Broadband speed - another tale of woe.

[#1]

I've been having poor performance for close to a month now. Living in the sticks I'm used to it, but it's plummeted recently. I'm getting downloads at approx 14k, and performance worse than an ISDN 2.
I'm on "up to 8 meg", and previously it was close to 1 meg.
From the BT speedtester:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
    DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)  736 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 86 kbps

From my router - showing 1 meg - not 135 kbps
Modem Status Connected
Connect Mode VC-BASED
Downstream Speed 1216 Kbps
Upstream Speed 448 Kbps
VPI 0
VCI 38

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
 

[#2]

You need to post additional information from your router stats to enable proper comment.  In addition to sync speeds (1216/448kbps) the noise margin and attenuation is useful.  Those values should be on one of the status pages.
The router sync speed you quoted (1216kbps) differs from that shown by the BT speedtester (736kbps) so your router will have been restarted after the BT speedtester was run.
Your IP profile (135kbps) is a theoretical throughput rate allowing for transmission protocol overheads (around 13%), but in real life this will not be achieved; the BT speedtester shows your achieved throughput was 86kbps.
The IP profile is set from sync speed, but BTw will increase this value only if you maintain an appropriate sync rate for 3 days, though they reduce it within 75 minutes if sync rate reduces.
Having an IP profile of 135kbps implies your router must have synced below 288kbps at some time in the last 3 days.  If you can maintain the current sync rate of 1216kbps for 3 days the IP profile will automatically increase to 1000kbps.  However since the BT speedtester shows sync at 736kbps it seems optimistic that you'd be able to unless some environment changes are made.
This article provides useful background information and hints for diagnosing the cause of low speed problems.

[#3]

Sorry for the delay in responding. I had a trusty old DG824m that doesn't provide those figures. However, I've  just replaced it with an 834n.
The 834n is plugged direct to the test socket on the NTE5
I've been collecting stats from the router over the last couple of days, and I'll continue to do so. Filtered results posted here
http://www.crell.plus.com/routerquerypub.htm
Where the linespeed is dropping, there's a prior drop in the Downstream noise level to around 5-6 Db in all cases.
Is this, as well as the more general variation in speed to be expected - e.g syncs speeds between 100k and 1.5 Meg?
Would I be better coming off ADSL max?

[#4]

Hi Jason,
I should be able to place an order to move you onto a fixed rate 1Mbps product if you would like me to do so.
It is possible that your line just isn't capable of receiving better speeds on the Max product.

[#5]

Thanks for the prompt reply. The 834n is currently sat synced at 832 Kbps (and has been for a few hours), but the plusnet speed test shows 336k
As I've never acheived over 1.5 meg sync speed on MAX, do you think I'd see an improvement in sync speed by switching back to a 1  meg service?
Is there another Router I should try? I read elsewhere about a particular BT model that apparently does well on long lines?

[#6]

Hi,
That amount of throughput doesn't sound that far off.  Because of your sync speed, BT will be profiling your line @ 500Kbps, which after overheads will give you speeds in the region of 400Kbps.
I would expect you to get the full 1Mbps sync speed on a fixed rate product.
Most of the BT Voyager kit is generally pretty good at holding onto the line.

[#7]

Thanks James, can you put me back on to a 1 meg service.
Am I still on a lower contention rate? IIRC, it was something like 20 or 30:1 rather than 50:1, or has that been withdrawn?

[#8]

Hi Jason,
Bad news
BT won't let me place an order to move you to the fixed rate 1Mbps product, presumably down to your line conditions.
Would it be possible for you to borrow a friends modem or router and see then what sort of synchronisation speeds you receive?

[#9]

Would that be down in part to me forcing so many resyncs lateley, or based on the speedtester.bt.com results?
I'll see what I can do.

[#10]

It'll be down to a BT guestimation based on the length of your line.
Hopefully a different modem or rotuer may be able to improve the synchronisation speeds that you are currently seeing.

[#11]

I'm now syncing at a consistent 2272KBPS. 
I've rebooted the rooter 3 times to force a resync, so hopefully my lime will be reprofiled - so in which case don't move me to the 1 meg service.

[#12]

Jason,
I promise I won't. I can't!
It might take about 3 days for the profile change to occur.

[#13]

In my excitement I forgot to add HOW the speed has improved:
Removing the Bell wires on the consumer side of the NTE5 (as reported elsewhere on the forums)!
Out of interest - do you see any omprovement at your end / via the data you have available to you yet, or do you just see the BT profile data when that's eventually updated? (just interested in what info you have available from a support and diagnostics perspective).
Regards,

[#14]

I can have a quick look to see any improvement in sync speed, which I will do shortly.
We won't see any update to the BT information until the change has actually occurred.

[#15]

Or at least I would if BTs testing system hadn't decided that it dislikes me now
It would probably just tell me the sync speeds that you ate now seeing, which is a pretty good result.