Large difference between sync speed and download speed. Is this normal ?

[#1]

Hi there,
I thought I'd "ask the audience" about my problem!
I recently raised a ticket regarding my download speed, and it turned out I was on a low-speed banded profile
"(WBC 3M - 6M No delay (INP 0) 6dB Downstream, 448 No delay (INP 0) 6dB Upstream (ADSL2+)".
This has since been changed to "WBC 160K - 24M Low delay (INP 0) 15dB Downstream, 448 Medium delay (INP 2) 6dB Upstream (ADSL2+)".
I now sync reliably at 14.142Mbps, however, my download speed rarely gets much above 8Mb. Monitored over a period of days, the DIFFERENCE between my download speed and sync speed is typically 5.6Mb.
Is it normal to have such a large difference between sync speed and download speed ?
I'm on a ADSL2+ (21CN) circuit, about 1.3Km from the exchange. The router is connected into a proper BT NTE5 DSL faceplate (no plug-in filters or phone extensions in use). The PC is on 100Mb Cat 5e to the router.
S/N data from the router is below:
Noise margin (Down/Up):      6.3dB    /  27.0dB
Line Attenuation (Down/Up): 27.0dB  /  12.7dB
Output Power (Down/Up):    0.0dBm /  12.9dBm
Finally, my upload sync is always 440Kb, yet I was under the impression that ADSL2+ customers could get "up to 1Mb" upload?
Anyone experienced similar problems?
Thanks,
Marcus

[#2]

Hi, if you can run a speed test on http://www.speedtester.bt.com/ ; you can either screenshot it here or I can look at it for you through the BT site. (quicker if you screenshot it) Once I see this I can get a handle on what's happening and hopefully a solution.
Jojo

[#3]

Hi!
Thanks for the reply. I used the BT Speedtester as you suggested, early on Saturday morning. The results were very different from my usual speed tester site (the one I've been using for years is at ThinkBroadband).
I've attached a screen shot of the results from the BT test, which show a decent speed indeed (11.432Mbps download).
I also re-checked on MyBroadbandSpeed and Think Broadband. Whilst the speed had increased at MyBroadBandSpeed, it hadn't gone up by much at ThinkBroadband.
Why I get different results from different speedcheck sites I don't know.
One thing I did notice was that all these results were obtained with my anti-virus software disabled (Avast). The minute I turned it back on, the speed dropped back to how it was yesterday.
I can therefore only assume that the anti-virus application is slowing things down as it checks all traffic on the network port.
As I'm syncing at 14.142Mbps (and have done for many days now), I am getting what is to be expected I suppose.
One thing still bothers me though. How come the upload speed is virtually the same as conventional ADSL ?? Even my sister who lives miles from the exchange (and only gets 3Mb download, gets 800Kb upload - and that's with TalkTalk).
Thanks,
Marcus

[#4]

HI Marcus, I couldn't say why you would get a different speed on a different site but the BT one we use as definitive.
Antivirus I compare to over-protective mothers, lol, they would be far happier if you didn't go on the internet at all, that way you couldn't catch any nasty infections!
I'm going to place an order to have your upload uncapped so once that's done I don't see why you won't get 1Mb on that.
Jojo

[#5]

Thanks for the reply Jo.
I'll do another test in the next few days or so to see how its going?
You help is much appreciated!
Marcus

[#6]

No worries Marcus, we'll always do what we can.
Jojo

[#7]

Just to put some closure against this post, everything seems to be working really well now.
Downstream sync is 15466Kb/s, typical download speed of 12.42Mb/s
Upstream sync is 888KB/s, typical upload speed of 754Kb/s
I reckon this is as good as I can expect taking into account distance from the exchange etc.
Thanks once again for all the help !   

[#8]

HI marcus,
Great to see things going smoothly now
Jojo