Really poor O2 download speed
 

Hi there

Been on the phone to o2 all morning with a really nice fella but he was unable to help me speed up my connection. It's been forward to the 2nd line people but wondered if anyone could pinpoint the problem. I'm getting download speeds of 0.60 which is awful and about as good as dialup in the early 2000s, although browsing speed is OK. Here is my router details:


Uptime:

0 days, 1:05:28


DSL Type:

G.992.1 annex A



Channel mode:

Interleave

Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:

882 / 726


Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:

692 / 623


Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]:

0.00 / 0.00


Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:

12.0 / 14.5


Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:

31.5 / 63.5



SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:

7.0 / 7.5


Vendor ID (Local/Remote):

TMMB / BDCM



Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):

45 / 0



Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):

5 / 0


Loss of Power (Local/Remote):

0 / 0


Loss of Link (Remote):

0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote):

16 / 0


FEC Errors (Up/Down):

27 / 3,582


CRC Errors (Up/Down):

27 / 18


HEC Errors (Up/Down):

7 / 11


Any help/advice would be appreciated as I'm getting frustrated now! One thing I noticed was that I'm connected to ADSL plus- would connecting to normal ADSL help? I tried in the router settings but it wouldn't let me...

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

You realise that 0.6 is over ten times faster than dialup ever was, right?

Anyhow, your line attenuation is the problem - at 63.5dB you just have a really long line from the exchange. Unless it's faulty, there's nothing you, BT, or O2 can do about it. By those numbers alone I'd guess you were 4.5-5km from the exchange.

Have a check on http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker and punt in your postcode and phone number. It should estimate your line speed and your distance from the exchange. If either of those are way off, let us know what they say but if they're about the same then you're SOL. You might be better off switching to a mobile broadband solution depending on where you are.

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

It says:

You are approximately 3.02km from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longer!

Although the guy who lived here before us was on Orange and managed to get a much better download speed.

---------- Post added at 09:46 ---------- Previous post was at 09:44 ----------

According to BT Wholesale, your phone line should be able to support

up to 1Mbps via ADSL
2.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max
4.5Mbps or greater via ADSL2+

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

I don't have a master/test socket to try either, it's the old style one.

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

I used to get 1.85 mb/s at my old house which was 4 1/2 miles from the exchange straight line distance (middle of nowhere ontop of a hill)

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

That's possible but it also depends on the quality of the line and the internal wiring.

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

BT (and SamKnows') estimator usually takes into account the quality and length of the line, as well as neighbours' speeds and previous speeds on your line.

In general I find BT's estimator to be a conservative underestimate, so if it is estimating 4.5mbps then I would expect around 5-6mbps in practice. 0.6mbps is certainly bad and suggests a fault somewhere seperate to simply the length and quality of your line.

There's two primary issues that affect your speed. Line attenuation (how much the signal gets weakened by) and noise/interference. Both of these values on your line seem much higher than expected.

BT's estimate puts your line length at about 3.5km, but your attenuation suggests its 4.5-5km. So your line attenuation (loss) is much higher than normal. Secondly, the noise margin on your line suggests you're getting far more noise ingress than is normal, as even with a 4.5-5km line and 65db attenuation, you should still see 2-3mbps not 0.6.

Both of these can be caused by a bad line, but more often by a bad connection somewhere, excess cabling, poor internal extensions, etc.

Even if you don't have a master socket I'd suggest connecting as close as you can to where the BT cable comes in, and disconnecting all additional extensions, the ring wire, and anything else hanging off your telephone circuit. That's as much as you can do really, as the rest is up to BT. If that doesn't clear the issue you've got a really bad or faulty line, which I'd check against the neighbour's to see if it's specific to you.

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

Thanks, I've tried everything suggested but still no improvement. O2 have forwarded it to 2nd line who are supposed to be contacting me...

---------- Post added at 11:42 ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 ----------

It's frustrating because my ping, browsing and upload speed seem good, it's just the download speed that's the problem!

Re: Really poor O2 download speed
 

1960s GPO line + internals LOL