 ** LAST UPDATED 8th December 2009** Broadband ADSL/ADSL2+ connections are presently the most common form of high speed Internet access in the UK, yet sadly they don’t always work as intended. To this end we’ve pieced together a simple tips guide aimed at helping you get the most out of your broadband line. This article is not designed as a troubleshooting tutorial and is instead intended to list some of the less well known broadband ADSL tweaks. Please feel free to suggest any that we may have missed. FYI - Broadband performance Remember, the speed you get from your ISP depends on a number of factors, such as the quality/length of your line, interference and network congestion. Hence if an ISP advertises an 8Mbps package then the chances of you actually receiving that speed are fairly remote unless you live right next door to your exchange. To get a better idea of what your line can cope with we’d recommend putting your phone number into our Broadband Coverage Checker (we recommend you either input the phone number or post code and avoid inputting both at the same time): Viewing 'ADSL MAX' from the results should give you an indication of expected speed. Be careful with the prediction though as it’s usually too high and can be extremely variable between different providers; expect your connection to always be slower than this estimate, often by around 20 to 30%. We would also suggest running a number of speedtests at different times of the day to see what kind of performance you get; it is often cheaper to surf during off-peak (e.g. 6pm to 12Midnight) hours but the overall performance on a shared broadband network usually reduces because more people are online: NOTE: Check with your ISP to see whether you’re on an unbundled (LLU), BT IPStream or BT Datastream ADSL line before proceeding. The majority of UK broadband ADSL connections are IPStream based, yet a growing number utilise unbundled (LLU) networks and some of our tips may not work with these. Tips & Tricks 1. Try a different PPP type.
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