Recent Slow Speeds Issue

Swerv · Sep 12, 2010, 01:40:36

Hi all, just registered on here for some help. Had IDNet at my main residence for a good few years now and always been more than impressed with the service.

Recently been living away from home and went straight for IDNet. First few months have been great but for about a month now the speeds have been shocking. Currently waiting for the highlights of the F1 quali to load up. 10 minutes in and I've only been able to watch 3 minutes of the 13 in the highlights!

Youtube has also become shocking.

Now I'm not very well up on the tech side of things so go easy, but I thought I'd ask for help on here first. Going to call the Cust. Serv. guys on Monday.

Anyone able to help? Or point me in the direction of what info to post to assist in identifying any issue?

Cheers guys

DorsetBoy · Sep 12, 2010, 08:04:55

Speed issues could have many causes. Things needed to form an opinion are :

BT Speedtest www.speedtester.bt.com

Make and model of router

How are you connected, are there phone extensions

Line stats from your router

Has anything changed in the home, any new equipment connected.

Rik's FAQ's http://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=1904.0 will help with finding the information you need .

Knowing your exchange can help, it can be cheked for errors/congestion.

Let us know if you need help getting the information together.

Simon · Sep 12, 2010, 09:34:13

Can't add to the above, but

Rik · Sep 12, 2010, 10:37:17

Likewise, but a warm welcome to the forum.

Swerv · Sep 12, 2010, 23:35:05

Thanks for the warm welcome guys.

Some basic info first, I'll run the speed tester tomorrow night a bit earlier on that now!

Using company laptop - Dell and I connect wirelessly using the Dell WLan Utility. No changes in this regard for a couple of years now

Router is just a Netgear DG834G v5

I tend to switch it off every evening and then back on when I get home from work the following day. Never had a problem doing this at my main residence.

Nothing has changed in terms of new electrical equipment in the flat. It sits directly beneath a LCD TV which it has done for 6mths now.

If anyone can point out how to get "line stats" from my router I'll post those up tomorrow night as well.

Thanks again chaps.

Bill · Sep 12, 2010, 23:45:16

Quote from: Swerv on Sep 12, 2010, 23:35:05I'll run the speed tester tomorrow night a bit earlier on that now!

First, welcome to the forum

I'll leave the rest of your post to those who know what they're talking about, just say that the evening is not a good time to run the BT speedtester.

Apart from being likely to hit congestion, everybody and his parrot tries to use it in the evening and it can take ages to get past the "busy" messages. A quick test in the morning would be much less frustrating, but don't forget to copy/paste the results somewhere on your PC as you can't get back to them later.

DorsetBoy · Sep 13, 2010, 06:43:50

Quote from: Swerv on Sep 12, 2010, 23:35:05

If anyone can point out how to get "line stats" from my router I'll post those up tomorrow night as well.

Thanks again chaps.

Take a look here >> http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

Scroll down to >>>>> Netgear DG834/ DG834G

Rik · Sep 13, 2010, 07:37:29

Hi Swerv

You might help yourself by leaving the router on 24/7. BT could be 'seeing' the shut down as a sign of instability.

cavillas · Sep 13, 2010, 11:10:02

There is also a possibility that your router has becaome faulty because of the continual swithching off and on, it could have caused a solder joint to break down or become cracked. Also welcome to the forum

Ray · Sep 13, 2010, 11:50:11

Swerv · Sep 13, 2010, 19:31:09

Thanks again for the welcomes chaps.

Right, just ran BT Speedtester (chances of me being up early enough in the morngin before work are slim!):

Download speed achieved during the test was - 237 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 100-500 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :576 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 848 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 350 Kbps
The throughput of Best Efforts (BE) classes achieved during the test is - 11.95:24.01:64.05 (SBE:NBE:PBE)

>Upload speed achieved during the test was - 361 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 848 Kbps

Rik · Sep 13, 2010, 19:34:27

Sadly, your speed is correct for your profile, and the profile is correct for the sync speed.

Do you know anyone with a spare router you could try?

Swerv · Sep 13, 2010, 19:43:31

Just to add the line stats

Port     Status     TxPkts     RxPkts     Collisions     Tx B/s     Rx B/s     Up Time
WAN    PPPoA    31938    41350    0    50    195    1 day 07:40:13
LAN    100M/Full    5878    6211    0    36    20    1 day 07:40:34
WLAN    11M/54M    30916    27590    0    164    33    1 day 07:40:54

ADSL Link    Downstream    Upstream
Connection Speed   571 kbps   446 kbps
Line Attenuation   42.5 db   26.0 db
Noise Margin   14.00 db   14.5 db

Rik · Sep 13, 2010, 19:45:25

That noise margin is costing you about 2M in speed. DLM has raised it to the maximum to try and stabilise the line, so it's seeing electrical noise and/or a high error count.

Swerv · Sep 13, 2010, 19:54:05

Would that suggest a dodgy router then Rik?

Like I say, please excuse my technical ignorance.

Rik · Sep 13, 2010, 19:55:26

That's one possibility, another is something electrical in the house (eg a Sky box), a third is a line fault (or degradation) on BT's side.

Swerv · Sep 13, 2010, 19:57:45

Ok ta. I'll bell IDNet tomorrow now I'm armed with some info.

I'll also see if I can borrow a router from someone.

Rik · Sep 13, 2010, 20:01:30

Swerv · Sep 14, 2010, 23:21:34

Noise margin's come down a bit today

ADSL Link    Downstream    Upstream
Connection Speed   573 kbps   564 kbps
Line Attenuation   43.0 db   26.0 db
Noise Margin   12.75 db   10.5 db

Rik · Sep 15, 2010, 09:33:49

Sadly, that's probably not a good sign. You would have synced at 15db, to judge by your previous figures, so to me it indicates an increase in noise.

Swerv · Sep 15, 2010, 23:53:00

down further

ADSL Link    Downstream    Upstream
Connection Speed   573 kbps   564 kbps
Line Attenuation   43.0 db   26.0 db
Noise Margin   10.65 db   10.5 db

Rik · Sep 16, 2010, 09:03:05

As I said, you have noise on the line, the question is where it's being picked up.

Swerv · Sep 20, 2010, 20:16:10

Brief update. Unplugged filters on Wed night last week only for the broadband to go down anyway! So, put the original one back on the modem and left the filter for the phone unplugged.

Been away since Thurs and left modem on. Noise margin has climbed notably downstream.

Connection Speed   573 kbps   660 kbps
Line Attenuation   40.0 db   26.0 db
Noise Margin   20.10 db   13.5 db

Steve · Sep 20, 2010, 20:53:09

I think your on a banded profile who's upper limit is 576, it will have been imposed by BT's line management system, you can check with support and get unbanded but you need to try to solve what caused the issue in the first place. The higher margin in this situation reflects how much BT is holding your line back the fact that it has increased to me with the same sync downstream suggest things have improved.

Swerv · Sep 20, 2010, 22:22:08

Thanks Steve. Brief experiment. Plugged filter I had been using for the phone back in, with the phone on it, and margin immediately plummetted to 10.5 from the 20.5.

Soooo, unplugged it - immediate doubling of margin. Plugged phone into same filter as modem and the margin settled at about 17.5.

Is this to be expected from having additional connections, or is it likely that the filter and/or phone are bit rubbish and are impacting more than they should?