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Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

jab1
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Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

Don't know if anyone else is having the same problem, but whenever I do a speed test, the test site assumes I'm located way south of my true home.
I use two speedtest sites - (ip-address.com & speedtest.net) and both of them show my  location as somewhere south of Watford Gap    :).
ip-address usually tells me I'm in London (but I've has Harrogate, Leicester, Birmingham) and as there is no way to change that, I end up with it giving me a d/l speed ranging from 0.98/1.40Mbps
Speedtest.net also seems to default to the London server, but at least on there I can manually select Leeds and get a much more accurate download reading.
Interestingly, both sites report 0.36/0.38Mbps upload, which although a bit lower than I would like, at least is livable with for the moment.
Anyone else noticed this, or have any comments?
John
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pierre_pierre
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

All PN lines go through several servers near Docklands in London, and then some of the traffic goes up to Sheffield, the main internet goes from Docklands
Does that explain it simply for you?
jelv
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

Quote from: jab1
Speedtest.net also seems to default to the London server, but at least on there I can manually select Leeds and get a much more accurate download reading.

As pierre_pierre says ALL Plusnet connections are in London, so your connection goes from your exchange via the BT network to the Plusnet gateways in London. From there Plusnet have peering links to the internet. Selecting Leeds is therefore almost doubling the length of the wires between you and the test server compared with selecting a server in the London area.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
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198kHz
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

Quote from: jab1
Interestingly, both sites report 0.36/0.38Mbps upload, which although a bit lower than I would like, at least is livable with for the moment.

If you're on 'up to 8Mb' ADSL1 that's as good as it gets.
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dvorak
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

Unless you purchase max premium as an add on Smiley
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198kHz
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

True enough - forgot that.  Embarrassed
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jelv
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

jab1:
As alluded to by the previous two posters 20CN ADSL1 users can have faster uploads by signing up to Max Premium (I have that myself). It also gives you higher priority on the BT network.
To order it go to http://trials.plus.net/ and select Max Premium (Faster Upload Speeds) - http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/max_premium.shtml has all the information.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
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Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
jab1
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

@pierre_pierre and jelv: I understand the principles of routing, guys, but it appears I haven't made myself very clear. What I am saying is that the ip-address both see my own location miles away from Sheffield (although a test this morning was bit strange - ip-address just said I was in the UK without saying where, and speedtest.net decided to use the Liverpool server). The point I didn't make last night was that with my previous ISP AND with PN up to early last week, both sites correctly identified my location and presumably used a test server fairly close to me - unless I misunderstand  how they are selected.
@ 4C : I've no  idea whether I'm on 20CN ADSL or 21CN ADSL2+ - and don't know how to check, but I do know my exchange is 21CN ADSL2+ enabled. - but I assume from the information I got from the BT speedtester that I'm on 20CN 'up to  8Mb'
jelv - I'm not too worried about faster speed - for what I want atm, what I have now is sufficient, and anyway, on a fixed income, I have to watch the pennies  Grin
Thanks for the replies, though, it's nice to see so many helpful people are around.
John
jelv
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

I think you must be on a variable IP so you are getting the location which was given by whoever used the IP address before you. When it just said UK it will because the previous user of the IP hadn't given a location.
https://support.speedtest.net/entries/20841296-why-is-my-location-incorrect has relevant information.
Personally, when you can be tracked over the internet in so many ways (with the increased risk of identity theft), I am never happier than when it gets my location wrong as it means tracking me is more difficult. Also if it did get the location right it would pick the wrong servers as for accurate data it needs to be a server near London as that is the place where the connection joins to the internet.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
jab1
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Re: Nope - I don't live in Birmingham (or London)

Thanks jelv - thats answered it - I used to get my IP almost as a 'static' one from TT -even though it wasn't - and I have noticed that PN gives me a new one nearly every time I restart my system. I knew there had to be a simple explanation.
John