Upload speeds are absolutely unacceptable

[#1]

With everybody working from home now, uploads speeds are just as important as download speeds, especially with large graphics files. I'm currently getting 0.25 to 0.37mbps upload speeds. It can take me up to 4 hours to upload a 2GB photoshop file to our server, which is useless! I spoke to plusnet today, and even with an upgraded package, you wouldn't be able to guarantee better speed. I'm seriously regretting locking myself into an 18 month contract with Plusnet. Why is it so slow? 

I have a Thomson TG585 v8 Router.

[#2]

@clearsignal ADSL connections are designed to provide much better speed for downloading than uploading. Since most users spend much more time downloading (which includes viewing web pages or multimedia files) than they do uploading, high speed Internet providers have designed their systems to give priority to downloading.

The absolute maximum upload speed on an ADSL connection is 1.2Mb on a perfect short line. Sometimes the provision of an ADSL connection can be made in error on a capped upstream of 440Kb but in your situation it appears from the IP profile on the upstream of 0.83Mb that this is not the case. Your upstream and downstream speeds are limited purely by your distance to the exchange.

The only way you may get a substantially increased upstream is to go for a Fibre(FTTC) connection if it is available. If you put your phone number in here https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL that will show availability . If you post the results back here (redact the phone number as this is a public forum) then we will be able to advise further

BTW you have a pretty old router there, a more modern one MAY give a slightly improved upstream

[#3]

Thanks @MisterW , if the WFH situation continues at the end of my contract, I might have to switch to fibre. I've attached the results from the link you posted.

[#4]

@clearsignal  Why not switch to fibre now?  I'm sure you can upgrade at any time. The price difference is quite small and you will get a much better connection.

[#5]

I'd give the Customer options team a ring on 0800 013 2632 and see what they could do.

[#6]

Well I'll be moving soon, so it's not worth having all the cables installed. Might as well get it installed at the new place.

[#7]

If fibre’s available it should be a simple swap at the cabinet. Might be a wait for an engineer but apart from that and a new router it’s generally straight forward from personal experience

[#8]

Looking at the availability report posted above, FTTC is not presently available on the user's cabinet.  Read that as code for no available ports, so FTTC is out of the question right now.

This needs to return to basics...

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket. It should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault on line using the button below.  From the Q&A list, choose the one which matches the problem, 'open' the 'section' and click the trouble-shooter link.  NB: If you receive a failure message (rather than a log-in prompt) then log-in to the user portal in a different browser tab and attempt to use the trouble-shooter again.

• Phone Faults

How is your line performing?

Please post your router stats; for PN TG582n and 2704n routers use the buttons below, for other routers look at the Kitz link.

Also run a BT Wholesale speed test (ideally using an Ethernet wired PC with the WiFi turned off) then run the further diagnostics and post the results here. DO NOT REBOOT the router!

NB: Please use an Edge browser or IE as there have been many reports that others fail to function correctly when accessing the BTw speed test.

• TG582n Stats
• 2704n Stats
• Kitz list
• BTw Speedtest

[#9]

@clearsignal 

Regardless of whether you have a problem on your line, from the ADSL checker results I would guess that you will never get better than an upload speed of about 800kb/s on ADSL.

If we then apply some simple maths, 800kb/s equates to 100kB/s (8bits=1byte)

There are 3600 seconds in an hour.

Therefore the best that you will ever achieve with an average line on ADSL at your location is 360MB per hour. And that's assuming that you are not using the connection for anything else at the time and if you are accepting that it will cause a slow down if using it for light work you have no buffer bloat issues.

Have you investigated using a mobile network?