Swapped to ADSL2 Noise now 2147483647 dB?

[Rik]

Sorry. BT have finally acknowledged that some users are afflicted by throughput well below profile speed. They ascribe this to under-dimensioning of their network, a piece of obfuscation designed to conceal the fact that they either set it up wrong, or didn't provide enough fibre to cope with demand. BT are working through this, but the fix date keeps sliding. Some, like me, who were not originally affected have now seen speeds fall, so my own belief is that BT are juggling with the capacity they do have to try and even out supply and demand, a bit like the balancing that IDNet have carried out.

BT speed tests are carried out at http://test.speedtester.bt.com:50301/

It's important that you do them as they are the only evidence which BT accept. Be prepared to be patient, their speed tester is 'under dimensioned' too. You'll need your phone number and also your IDNet login, usually in the form <phone number>@idnet.gwX, or <username>@idnet.gwX.

[Technical Ben]

Just as a note, it's not technically impossible to have a negative dB. At least when audio is involved. No idea when it's electronics.

[Rik]

The unit is not a problem, Ben, but a noise margin which is negative means that the noise is louder than the signal, so ADSL really shouldn't work.

[weemee]

Sorry. BT have finally acknowledged that some users are afflicted by throughput well below profile speed. They ascribe this to under-dimensioning of their network, a piece of obfuscation designed to conceal the fact that they either set it up wrong, or didn't provide enough fibre to cope with demand. BT are working through this, but the fix date keeps sliding. Some, like me, who were not originally affected have now seen speeds fall, so my own belief is that BT are juggling with the capacity they do have to try and even out supply and demand, a bit like the balancing that IDNet have carried out.

BT speed tests are carried out at http://test.speedtester.bt.com:50301/

It's important that you do them as they are the only evidence which BT accept. Be prepared to be patient, their speed tester is 'under dimensioned' too. You'll need your phone number and also your IDNet login, usually in the form <phone number>@idnet.gwX, or <username>@idnet.gwX.

Hmm, I've tried 5 times and can't get the tester to work, it just keeps passing back an error.  Is it always like this or is something very wrong?  - thats 5 times over the two days.

[Rik]

It's often like this, unfortunately, some people seem to have more problems than others - I sense that there are a number of sites (perhaps at nodes) and that some are better resourced than others. Make sure you're running the latest version of Java, and try with a different browser if you're still stuck.

[weemee]

It's often like this, unfortunately, some people seem to have more problems than others - I sense that there are a number of sites (perhaps at nodes) and that some are better resourced than others. Make sure you're running the latest version of Java, and try with a different browser if you're still stuck.

Hi,

And the results are in......

    Your DSL connection rate: 15008 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  808 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 12000 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 10073 kbps

...very strange - since running the test we've managed to download at 900kbps and the general page loading is back to normal.     Just hope whatever was causing it has gone.

Thanks for your help.

[Rik]

It sounds like BT have got to your line and applied the fix.