Download speed after line upgrade not increased to what BT Wholesale speed shows

[#1]

Jojo
Thanks for the offer - but it would also mean death by cups of tea, and chockie biccies 
I'm pinning my hopes on bro testing by connecting directly [by ethernet wire] to router to rule out wifi issues
So the best current guess is that it is the router or downstream [i.e. wifi/computer] rather than upstream i.e. connection with exchange/profile etc?
i.e. as Thomson router is showing [from my earlier post on 10/04/2012, 21:09], this~19Mbps is the connection speed between router and exchange[?]
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:  1,107 / 19,167
She did email the following BT test yesterday
1. Best Effort Test:  (?) - provides background information.
Download Speed
5.08 Mbps
0.kbps                                                                           21 Mbps
                                                             Maximum Achievable Speed
Download speed (?) achieved during the test was - 5.08 Mbps
For your connection the acceptable range of speeds (?) is 4
Mbps-21Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 16.91Mbps.
2. Upstream Test:  (?) provides background information
                                          Upload Speed
                                          891 Kbps
0Kbps                                                                      832Kbps
                                                                 Max Achievable Speed
Upload Speed (?) achieved during the test was - 891Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 832 Kbps.

[#2]

Hi sugob,
Death by cups of tea, and chockie biccies sounds intolerable - not!
Yes, 19,167Kbps is the sync rate (or connection rate between the router and the exchange) the IP profile is 16.91Mbps which is 88.2% of the sync rate so you should get speed just below that.
Let's know how it goes.
Jojo

[#3]

So bro did tests last weekend and sent me the screen dumps from which I extracted the below - hope it makes sense!
Using mum's laptop dirertly wired into Thomson router - following is the reported down speed in Mb/s
1st - 14.1                                [speedtester.bt.com]
2nd - 15.4                              [speedtester.bt.com]
3rd -  estimated 8, current 17  [portal.plus.net/my.html?action=stable_rate]
4th - 16.0                                [speedtest.net]
5th - 16.0                                [speedtest.net]
6th - currently supports 15, range 8.5-18.5  [http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome]
7th - 19.1                                [Thomson 'router reports omn DSL Connection', bandwidth]
So looks good to say 15-16 Mb/s [ok, the first is a bit lower]
Using same laptop but wireless i.e. now within a few feet of router [and line of sight]
8th -  estimated 8, current 17  [portal.plus.net/my.html?action=stable_rate]
9th - 10.5                                [speedtest.net]
10th - 10.0                              [speedtest.net]
11th - 10.3                              [speedtest.net]
12th - currently supports 15, range 8.5-18.5  [http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome]
13th - 8.7                                [speedtester.bt.com]
14th - 7.8                                [speedtester.bt.com]
So apart from last then I'd say 9-10 Mb/s i.e. wired is >50% faster than this!
Didn't have another computer so, in this location, used his Samsung Galaxy S II mobile and speedtest app a few times and got an average of 10Mb/s
Using mobile in usual laptop location he got 6Mb/s [this is about 10-15metres from router through a floor and solid internal wall] - laptop got 7-8Mb/s in this location
i.e. the mobile results are comparable[ish] with the laptop's

So it seems the ADSL is ok and the slowdown is caused by Wifi - as both mobile/laptop got similar results then the common point is the router [neighbours not that close to cause too much interferance]
So I suggested changing router wifi channel and/or upgrading her Thomson 585v7 firmware from 7.4.4.7 to later 8.2.6.5
http://community.plus.net/library/hardware/how-to-upgradedowngrade-the-firmware-on-the-thomson-585v7

Also I assume she can ask for a new modem from PN and get it for £5 [pay £40 if leave PN within year]?
PN have recently upgraded the wireless router to Thomson 582 [yes, lower model number!] which is wifi b/g/n [only 2.4GHz] and dual WiFi stream [theoretical 300Mb/s] and newer, rather than 585 that is b/g and single stream [150Mb/s]
www.plus.net/support/broadband/hardware/index.shtml
Her laptop is b/g/n [I think has 5GHz 'a/n' as well] so should make use of the 'n'

Worth a punt for a fiver?
M

[#4]

Hi there,
You'd be fine to get a new router for just the postage and defer the rest of the cost, the one we sent out was over two years ago (!).
Please let us know if you do want to and we'll get it ordered for her.

[#5]

Oh dear! Look at this http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/?exchange=Aberdeen%20Culter&exact=1343&plugin=vp
So the wired tests weren't too bad taking the exchange congestion into account.
As for the Wifi, did anyone check for congestion on the channel used or try another channel?

[#6]

Lots of good help and sound advice here, but what does you Mum do that means she must have the fastest download speed ?
If you get tired of windows remote assist have a look at https://secure.logmein.com/UK/
Its free, easy to setup and works great for supporting friends and family 100s of miles away
Bullet

[#7]

Hi
Thanks again everyone for taking the time to respond 🙂   To respond to some of the helpful comments
I don't think a 2 year old router is that old but as 585v7 is an old model [PN started using it ~Sep 2008 http://community.plus.net/blog/2008/09/12/plusnet-to-supply-thomson-broadband-routers/    - presumably design is even older i.e. v1-v6]  then maybe time to see if things have moved on e.g. sensitivity of the wifi [and ADSL modem] receiver/transmitter, as 582n seems a recent model [2011] with ok reviews
Why speed - because she's spesh granny and she wants everything to the max! 😉 After she got the PN email about the line regrading, it was then mainly my fault for pushing to ensure she got the speed - reliability is way++ more important to her [and, if I think about it,  for me as well as I would get it in the neck/ear!]. Seems there was a pointless profile cap on her line [don't know why/when it was put on, she hasn't had stability issues] now removed - I say pointless as the cap seemed to be the max speed of ADSL [8Mb] i.e. would never have done anything until now [ADSL 2+  24Mb/s]. I wonder if this cap would have been removed if I hadn't done anything i.e. others may be unaware their speeds are artificially restricted
May have a closer scan at the logme in - just that Windows XP had remote access built in years ago and easy to use [simply send a request using Windows Messenger and a couple of confirmation dialogs] and now Windows 7 remote seems to work almost as well once running [Live Messenger doesn't]
M

[#8]

Quote from: sugob

Why speed - because she's spesh granny and she wants everything to the max! 😉 After she got the PN email about the line regrading, it was then mainly my fault for pushing to ensure she got the speed - reliability is way++ more important to her [and, if I think about it,  for me as well as I would get it in the neck/ear!]. Seems there was a pointless profile cap on her line [don't know why/when it was put on, she hasn't had stability issues] now removed - I say pointless as the cap seemed to be the max speed of ADSL [8Mb] i.e. would never have done anything until now [ADSL 2+  24Mb/s]. I wonder if this cap would have been removed if I hadn't done anything i.e. others may be unaware their speeds are artificially restricted M

The thing is unless someone is specifically downloading a lot of data, I honestly don't think they would notice any difference in the sync speed once its above say 8192 Mbps, on a ADSL/ADSL2+ line that is working normally.
Other factors are likely to have far more impact, such as the time of day, contention at the exchange, the ISP, network profiling.
Trust me logmein is worth having a good look at, the other day, typical family PC support call, `all my icons have gone, I can't do anything`, logged in remotely, took 15 seconds, (end user does not have to do anything), "So what you mean is your task bar has disappeared and you can't do anything". Sent a ctrl-alt-del, started taskmanager found windows mail to be running 100% CPU, killed the process, rebooted the PC, job done. Total time 3 minutes.

[#9]

Hi
Just to round off this thread, the new PN 582n router arrived and my bro installed. Speedtest on her laptop using wifi, now returns 16.0Mbps down and 0.79Mbps up, so a result 
This is the same speed as was getting when directly wired to the old router [Reply #32]
[before installing new router, did speedtest with old first, and it returned 9.3Mbps down and 0.8 up]

Anyone else who thinks they getting this poor wifi with the 585v7 [capped at <11Mbps and degrades reasonably quickly with distance], I'd test it directly wired first [which will give you the max speed possible] before thinking about replacing router

Thanks yet again for all your help
M