Maximising BB speed
Was previously on Orange with a 2Mb free unlimited BB (with mobile phone rental) but they decided to charge us £15/mth or whatever 
They then did a U-turn I believe but it was too late by then. I wanted to leave them. Never had issues with the BB other than just 2Mb speed. Various estimated BB speeds from other ISPs reckoned I should get 6Mb. Decided to go with Plusnet for the time being.
Back when I was Orange, this was my speed:
I decided to fiddle with the telephone wires
We don't seem to have a "proper" master socket. The telephone line comes from outside and connects to a junction box. This then feeds a signal into the living room. This socket has a yellow capacitor but no test socket. I tried the bell-wire trick and successfully managed to disconnect my broadband! 
Turns out they used non-standard wiring (for colour coding). After ensuring only wires 2 and 5 were connected to the "master" socket, I got this:
Since I've moved to Plusnet, I get this:
Not the massive boost I've been expecting
. Having a look in the account settings, I spotted this:
Have had a play with the BT speedtester and got:
And router tells me:
Local exchange is about 1.7 miles away (as the car drives).
Sooooo.....is there anything (other than distance) stopping me from getting 6MB? Is there anything I can do to maximise the broadband speed eg replace internal telephone wiring? What about a better ADSL cable from socket to router? Or am I permanently limited to 3.5 Mb until I get fibre?
They then did a U-turn I believe but it was too late by then. I wanted to leave them. Never had issues with the BB other than just 2Mb speed. Various estimated BB speeds from other ISPs reckoned I should get 6Mb. Decided to go with Plusnet for the time being.Back when I was Orange, this was my speed:
I decided to fiddle with the telephone wires
We don't seem to have a "proper" master socket. The telephone line comes from outside and connects to a junction box. This then feeds a signal into the living room. This socket has a yellow capacitor but no test socket. I tried the bell-wire trick and successfully managed to disconnect my broadband! Turns out they used non-standard wiring (for colour coding). After ensuring only wires 2 and 5 were connected to the "master" socket, I got this:Since I've moved to Plusnet, I get this:
Not the massive boost I've been expecting
. Having a look in the account settings, I spotted this:
Quote Estimated line speed:
6Mb (This may vary between 4Mb and 8Mb) - Checked on 2012-11-11 15:13:24
Current line speed:
21 Mb
Have had a play with the BT speedtester and got:
Quote Download speed: 3.63 Mbps
IP Profile ~ 3.5 Mbps
And router tells me:
Quote SNR margin = 6-7
Loop Attenuation = 39
Down Speed = 3968000
Local exchange is about 1.7 miles away (as the car drives).
Sooooo.....is there anything (other than distance) stopping me from getting 6MB? Is there anything I can do to maximise the broadband speed eg replace internal telephone wiring? What about a better ADSL cable from socket to router? Or am I permanently limited to 3.5 Mb until I get fibre?
There are three telephone sockets in the property. The junction box feeds the main socket. There's then an extension from this to the front room socket and then an extension from that to the upstairs socket. The router is plugged into the first socket in the chain and there are microfilters on all sockets.
Junction box:
Left side from the telephone wire. Right side feeds to the first socket.
The first/main/master socket:
All sockets have been changed so there are only two wires connected: blue/white and white/blue.
Junction box:
Left side from the telephone wire. Right side feeds to the first socket.The first/main/master socket:
All sockets have been changed so there are only two wires connected: blue/white and white/blue.