dannymccann 
Member 
 
Registered: 9th Aug 06
 Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire 
User status: Offline 
 
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I'm posting for my father in law. He's got a Sky package (TV with kids and HD, nothing else), line and ADSL with Sky. There is no fibre available where they are for Virgin, and Inifinity is going to be a long way off. From 5pm through to 5am, genuinely, he receives a download speed from a good HTTP server of, at best, 30kb/s. I'm talking Google Play store, adobe website etc, sites with no blockages. 
 
He's had several engineers (Sky and Openreach) out to try and fix it but no one seems to be able to sort it out. During the day the speed is fine, fast even, 300+kb/s, but it's unbearable in the evening. 
 
Realistically, what can he do? With it being ADSL even if he changes provider it's just going to be the same (isn't it?)
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pow 
Premium Member
 
Registered: 11th Sep 06
 Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire 
User status: Offline 
 
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First thing to try is to plug the router into the test socket behind the faceplate on the master socket, unplugging any extentions to see if it helps with the speed. I've seen sync speeds go from 1.5MB to 8MB just by doing that
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kz 
Member 
 
Registered: 9th Aug 02
 Location: Southend, Essex Drives: Mini Cooper S 
User status: Offline 
 
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Try this site and then go to advanced... 
 
http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ 
 
It's what EE used to determine the maximum my line could handle... and then they saw that I wasn't getting anywhere near 'acceptable' so sent out a BT engineer. There was a problem at the BT exchange.
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John 
Member 
 
Registered: 30th Jun 03
 
User status: Offline 
 
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Is it rural? 
 
Some exchanges only have a small amount of bandwidth coming into them. If everyone gets home after 5 and uses that, that could cause the problem, with no actual fault.
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dannymccann 
Member 
 
Registered: 9th Aug 06
 Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire 
User status: Offline 
 
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All that 'normal' stuff has been tried and tried again. He's had engineers out to the house and the exchange?
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dannymccann 
Member 
 
Registered: 9th Aug 06
 Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire 
User status: Offline 
 
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It's a council estate, most are scummers so are at home all day, he's one of the only ones down there who works for a living otherwise I would put it down to contention ratio, but yes it is rural. Even so, is 20kb/s acceptable?
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Brett 
Premium Member
 
Registered: 16th Dec 02
 Location: Manchester 
User status: Offline 
 
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What John's saying makes sense (lookup contention ratio) given the times it's happening. Don't mean to be rude tho, but if engineers have been out over and over again and it's been investigated by the provider, bit of a long shot asking on a car forum.
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dannymccann 
Member 
 
Registered: 9th Aug 06
 Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire 
User status: Offline 
 
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No I know Brett but never know if someone has had a similar experience, we've got quite a mix of people on here nowadays!
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Brett 
Premium Member
 
Registered: 16th Dec 02
 Location: Manchester 
User status: Offline 
 
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Yeah true enough. It'll be all the dossers downloading pirate movies  
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Andrew 
Member 
 
Registered: 5th May 04
 Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma 
User status: Offline 
 
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quote: Originally posted by pow 
First thing to try is to plug the router into the test socket behind the faceplate on the master socket, unplugging any extentions to see if it helps with the speed. I've seen sync speeds go from 1.5MB to 8MB just by doing that 
   
 
I have never seen it make a difference  
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Andrew 
Member 
 
Registered: 5th May 04
 Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma 
User status: Offline 
 
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quote: Originally posted by Brett 
What John's saying makes sense (lookup contention ratio) given the times it's happening. Don't mean to be rude tho, but if engineers have been out over and over again and it's been investigated by the provider, bit of a long shot asking on a car forum. 
   
 
Not sure how much background you have in IT. BT generally come out, plug there kit into your phone line and if no fault found the bugger off and send you a £130 bill. 
 
I had an issue recently whereby we had two ADSL lines coming in onto a Draytek 2830 and Draytek 120 modem. Speeds were up and down like a yo yo... Ended up being a faulty 120 causing both lines to be shit. 
 
BT over the years had been out several times and found no issues. I only found out after speaking with Draytek.
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John 
Member 
 
Registered: 30th Jun 03
 
User status: Offline 
 
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BT would have been correct in that circumstance. That should have been easy to figure out with standard unplugging and swapping stuff.
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pow 
Premium Member
 
Registered: 11th Sep 06
 Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire 
User status: Offline 
 
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So you didn't try one connection at a time first? And google bell wire slow broadband. Shitty extension wiring can fuck up broadband beyond belief.
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Andrew 
Member 
 
Registered: 5th May 04
 Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma 
User status: Offline 
 
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quote: Originally posted by pow 
So you didn't try one connection at a time first? And google bell wire slow broadband. Shitty extension wiring can fuck up broadband beyond belief. 
   
 
I did actually, was totally weird. Would be fine for a few hours and then be problematic again.
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