Re: Small connection issue
 

Sarah's speed is a mystery. Two different speed checks have confirmed her extraordinarily high rate. She is on VM or what?

Your modem is not ADSL2+ capable so far as I can see. If your neighbour is not on VM but say on a BT ADSL2+ service, that would be interesting. What router does Sarah have?

Re: Small connection issue
 

My router is ADSL2+; on the back of my router it says:
"54 Mbps Wireless ADSL2+ Modem Router DG834g v4."

Sarah is with BT, so she will have one of them BT-provided routers. A Home-hub I believe it is called?

Re: Small connection issue
 

The manual for your router that I downloaded didin't say ADSL2+. So I stand corrected there.

Well, now we aren't comparing like for like. Have you contacted BT and asked them what speed you'll get if you switch to them? You can mention Sarah's 1.8 Mbps.

Virgin won't be interested in the least in a BT customer's throughput.

I'm almost back to the damp in the pole strung line theory. Someone's got to sort this out.

Added:

Just read the intervening post. Our ideas are converging (though no solution to the VM speed problem).

Re: Small connection issue
 

Just off the phone to BT; exactly the same answer. We can only get 0.5 mb/s even though Sarah gets almost 2 mb/s.

It's the fact that no one can justify why Sarah gets such a good connection and ours is crappy.

I'm at ends with this already.

Re: Small connection issue
 

Is there is any way for me to check whether there is actually a fault with my home wiring or sockets etc, or something like that? Would that mean phoning and actually asking for an engineer to check for faults (paying lots for him to be there) but there might not be any faults?

Re: Small connection issue
 

When I had this problem, BT sent the rig round and found the damp and attenuation in the pole strung segment. With perserverance and insistence, you should be able to obtain similar service.

Have a look inside the first BT distribution point. Perhaps take a photo and post it here in case it reveals something (slightly possible).

BTt do the whole circuit to your house AFAIK and hand off to VM right at the back end. So you need to lean on BT stressing the unreasonable difference between you and your neighbour.

Keep us posted.

(P.S. I've been left alone on this one! Is everyone else only cable oriented?)

Re: Small connection issue
 

I have stressed to BT and VirginMedia. I have phoned them countless times and they have absolutely no idea what to do, and just keep saying all we can get is 0.5 mb/s.

Re: Small connection issue
 

You mentioned plugging in the sky box causes the Internet to die - that suggests that you are plugging it either directly into the telephone socket or into a faulty ADSL filter.

Expanding this thought - can you make sure you remove all other equipment from the internal telephone wiring - e.g. phones, sky boxes, burglar alarms. Are you then able to plug your modem into an ADSL socket plugged into teh master BT socket? Try re-running the test.

For even better results andif you feel comfortable with doing it - carefully remove the front plate of the master socket and plug the modem directly into the socket inside - try re-running the test.

These will start to rule out internal wiring, micro-filters, other equipment but to be honest the distance you are away from the exchange may be prohibitive - doesn't entire;y explain why you used to & your neighbour appear to get better speeds.

Out of interest did you run speedtest before when all was apparently running faster.

May also be worth checking out the forums on Thinkbroadband.com which may be a bit more ADSL centric then this one.

Re: Small connection issue
 

the problem with calling BT is that they don't have anything in their agreements with you to provide ADSL over the circuit.

I'm not sure if the tech support guys you call in Virgin will be able to log a fault to get line checks and so on done, but that might be an idea

Re: Small connection issue
 

This is the classic rock & a hard place for Stuart.

But if he wants to switch to BT, he can get the circuit looked at as part of the lure. In any case, it's all BT's up to the VM leased line from the Gateway.

Re: Small connection issue
 

I've worked in a number of companies that provide ADSL through BT - it's easy enough to do whoosh tests and things to see there is a problem, it's getting BT to send a tech that can be a pain...

this makes everyone else look like they are providing poor service, not just Virgin, but also other re-sellers.

as a customer just ask for a fault to be logged with BT regardless =)

Re: Small connection issue
 

Thanks for all the replies; sorry I've been late replying. I was out at the weekend and I got Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for PS3 so I'm glued to that right now!

I have done tests before (the connection went bad) and my download was little under 1 Mb/s and I know I had this as I could play the PS3 games online with that connection and YouTube videos loaded a lot faster than now.

I've had a lot of help from bomber_g who I'd like to say a big thanks too!

I'm going to give VirginMedia a phone, ask them to log a fault and then phone up BT and ask them to log a fault as well - whether that actually happens, I'll have to wait and see.

I am going to do some of the things Pog66 suggested to see if there is faults with the ADSL filters. I do not think there is though as we just got new ADSL filters sent to us, to replace older ones we had.

I will reply back with the good / bad news.

Re: Small connection issue
 

I get the same download / upload results when testing through the master socket.

My only other option is to get BT / VirginMedia to do a line test and check if something is wrong (which it has to be).

Does anyone know the website for BT line test?

Thanks.

Re: Small connection issue
 

For the speed test (which I doubt will work for you as a VM costomer): http://speedtester.bt.com/

For the line test: http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl

Re: Small connection issue
 

They aren't the links I am looking for but thanks for getting them nonetheless and went and entered the details into them too.

The website just basically makes you enter your email, telephone number, mobile number and other details so BT can get back in touch with you. You also give some information about the fault and there is a drop-down menu of options that corresponds to the line problem you are having.

Thanks so far to everyone though.