virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Hi. Perhaps someone can explain why I can't get faster speeds ?
Is this normal for my area, or is this strange (some stats below to help, I hope).

I live in a PO postcode. I don't think I am far from the exchange really. I have a 'normal' bt phone-line with ADSL activated. I have a netgear adsl router that is a few years old but has been pretty reliable and I have upgraded the firmware on it successfully. I have three phone sockets in the house all wired in parallel from the main socket where the line comes into the house. All sockets have adsl filters in them. The router is plugged into the socket furthest away from where the line enters the house (about 10m of cable).

I have been with virgin for quite a while and had their 2Mb adsl package. I never really managed to get much more than 1Mb speeds though. Recently I was given the free 'upgrade' to 10Mb and this has not changed things. I still only get between 0.8 and 1M speeds. Is this normal for my area or is there something 'wrong' ? Also I am occasionally(say a few times a day) getting a very brief disconnect where the 'i' light on my netgear router starts blinking and then it goes back to solid green again. This has only been happening since the 'upgrade' to 10Mb.


I have some stats from my router and also my browser if this helps.
I have a 'downstream' speed as quoted in the router's pages of 20792 Kbitsps and an 'upstream' of 1024Kbitsps.
The downstream line attenuation is pretty constant at 12db and the downstream noise margin is 9db. The upstream line attenuation varies between 2.5 and 5db, whilst the upsteam noise margin varies between 5 and 9db. Does that sound ok ?

The mtu setting in the router is at 1458. The mtu setting in my computers ethernet settings was at 1500 and I have dropped it to 1458 today to see if this reduces the disconnects. On the basic adsl settings page of the router the encapsulation is set to PPPoA and the 'timeout' is at 0. The other adsl settings are multiplexing vc-based, vpi at 0 and vci 38. Not sure what these mean exactly but I guess they are to do with the type of connection rather than the speed.

I guess the upstream speed (1024) is what equates to the real speed that I see for downloads in my browser of about 100-106 kilobytes per second. mybroadbandspeed.co.uk reports my upload and download speeds as about 845kbits per second (0.8Mb broadband !). This seems really slow considering that I have read people moaning on here about how their 5000 plus kilobits per second speeds are "slow" !

Any thoughts ?

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

ADSL speed is limited by your distance from the phone exchange and the quality of the wiring. Locate your house in the Samknows Mapping Engine and it will estimate the maximum speed you can expect: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/mapping/mapping.php

Read here for some optimisation tips: http://www.beforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8152

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Samknows says I should be able to get 6.5Mb on adsl1 and 16Mb on adsl2. Nowhere near my measly 0.8Mb. Thanks for the links. I'll take a look.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Chicken - look at his sync speed:

This guy's line rocks, could do full 24.5M.

I have no explanation for you ulmo, you should be able to download and speed test upwards of 16Mbps let along less than 1Mbps. :(

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Maybe it's the router? Perhaps it's too old, doesn't quite support MAX properly, or just plain broken?

Doesn't sound like an issue with filters and things, because you'd probably see much higher SNR or gain.

With a line like that, I think I'd be running towards Be with open arms!

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Replace these in the following order - ADSL microfilter, telephone extension lead (if you have one), cable between filter and router, and the router itself. If one doesn't work, move on to the next. Replacing the router should be a last resort.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Thanks for the responses. Chicken - just followed the parts about plugging into the test socket on the 'first' socket in the house and got more or less exactly the same stats. The downstream changed a tiny bit, but upstream was identical and all the attenuation and noise stayed the same. I guess that confirms that its not the wiring in the house thats the problem ! (should hope not either - I did it myself and tested each wire with multimeter on diode setting to check all the wiring after the first socket).
By the way, the first socket is wired more or less as the link in your post describes....seems to be six or eight core wire coming into the house with only orange and white cables actually in use (two wires only connected to terminals with capacitor directly adjacent).

Broadbandings...thanks for confirming that the line seems ok. Much appreciated.

Kingdavera - thanks for the ideas. Its a netgear dg834 router (see http://www.netgear.com/Products/Rout...Specifications). Supports adsl 2+. Have tried switching filters to different ones and even tried different computers to no avail (not that I was really expecting the latter to make much difference with a 0.8Mb bottleneck ! ;)).

Any other ideas ? Is the speed that the router is measuring 'all the way back to the exchange' or is it just measuring something to one of those big green cabinets in the street ? Could it still be a case of crap equipment at the exchange ? or between the cabinet and the exchange ? or does the problem definitely lie elsewhere?:(

Thanks all.

---------- Post added at 16:43 ---------- Previous post was at 16:31 ----------

p.s. not sure I get your meaning about running towards 'Be' Dave. Who ?

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

He means these people https://www.bethere.co.uk/

No traffic management, no download limits, pretty good customer service from what i've encountered although I have only had 1 problem, 1 ticket later and that was sorted out in a few hours. I moved to them after encountering VM's draconian ADSL traffic management and havent looked back.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

There might be a problem with your IP/bRAS Profile? See here for more information, the Broadband Performance test will tell which profile you've been assigned: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/IPprofile.htm
It is possible that your profile is stuck way down and that's limiting your speed.

I might be jumping to conclusions, but a 0.8Mb speed does sound suspiciously like Traffic Management: http://www.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management2.php

P.S. Be (http://bethere.co.uk) are an excellent ISP; they're owned by O2 who seem to be winning all the broadband awards at the moment.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

if you're getting around 8kbytes/sec between 4? and midnight? (cant remember exactly) I'd put money on it being the dreaded ADSL traffic management. Cant play games, cant surf, and dont even think about sending email with attachments. Its like going back 10 years and is exactly the reason I left VM. Try connecting outside traffic management times and see if that improves it. But if you are managed its for a week at a time.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

He doesn't have a BRAS profile he's not on BT Wholesale. I'm tempted to say it's traffic management or a fault somewhere with the Cable and Wireless network that you're connecting to Ulmo.

Have you spoken to VM on this issue and explained the problem.

---------- Post added at 17:41 ---------- Previous post was at 17:39 ----------

He's not on Max, he's on ADSL2+. If it were a line issue he'd see lower SNR margin due to noise, gain is not a visible stat only transmit power.

The line is fine, nice high SNR margin so it's easily handling the speeds, the fault is either with the DSLAM or with Virgin Media's traffic shaping.

Only course - speak with VM.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Hmmm. That tester always seems to be busy at the mo. Unfortunate.

Does this ip profile thing mean that my speed could be being throttled at the exchange or ras (despate a physically decent phone line) because there may be lots of people wanting to use it ??

If so, can I do anything about it if it turns out my profile is set to one of the lower value ones or is it completely out of my hands and something that bt/the exchange would be unwilling to change ?

This is getting so technical I am not even sure what I just said even makes sense.:erm:

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

You've no IP profiling on your line Ulmo I'm afraid so that's nothing to do with it.

Speaking with Virgin is really your best bet dude, it's not going to be any issue you can do anything about I think.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Thanks broadbandings. Very helpful indeed! What's the best (in your experience) way to get a response from vm on such an issue ? Presumably support@virgin.net ?

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

I wouldn't for a second consider emailling them, you may as well email Richard Branson himself for the response you'll get.

Giving them a call or using the online help is probably best:

http://www.virgin.net/customers/contactus/index.shtml

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Cheersone and all.
I will get in touch with virgin and see what happens.

crowman - its not 8kbytes ber second its about 100kbytes per second in my browser. 0.8Mbit broadband was what I was describing my connection as. I think thats 800kbits or 80 kilobytes (which is about what I experience in the browser +-20ish). Sorry if my description was a bit pants.

I will be really annoyed if this turns out to be traffic management as I was not warned about this by virgin. I am not a big downloader either. No torrents and only had one big download session a few weeks back getting some linux updates and game files. On most days I am just surfing the web on fairly light sites, with no huge downloads.:sleep:

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Ah fair enough, is this how the "Broadband Boost" thing works, using the C&W LLU? When I saw "upto 8Mb" I just assumed it was a standard BTW arrangement.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Just called virgin and they were very helpful.
They couldn't solve the problem right away as one of the tools they use for checking is offline at the moment, but I have to call back tomorrow which should mean that the checking thing is available by then.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

I am close to my local exchange and get about 5 to 7 Meg depending on time of day

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

They are offering up to 16 over the C+W LLU - notice this chap is synched at nearly 20Mbit down and 1Mbit up, ADSL2+ Annex A capped to 20/1.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Sorry, I wasn't aware VM were doing ADSL2+ now. I thought it was BTWholesale still.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Doesn't sound like traffic management, unless they've increased the limit. On the one occasion I got TMed (caused by the missus streaming video for 4 days), it was dead on 80Kbit/s for a week.

Try leaving the router off overnight and see whether you get a better BAM tomorrow. Occasionally I get a duffer, and it seem I'm not alone:
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/vir...ml#Post3246343

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

That won't work either, he's not connected via one of the overloaded BT circuits to a BAM but via the Cable and Wireless 10Gbps interconnect so BT interconnect overload isn't going to happen.

There appear to be 4 interconnects between VM and C+W for the DSL, 1 each to manc-t3core-1a and 1b and 1 each to popl-t3core-1a and 1b. In between there's also some bad ass Allot Omega Series Service Gateway shaping action.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

"That won't work either, he's not connected via one of the overloaded BT circuits to a BAM but via the Cable and Wireless 10Gbps interconnect so BT interconnect overload isn't going to happen."

Am I not ? I had assumed I was on a bt circuit. Certainly a bt phon line. Just for the record could you explain how Cable and Wireless come into it ?

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

You connect to Cable and Wireless equipment in the exchange via a BT line, from there you go along Cable and Wireless goodness until you go onto VM's network.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Thanks. That makes sense now !:)

---------- Post added at 12:52 ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 ----------

Wahey think I may have a good result coming !

Spoke to vm technical folks - they said I was showing on their system as being assigned a 1Mb rate. They put me thorugh to sales who said I had was on the 8Mb package...at which point I explained what the tech guy said. I was then put on hold for a while (presumably while sales and tech support talked to each other). When the guy came back on, he said I'd been capped at 1Mb and he was going to get this removed, but it takes about 5 days to go through. Hurrah - hope this sorts it !

I think that means my connection was being traffic managed ?

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Virgin thought you were on 1Mbit and kept you at that rate, so not traffic managed but they thought that was what you were paying for.

Can I just say that your phone line could give you 24Mbit, have you considered a change of ISP:

http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/index.jsp
https://www.bethere.co.uk/

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Thanks.

To be honest I am not sure of the benefit of say 24Mb over 8 or 10Mb and what that might amount to in the real world. Presumably I'd be paying extra to get something like 20Mb ??
There is also the downside of probably needing to change my e-mail address...which would actually be a lot of hassle as I have so many online things setup with my current e-mail address.

I think I'll wait and see what this 'fix' delivers before I consider other isps, but thanks very much for the tips. If I do get about 8Mb with the fix then that's already about ten times faster than I am getting today. That is going to seem so good (I hope) !

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Depends what you're paying right now Ulmo though I appreciate all that goodness. It's a case of what you're happy with, but given that you've that very short and very good line I just wouldn't have felt right if I hadn't shown you a couple of ISPs that would give you the full benefit ;)

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

No worries :-)
It does look like I'd get 24Mb with Be for the same price as 8Mb on virgin.

Maybe I'll start making a list of just how many online accounts I have and slowly migrate them to a generic webmail of some kind like yahoo or gmail. Then if I decide to switch isp it will be easier.:)

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

I haven't used ISP mail in a lot of years for precisely that reason!

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

And if you want email at Be it costs another £2 a month, I'm with googlemail now and havent had any problems with it.

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

That's what I do. I'm on ISP number... uh... dunno actually, but I've had the same email address for quite some years, as I have my own email hosted elsewhere.

:D

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Well this is the sixth day after virgin told me that it takes five days to correct the speed issue and get me changed to 8meg. No sign of ny change, so virgin are going to be getting a call today. Not impressed at all:mad:

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

When i used to be on Virgins ADSL my connection would never go over 1meg. But I can get almost a 20meg sync with Be*

Re: virgin adsl - why can't I seem to get speeds over 1Mb
 

Phoned virgin....and the technical folks said they had not been asked to make any changes to my settings and that I was still capped at 1mb:td: So, got through to customer services, who said they would make the change and that it would take 24-48 hours, and then I should be getting 8Mb. Hopefully they will actually do what they say this time round.*sigh*