Any Broadband experts / recommendations ?

[andys]

Hi.
My broadband is currently with Pipex (now with talktalk as they bought them I believe). For as long as I can remember my Upload speed has been crap, around 25k, yes 25k ! (0.25megabits)
My Download speed is good, around 5Megabits.

I've tried speaking with tech support many times, but they are useless and give various reasons that don't make sense !

I need broadband with a decent upload speed and I can't get services like Virgin Fibre in my area, so all I can do is switch to another provider.

Anyone shed any light on this, anyone in a similar boat ?
Anyone had a good migration experience to a decent provider ?

Cheers.Andy.

[jimmy]

I have virgin (Ntl cable) and get about 1.2 megabits upload speed now. About 14megabits download on the cheapest possible plan.

Download a few gig, 2/3/4 something like that and it'll often throttle back to about 3 megabits though.

[andys]

Jimmy.

That's just bragging !
I'm not in a cable area either....

I'm stuffed really. Don't want to sign up / switch to something that's going to be as slow as what I have now.

P.S. Jimmy, let me know when you are running the nitro next and i'll tag along :)

[Big G]

I was with pipex when they were pipex. when they got taken over I broke contract and surprisingly easily left them.

I re-joined Nildram who I had been with while I lived with the rents also recently been taken over and now known as Opal.

Since BT sorted out my line after giving me a dodgy one to the box in the street I've been seeing a healthy 800k-1mbit upload and a good 6-7mbit down. downloads will cruise down at 700-800kbytes at the right time in the night :D

I mostly use mine for gaming and see a respectable 50ms all the time. I think half the problem is the phone line. Took us months to get BT to sort it as we had noise on the line. it was a brand new house.

[andys]

Cheers for the info.

Could my line be to blame though, as i'm getting good download speeds, just really slow upload speeds ?

Surely if it's the line, it would be bad both ways ?

[JCJC]

This site is useful: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

alot is dependant on distance from exchange.

[Cardnim]

Im no expert andys, but I run an online development company so know a little.

As JCJC says, distance from exchange is going to be a big (BIG!) factor, but a noisey line or even with bad latency isnt only going to affect upload speeds - you would see a degradation in both d/l and u/l if this was the case I think.

Most likely I would suspect is your ISP contention ratio - in my experience the biggest single reason for poor Internet performace after distance from exchange.

My advice would be to first check out the "super" broadband providers as they will give the best speed:
Virgin, Be (my mate is with them and says very good indeed) and now BT Infinity (in my area now and are "estimating" my speeds at 18Mb download and 2Mb upload.... nice (if true!!) :)

After that, my own decision was to go with O2.
Very good speeds, cheaper than BT, and (the deal maker...) if you are an O2 customer (like have a pay-as-you-go mobile) you get the broadband for half price AND (!) if you then register with QuidCo, at the moment you get £100 back which is pretty much what you will pay for a year... so its a year of decent speed broadband for free :)

...which is nice :P

Oh, for comparison, O2 are now supplying me with a steady 6.5Mb download and 1Mb upload. It aint going to win any speed awards, but much better than what I was getting with BT - and its nearly free.

Hope it helps mate.

[Cardnim]

Oh, and if you ARENT an O2 customer, walk into any O2 shop, buy a £20 cheap phone and you'll save about £75 in a year with the half price broadband offer.

...then sell the phone for even more money back.

Cardnim <--- doesnt work for O2 :)

[Richard Lowe]

Chances are Andy if you change to another provider using ADSL you'll end up with the same issue, I'd have said your options are cable (not an option due to area as you said) or have a play with 3G, you can get a 3G stick with a couple of Gb credit on it to try for < £30.

AFAIK You can get router's now that you can plug certain 3G modem's into, then you use the router as you normally would.

[Cardnim]

Id agree to move away from traditional landlines, but only if the problem was the connectivity. I dont think this is the issue as the download speeds reported are quite good. I would still suggest its just the provider.

3G seems a bit odd though as these (in my limited experience) have been a bit pants - way slow, tempremental connection and high cost (esp if you go over your download limit).

Maybe thats just Northern Ireland though - we are a bit behind the times! :)

[andys]

Cheers for the info guys.

Is my upload speed 'normal' then for ADSL lines ? Seems far too slow to me. 25k is crap, when I spoke to the sales dept they said I should get around 200k....

[Cardnim]

Standard ADSL should provide you with around 3-6Mb download and 512Kb upload.
Depends hugely on distance from exchange and hardware from the exchange to you.

basically - your 25Kb is well pants, and even the quoted 200Kb from TalkTalk seems rubbish too; would be worth checking your distance from exchange. Anything more than 1.5Km starts to degrade exponetially I believe.

[andys]

How do you find out the distance to the exchange ?

Also - Rich, I tried tethering my iphone to my mac (really easy as you'd expect from apple) and I got around 150k upload :)

[sldmodels]

How are you connecting to your computer to the internet box? As my Xbox, and laptops all connect wirelessly no problem, but I have to connect my desktop using the wired option, which is quicker anyway, and it's closer to the box.

[JCJC]

How do you find out the distance to the exchange ?



This page is good, http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

[andys]

How are you connecting to your computer to the internet box? As my Xbox, and laptops all connect wirelessly no problem, but I have to connect my desktop using the wired option, which is quicker anyway, and it's closer to the box.

Wired gigabit network wired into the adsl router. I even bought another router, thinking that may be at fault - but it wasn't.

Does anyone think I have a case to get the line looked as, if so who / how do I do that, or is it just normal to get such crappy upload speeds with some ISP's ?

[Richard Lowe]

I'm sure there are some guidelines BT have on what speeds you should get on each service, I'm not 100% sure if it includes the upload though. I think if you contact BT directly rather than your ISP they have a BT speed tester they ask you to run at a few different times of the day and if it's below a certain threshold they will look at the line.

Personally I think it's because you use a Mac :p

[markwilliamson2001]

Pah...I get 700k upload with Opal...on an iMac as well :p:lol:

[AndyG]

Andy,

You're paying for a broadband service, so you should demand one - not something akin to dial up.

Ring em up and insist they look into it.

[andys]

Andy,

You're paying for a broadband service, so you should demand one - not something akin to dial up.

Ring em up and insist they look into it.


Andy, i've spent a fortune on the phone - the official line is they don't support upload speed !
I could upgrade to 'Business' broadband with the same provider, but they can't guarantee anything, other than a 24 month contract !

Rich - tried it on the PC too and surprisingly it's exactly the same speed - still crap.

Fed up with it all really, I think i'll ring BT and see if I get any joy.

[AndyG]

I have a mate who has been through a similar farce. Will have a word tomorrow at work and see what he makes of your predicament.

[/tobys]

Is your router connected to the master socket in your house? That can make a difference if you have outlets in other rooms and are connected to one of them.

Also, try googling "remove bell wire" as depending on how your master socket is wired, you could be getting interference which affects your DSL sync speed (the Bell wire is no longer needed with modern phones).

I almost doubled my upload speed and added >1Mb to my download by disconnecting mine....just be careful 'cos if you disconnect the wrong ones, you could disconnect the lot!

I'm with BE and they seem pretty good - much better/faster than BT Business that I had installed from my previous employer and infinitely better than Eclipse. I get about 850kbps upload and 5.5mbps download FWIW.

HTH

[Cardnim]

It aint your line. Those download speeds are fine.
TalkTalk are known to be poor for service; and as you say, their official line is that they dont care about upload speeds.

Better move ISP to someone who can give you what you need.
Seriously, check out O2, BE or one of those others. See if there are others in your area who have moved to them and see what speeds they are getting.

[petemid8]

I had AOL and apparently Talk Talk took over their UK operations and I think I ended up with a service via Talk Talk. (Can't be sure, mind)

It was alright for a while but overnight in June 2010 there was a sudden degredation of the speed and I never got to the bottom of why it happened. It was slower than dial up, similar to yours, no way could you view videos on youtube etc. I tried different computers thinking it was a virus or something, tried changing the filters, nothing improved it. The tech support were no help so I changed to Sky and immediately got between 3-4 meg download, about 0.4 upload, so much better it's not funny.

[Richard Lowe]

I couldn't agree more about dumping Talk Talk, them and Orange get the most complaints from our customers at work.

Do you have Sky TV Andy? I'm with them for my BB and don't really have any issues, on the top package you have proper unlimited bandwidth and I never seem to get throttled. I'm about 3.5km from the exchange and get about 400k up and 7mbit down with a 40ms ping from speedtest.net

Another thing is FTTC (fiber to the cabinet) that BT are starting to roll out, check with BT if you can receive 'BT Infinity' at your exchange.

Rich - tried it on the PC too and surprisingly it's exactly the same speed - still crap.
Just having a Mac in the same building will cause issues, even if it's turned off :lol:

[andys]

Another thing is FTTC (fiber to the cabinet) that BT are starting to roll out, check with BT if you can receive 'BT Infinity' at your exchange.

Hi Rich / Chaps - Many thanks for all the info - really helpful.

Rich, I looked into BT Infinity, it's coming to my area this March :) - not cheap though :(
Also, I do have SkyHD, so I was considering going there as I could get a decent deal as they already steal quite a bit from me.

Just tried disconnecting everything, and plugging the adsl router straight into the master socket downstairs - exactly the same crap speeds, so it's not my extension wiring in the house.

Also, i'm only 800m from the exchange.

Bloody nightmare this. I need to send clients files quite often, had to send 330meg today.

At least my iphone tethered to the mac is averaging 150k - 200k, amazing that 3G on a bloody phone is faster than my broadband !

Will look into the 'bell wire' thing too.