Should I go for the new years contract if might slow down to dialup speed?

[#1]

Going back to your original post, you've answered many of your own queries.
Is broadband better than dialup, even on your line - Yes 
Depending on your useage is BB cheaper than dialup - probably 
12 month contract save some money, if on an offer - yes 
Who'll help most if I have problems - PN of course 
So take up an offer. With regard to the router you can take that up at a later point if you want it, but you may want to choose your own, IF you NEED to replace yours . I'm sure James could confirm you could take a router later if you chose to.
The other things, Unused sockets, if nothing is plugged in, you don't need filters.
I-plate, so no need to worry about bell-wire issues.
Filter swap is the easiest way to check for filter problems.
Once you've got the hang of using DMT, you can bring you target SNRM down. The best you'll get with a current 15dB target (TBC) is down to 9.8dB (slider at 10%) . If your line remains stable for long enough, with no resyncs, the exchange will eventually reduce your target to 12dB. The major snag with DMT is you have to be using it at every re-sync otherwise you will drop sync speed and hence profile. A real pain if you have a power outage and are not around or can't get to the router quick enough
Edit: Nearly forgot this bit - in the interim see if you can borrow another router to confirm your line stats, if they are the same you do not have a router problem. Better still try yours on your neighbours line and viceversa, as you are both on PN you will not have to alter any router settings or login details - you can login on his line and he on yours.
HTH.
Good luck.

[#2]

Had lunch then went up in the loft and rebooted router.
Router was bought last summer as prior to that used a Speedtouch 330 on a phone extension and head to be wireless because of the main point being in the loft!.
One filter replaced last Friday  as missus complained of noise on an extension phone and this solved it. One other old wired phone replaced at same time last week as it was worn out.
Anyway stats taken after reboot.
Status  TxPkts  RxPkts  Collisions  Tx B/s  Rx B/s  Up Time
WAN PPPoA 10 10 0 10 28 00:00:46
LAN 10M/100M 192 0 0 466 0 00:02:20
WLAN 11M/54M 517 486 0 1953 438 00:02:11
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 2240 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 55.0 db 30.0 db
Noise Margin 15.0 db 18.0 db
Phone line was tested for noise on the voice by BT last year and they said it was OK.
Have to go out in an hour so might leave downloading DMT until later or tomorrow as from what Oldjim says it may not be a good idea to rush as if there is something that can go wrong it will.
Many thanks for all the help from everyone
Wuz
Wuz

[#3]

Hi Wus,
That's considerably better than what it was before.
If the "connection speed" remains at that sort of level, your "IP Profile" should increase within a couple of days and your speeds will then go up.
I'm afraid that it's a bit of a case of wait and see, but those new results that you've just shown certainly look positive.

[#4]

First thing I noticed is that you attenuation has dropped 2dB

Quote

One filter replaced last Friday  as missus complained of noise on an extension phone and this solved it

Had the router been rebooted after this when you posted your first set of results.
In order to monitor your connection I suggest installing Routerstats http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm as it allows you to graph the noise margin and also log the router stats at regular intervals. Note that you will need to enable debug mode in the router for it to work properly
If the latest stats hold up then you should be able to get at least 2000kbps ipRate with a bit of tweaking.

[#5]

Oldjim,
I have downloaded and it is running currently showing 2.2 downstream and noise margin 18.
What is the best way to save the stats? I would normally do it each evening just before  the computer is switched off for the night. I have to do this as the noise of the fans are not popular with those wanting to watch telly!
Is there any way to configure it to it automatically to create a log at say 19:00 hours.
Regards,
Wuz

[#6]

Click on the funny looking cog icon on the left and you get this screen - as you see I have it logging every 5 minutes - it is a textfile in the folder where you have routerstats

[#7]

Dear all,
We used to get a lot of power outages and although we have only one in the last three months I haven't  used DMT in view of  what Anotherone said about power cuts. It would be tempting fate at this time of year.  If it doesn't go down automatically I will try it when I am feeling lucky!
I am going for the years contract as I think 2500 achievable as I met an neighbour who lives a further quarter mile from the exchange who had been complaining since last summer of a sub 1mb speed. I thought he was being unreasonable in view of the distance but a BT engineer found there was a badly wired Sky dish and he now gets 2500!
Many thanks to all,
Wuz

[#8]

the badly wired Sky dish is that it probably went straight to the master socket and not through a filter

[#9]

That isn't necessarily  the case - although probably was.
There was a problem, near where I live, of a group of houses having problems with their internet. It eventually turned out to be a Sky Box plugged into a phone line of a user who didn't even have broadband.
Apparently some of the early Sky boxes had a problem.

[#10]

Hi Wuz,
just to clarify, you won't get worse than you are currently getting by using DMT. You will get better by using DMT, it's just that if you get a re-sync without DMT doing it, it will resort to what you have now (unless it does it in the evening when your noise levels are worse, so unluckily you will get slightly worse).
Post some router stats over the next few days, a daytime and a mid evening one, for a couple of days. We can see how your noise levels are varying.
Regards.

[#11]

Afternoon Anotherone,
Stats a few minutes ago
   
System Up Time 47:27:26
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 85201 80500 0 67 475 47:25:44
LAN 10M/100M 2754 0 0 5 0 47:27:18
WLAN 11M/54M 114447 118976 0 597 91 47:27:09
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 2240 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 55.0 db 30.0 db
Noise Margin 14.8 db 18.0 db
I will post again this evening.
Regards
Wuz

[#12]

Evening Anotherone,
Stats currently
   
System Up Time 54:09:41
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 120831 116752 0 79 595 54:07:59
LAN 10M/100M 3152 0 0 5 0 54:09:33
WLAN 11M/54M 151605 155358 0 708 104 54:09:24
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 2240 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 55.0 db 30.0 db
Noise Margin 14.8 db 18.0 db
Regards,
Wuz

[#13]

(I'm assuming you are running the latest Netgear firmware for your router which, for the DG834(G)v4, is 5.01.09)
Another option (if you are feeling a bit brave) is to update your router with a firmware from DgTeam (http://dgteam.ilbello.com/) which has an updated version of the broadcom driver for this router, plus a few extra controls (including a target snr margin slider, better stats and tests) built into the router's web front end. This means you can adjust the target snr margin very easily and it retains the setting across reboots.
I'm running this on a DG834v4 with a 55db line and if I force a re-sync at midday it'll sync at up to 4544 kbps but, more importantly, it then seems able to hold on to that rate without excessive errors when conditions worsen overnight. It's certainly better (more reliable) for me than the stock firmware. Your line appears to be a bit noisier so you may not see such an improvement but I'd certainly recommend a try if you feel up to it.
Note that you can revert back to the standard Netgear firmware at any point.
Mike

[#14]

I haven't used this firmware but I would be interested in how your noise margin changes in the evening. With the standard firmware mine drops from 9.6dB to 5.9dB at 3800kbps but much lower than that and it loses synch.

[#15]

Quote from: Oldjim

I haven't used this firmware but I would be interested in how your noise margin changes in the evening. With the standard firmware mine drops from 9.6dB to 5.9dB at 3800kbps but much lower than that and it loses synch.

As an experiment I set the target SNR margin slider at 7% which gave me a sync of 4544 and a snr margin of around 6dB at mid-day. It then held that sync rate overnight and the worst I saw it get was 2.5dB. Obviously the characteristics of our lines will differ, but the firmware seems to give me a higher sync rate for the same snr margins. The corollary should be that it's possible to achieve a higher stable sync rate. The nice thing about it is that the controls on the web front end make it so much easier to adjust without extra s/w on the PC and retaining the figures across reboots really helps.
If you do try this note that the most recent download has two firmware files within it; one with the old broadcom driver version (which I think is the same as the most recent Netgear firmware), and one with the new.
mike@lucy ~/downloads $ unzip -l DG834V4_V5.01.12_DGTeam_0849.zip
Archive:  DG834V4_V5.01.12_DGTeam_0849.zip
  Length    Date  Time    Name
--------    ----  ----    ----
  3891200  12-08-08 15:34  DG834V4_V5.01.12_DGTeam_0849_023b.img
  3891200  12-08-08 15:33  DG834V4_V5.01.12_DGTeam_0849_023o.img
--------                  -------
  7782400                  2 files
I'm using the newer one - DG834V4_V5.01.12_DGTeam_0849_023o.img
Mike