and see what happens. They did say 72hrs to work on it and it’s only been 36 or so.

If there are line problems, as can happen after all this shite weather, your adsl will slow down in order to keep you connected*

*think noisy room and trying to have a conversation with someone stood on the other side of the room, it is a slow, noisy process getting the message (data) across.

once the line is fixed, the synch speed will go up, but the actual data speed may stay lower until the auto monitoring system is sure the line is clear (hence the 72hours wait)
You could call your CP and ask for ‘An SNR reset’. however this is ‘resetting’ the circuit to ‘as new’ and will likely take up to 10 days to settle down but you should get the mostly ‘proper’ speed back straight away.