[Closed] Sick of slow broadband, help!

Have you got all your filters on? and in the right places?

I've used mobile broadband a bit recently due to living in a shared house with no phone line, and my advice would be to steer well clear. It's slow, erratic and I've had problems with it dropping the connection virtually every 10 minutes. It's hair-raisingly expensive if you go over your usage limit too.

Check speeds in your area but if satelite or sky might be better for your download speed.

Not sure about the upspeed for sky as I thought it used dial up but could have changed.

Be broadband maybe? but you will have to use BT

I can't remember the name of the website, but have a look on the talktalk members site. You don't have to register or anything, but there's loads of advice on what might be causing slow speeds.
It may not be the connection, but the router, cable etc.

Worth a read. Here's the website (i searched for it 'cos I was feeling generous):

http://www.talktalkmembers.com/

Thanks for the advice! Tried the Talktalk website connection speed checker and the download speed is 84 kbps. About what I expected. The sky broadband goes via the BT phoneline so no chance of an improvement there.

I know the others on this hillside have similar issues so maybe we'll just have to start a petition to get them to upgrade the cables. Makes me really annoyed when you hear BT planning the superfast broadband to be rolled out when we still have superslow broadband. Anyway the mtb location more than makes up for the disadvantage of not being able to watch iPlayer or Youtube.... going out for a ride now....

Who's your ISP?

I've been having slow connection with Eclipse now for over a month. Its doing my nut in but have only just got them to engage BT. Its a nightmare, but its worth checking all your kit out thoroughly to make sure the faulkt isn't at your end (otherwise you'll look like a plum and they might well charge for a BT visit)

replace ADSL filters (apparently they degrade over time)
remove telephone extensions / sources of interference
change modem / router if possible.
ensure laptop / pc runs ok on another bb connection
do a quiet line test to listen for cracking and popping on the line (dial 17070)
unplug all other connections and ensure router / modem is on the master socket.

Good luck!

^^^ that's what I was trying to get at.

I can't remember where on the talk talk site, but there's a list of things to check regarding line speed as davidrussell has posted. Apparently if you have a bad cable or 'noisy line' half of your connection speed can be lost immediately on error correction (or something like that).

thats only 1/32 of the 8mb max, have you tried calling your provider to see if you can pay 1/32nd of the going rate?

The BT I-plate gizmo gets good reviews and for about a fiver probably worth a bash
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=7256

So how far are you from your 'local' phone exchange? That's the limiting factor here...

I'm fairly sure we are the end of the line up here. The local exchange is Marple and when entering in our phone number on the BT website it says that the maximum speed the line supports is 256 kbps, So there is very limited things I can do to improve things on my end I'm afraid. Although that BT Iplate gizmo sounds interesting could be worth trying.

I think ballsofcottonwool is right. I should just pay 1/32rd of the price!

If your neighbours are in the same boat then you're right, not much you can do 🙁

Might be worth giving mobile broadband a go, got a mate or work colleague that can bring theirs round to see how you get on?

I think the superfast broadband provision is going to be split between city locations and those areas such as yours that cannot get decent speeds.