BeThere Broadband upto 24Mb at home...
Broadband at office - Tiscali upto 24Mb (18Mb actual),C&W upto 24Mb (20Mb actual)... we are about 1km from exchange on decent copper run hence good figures.
- Upstream and downstream basically show speed of transfer in both directions, the downstream being higher than the upstream due to asymmetric nature of the technology. Hence the A in ADSL. Ping response times show the actual time taken for a packet to get back to your machine, so less is best on this one. The connections measurement shows how many concurrent connections can be made at any one time given restraints on your service - the higher the better.
Now folks, as an IT support company who provides broadband I can report that when placing an order on the wholesale ordering system, we do get an estimation on what speed to be expected on a given line... using the exchange line test functions. This is normally fairly acurate. The problem you have with speed expectations is partly with advertising and partly with ISP's just not being honest... and the fact most online ordering systems for those not in the provisioning business do not permit access/show this information.
Lots of things affect the speed of your ADSL service (Virgin Cable has different technology and issues which I won't go into here),such as...
- Distance from exchange to your BT wallsocket
- Poor quality ADSL filters
- Too many extensions on your telephone line (Too high a REN value)
- Lines shared with fax machines (especially when using ADSLMax/ADSL2)
- 'Buggy' firmware code on ADSL router
- Line noise (especially when the 'bell' line cable is connected to socket)
- Over subscribed Exchange
- Old equipment installed at exchange
- Equipment chipset incompatabilies between your router and exchange (some routers don't like some exchange kit very much at all)
...and that's just a flavour! Any wonder it works at all half the time.
The biggest reason is that the cable from your exchange is graded for only one kind of service - voice communcations. Broadband internet is an extension product which piggybacks this service, but must use a different frequency band in the modulation to seperate the two services on the single line (sorry if this is too techy) which is why you need a filter plugged in to the socket - so you don't get the weird pops bangs and other noises when you make a normal telephone call. This is why Virgin fibre optic cable should be a superior product, but they seem to have placed over restrictive limits on services, which I think is not required as the fibre network (where available) should be able to handle much higher data throughputs.
To get the best speed my suggestions are...
- Don't have a fax sharing your broadband line if possible.
- Keep your REN value as low as possible. (Max is four on BT line, each device is REN value 1 but some 1.5 so watch out for this. eg: One phone, one fax and one sky box would be a total REN of 3, if in doubt... try unplugging some equipment for a comparison leaving only ADSL router connected.)
- If you have a two part BT master socket (bottom half comes off with two screws) then use a performance filter plugin... costs around £10 and can increase speeds upto 20% in some cases.
- Keep all cables as short as you can.
- Don't use line extension kits from Argos etc, it adjust the line parameters. (Again, these are designed for voice service only)
- Use a provider who has unbundled your exchange from BT's control (LLU) where possible - they normally have better equipment and less subscribers. Check out who is in your area/available on your line on SamKnows Broadband - Comprehensive Broadband Information
SPEEDTEST WEBSITES - PLEASE NOTE The results from speedtest websites are only an INDICATION of what you are getting on your service and depending on time of day, and how many other people are using a particular speedtest site at one time can vary the results enourmously.
Any server on the internet only has an infinite amount of bandwidth from their colocation or ISP provider, so they have the same issues as your local exchange when everyone tries to go in one direction at the same time.
For example, the BBC speedtest reported 3.5Mb on my home, while Speedtest.net reported 9Mb, whilst my router is reporting 12mb.
The problem isn't the technology being used... the same codecs, modulations and protocols are used worldwide with some minor change... the problem is with poor quality copper cable from decades being pushed to the limit of their capability, and ISP's/BT not spending enough money on some exchanges to enable higher customer numbers - instead they use different techniques to 'slice up' existing bandwidth between those who need it. That's why large towns and cities have better speeds quite often... more subscribers available to justify the spend on the exchange.
So there you go... hope this clarifies a few things for some of you.
(Or have some of you now glazed over???)
:w00t:
but yet the dials all said excellent. I understand download and upload but what do the last two metrics actually mean?
