Download a lot lower than sync speed

[#1]

Hello!

For the past two weeks I've been having terrible speeds and drop outs on my broadband. Was getting speeds of 0-2mbps from the usual 9-10mbps. I replaced the adsl router, microfilter, cables etc but it was still the same, so plusnet sent a BT engineer out. After replacing the master socket and some wiring he was still seeing thousands of errors on the line so he got out a hand held radio to test for interference. Turns out that a Cisco 837 router I use was giving out lots of radio interference on the adsl frequency of 612am, turning it off reduced the amount of CRC errors tremendously. I've had the thing for years and it's never been a problem, but he said the power supplies can sometimes just develop a fault.

The engineer reset the line so that the sync speeds are back to the maximum of 14mbps and turned off interleaving. I've removed the Cisco from my network and got everything plugged into a Technicolour router. On the router the sync speed is showing as 12.5mbps but the download speeds I'm getting are only 2.7mbps, which is not much better than before, though at least the internet is usable now.

Does it take a few days for the download speed to go back to normal, even though the sync speed is so much higher?

Cheers

[#2]

Having been reset, your connection could experience a few instances of instability as it will be in the 10-day 'training period.'

Having said that, your download speed should still be 88.2% of your sync rate, which it clearly is not.

Is your 2.7Mbps speed measured over a wired or wireless connection?

[#3]

Hi JayG

It's wired and plugged straight into the back of the router, tried two different network cables just to be sure.

[#4]

Is it possible the device was playing catch-up and uploading and/or downloading large quantities of data when you did the speed test?

Try another speed test later, and if still the same results, try logging into the router to obtain the connection stats and post them here.

[#5]

I checked that just in case and the computer hasn't been downloading or uploading anything.

Here is a screen shot of my speeds, they are constant and stable at 2.7Mbps down.

And this is the router page, it's a Technicolour so the info is pretty junk to be honest, but it shows the line rate etc. I only plugged this one this morning hence the 9 hour uptime.

[#6]

Just found this page that has a lot more details

[#7]

Hmm - DLM is not aggressively managing your connection (no interleaving, noise margins in the right sort of area.)

Errors are somewhat higher than ideal, but better than my connection and not enough to have that sort of impact on your download speed I would have thought. Upload speed is good.

Do you get the same result with different speed testers?

I'll be out for the rest of today, and am also running out of ideas if anyone else wants to suggest a diagnosis.

[#8]

Possibly all it needs is for the Plusnet Current Line Speed to update, it should happen automatically or Plusnet can change it manually. You may need to disconnect and re-connect the PPP after it changes, this may also happen automatically, try to avoid rebooting the whole modem/router.

[#9]

That's good to know on the number of errors - I saw that and was wondering if the problem had been fixed, but if they are better than yours I'll not worry too much!

The current line speed listed in the account is 10.9mbps. I'm tempted to wait a few days and see what happens, hopefully once the connection is seen as stable download speeds start to rise again. So far the connection has been up for 1 day, 3 hours. I'll post back with the results.

I'll try a few other speed testers as well.

Thanks for the help chaps!

[#10 · Accepted solution]

Try disconnecting and re-connecting the PPP (Internet) connection.

There's no point waiting a few days, the download speeds should already be 10Mbps.

[#11]

Hahaha, amazing! That worked!

I feel a bit daft now! I tried that yesterday morning and it had no effect, maybe the dslam just needed to see the connection was stable for a while....