Deceived on Speed
James, Dave and Chris,
My own experience may help other irate users understand the unpredictability of ADSL sync speed with respect to distance from the exchange. I live about 2Km from my exchange and my line travels about 2Km underground before going overhead for about 800m and then back underground for the last 200m. My Attenuation is 37db downstream.
When Max was activated, I was getting sync at around 5Mbps but it slowly deteriorated to just over 3Mbps. I checked everything including disconnecting Pin 3 to no avail until a Radio Ham neighbour about 100m away called to ask for my cooperation to find the source of broad spectrum RF interference which seemed to be coming from my home.
We traced this to a 12V switched mode power supply which fed my CCTV camera. I replaced the PSU and that restored neighbourly relations. Coincedentally, my sync speed went up to 8096Kbps with an attainable rate of over 9Mbps. The Attenuation is still 37db and the SNR Margin is still ~ 6db. My Router is a US Robotics 9108 and is connected via an extension socket on 33 year old 4 core telephone cable some 20 metres from the BT Master NTE5 Socket.
I'm not trying to start an argument .... I'm just trying to say that length (from the exchange of course) isn't everything.
R
My own experience may help other irate users understand the unpredictability of ADSL sync speed with respect to distance from the exchange. I live about 2Km from my exchange and my line travels about 2Km underground before going overhead for about 800m and then back underground for the last 200m. My Attenuation is 37db downstream.
When Max was activated, I was getting sync at around 5Mbps but it slowly deteriorated to just over 3Mbps. I checked everything including disconnecting Pin 3 to no avail until a Radio Ham neighbour about 100m away called to ask for my cooperation to find the source of broad spectrum RF interference which seemed to be coming from my home.
We traced this to a 12V switched mode power supply which fed my CCTV camera. I replaced the PSU and that restored neighbourly relations. Coincedentally, my sync speed went up to 8096Kbps with an attainable rate of over 9Mbps. The Attenuation is still 37db and the SNR Margin is still ~ 6db. My Router is a US Robotics 9108 and is connected via an extension socket on 33 year old 4 core telephone cable some 20 metres from the BT Master NTE5 Socket.
I'm not trying to start an argument .... I'm just trying to say that length (from the exchange of course) isn't everything.
R
Quote from: cannylad Hi, theres always an excuse no matter what you buy or get, its funny tho how in Japan they get 24mb +, I read that our broadband is one of the slowest, anyway if what you say is true and F9 want to hide behind that excuse then F9 etc should say so in their adverts or tutorials.
All depends on the infrastructure as James says. One of the reasons for the faster speeds in Japan is because of the amount of overhead cabling like this:
I know for a fact that would never be allowed by the planners round here and I suspect that's the same in most other places in the country. When you can easily roll out fibre like that and cut the copper run to a kilometer in most cases it does make faster speeds easier and cheaper to deliver.
Whether the reliablity is any better I don't know, anecdotal reports I've heard say that the fault levels are much higher and when contention kicks in speeds do get reduced quite a lot.
Edit: Typo
Quote from: geofftswin Indeed - practically anything could cause degradation of speed where electrical signals are concerned.
Quote from: Wheel_nut
I'm not trying to start an argument .... I'm just trying to say that length (from the exchange of course) isn't everything.
Indeed, I've probably mentioned most of these before but over the last 7 years of working in broadband I've seen all sorts of things causing problems with broadband connections. There's the old favourites like the farmer whose connection dropped when his sheep brushed up against the electric fence that run under the telegraph poles, the man whose broadband dropped at lunchtimes because he lived above a chippy and the microwaves caused interference when cooking pies. Temporary traffic lights, street lights security lights and Christmas lights are other common causes. Then don't forget damaged cabling or flooded ducting. Rats, see here, mice, birds, cats, dogs and more...
But if you are having an unusual problem it's often quicker and more effective. 