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8Mbps -> 0.5Mbps in 1 month

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Hi,

I've been with Pipex at this address for around two years now, and have enjoyed a solid ADSL connection of around 8Mbps downstream, 448kbps upstream the whole time, according to my router status page. In that entire time, my hardware and software configuration has remained unchanged and my phone line is as clear as a bell. I live less than 1km from the exchange as the crow flies.

I came back from holiday a few weeks back to find no ADSL connection at all. After calling Pipex/Tiscali technical support and running through the usual test socket/change filter/change cable checks, they managed to get my ADSL working again. I don't know what the problem was, but it was nothing to do with my end of the connection.

Ever since my ADSL has been restored however, my router now syncs at 576kbps downstream, 288kbps upstream. I've phone Pipscali technical support and explained the situation, and their response is that my line is working properly. I find this hard to believe. Oddly, typing my phone number into the samknows line checker now reports that my line can only handle a 512kbps connection, and BT speed tester results have been equally disappointing.

Worse still, I'm still being charged my old Pipex rate of 19.99 a month for the "service."

Here's the vital statistics from my Netgear DG834G plugged into the master socket:

Down / Up
Connection Speed 576 kbps / 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 26 db / 9 db
Noise Margin 31 db / 31 db

Can anyone please advise on why my connection has become so poor and what I can do about it?

Thanks
 
Hi
Can you try to complete a few BT speed tests first with all equipment as it is normally the second one remove everything from the phoone line and put the router into the test socket which is located behind the BT master. The lower half unscrews to reveal the test socket.
If you cannot complete the BT speed test then you have been moved onto tiscali LLU which could be oversubscribed.
Also worth doing the quiet line tests to see if there is any excessive noise on the phoen line.

Tips can be found here http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/adsltips/

Your noise margin is high which could show a line fault post the results you get from both speed tests here..
 
We've been seeing quite a few people report that their once fast several Megabit per second connections have now been knocked for six right back to 512Kbps. Sadly those we attempted to use as test cases for an investigation haven't been responsive enough for us to trace the problem.

It's mostly occurred with Tiscali but we have seen it on other ISPs too, such as a couple of people from O2, although unlike Tiscali, O2 was able to fix the problem. In one case an entire street was affected by the same issue, so it might be worth finding out whether your neighbours have seen similar problems.

I fear that this is something Tiscali could probably fix; the problem is being able to speak with somebody that actually knows their stuff and that requires you to get past the dire front-line support in India. To be honest it's easier to change ISP :) .

It would help to know, as Kits said, whether you’re on their unbundled platform or not now.
 
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Sorry Kits, you are wrong on

"Your noise margin is high which could show a line fault".

A high s/n margin is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Sounds as if your profile has been relocked to 512K.

If you put your figures in at

www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed.php

you will see you should be getting a good speed. Your attenuation is fairly low, and s/n extremely good.

Ask your ISP to transfer you back to ADSL Max. Thats the problem.
 
Referring back to samknows.com, SDLS, ADSL and ADSL Max are all enabled at the exchange and have been for over three years.

LLU services are not available, and no LLU operators are listed at my exchange. BT Wholesale is listed as the sole broadband provider for the exchange. That said, TalkTalk have an RFS date set at the end of September, whatever that means.

I've done the test socket test several times now, including trying two different micro filters and a different cable. No other devices were connected. Only thing I haven't tried replacing is the router. The concerning thing though is that every ADSL test website I visit now tells me my line is only capable of 512Kbps, when I know for a fact I've been getting much better.

The best way to describe my quiet line test is; "quiet." ;)

Although I have powered off my router, I have not yet tried turning it off for over half an hour as suggested by the ADSL Max reset tip. Will try that later on tonight.

I did indeed get good theoretical speeds according to dslzoneuk.net :) If I've been mistakenly transfered away from ADSL Max, would that explain why all the ADSL checker websites are telling me I can't get better than 512Kbps?

I naively tried phoning BT to find out if any engineering work had been done recently that might affect my ADSL, but all I got was a line check and told it's working as intended. It has been a nightmare trying to get people in foreign call centres to actually understand the problem and take pro-active steps to investigate it. It's driving me nuts!

As twds suggested, I'll try phoning them and getting them to put me back on ADSL Max.

Thanks everyone for the help so far :)
 
Keep coming back we can try to pull strings and yes BT will drop down what they say your line can recieve if they think it is no longer able to be stable with faster.

With a good ISP they can work with you and get the speeds back up I remember a Fast4 customer being set back to 512k by BT and now he surfs the internet over 2 mbps.
 
Well over the last week my speeds dropped to near on dialup? from 6.9mb so I stopped surfing as it was too painful to use!!!!!:crap:

I got on to my ISP and in return they phoned me up their answer was that a lot people are using their pc's / laptops to watch the olympics and BT have being caught out by this:nod: and until the olympics are over ones speeds will be up & down like a fiddlers elbow:(

Let's hope they sort it out by 2012:D
 
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The olympics has slowed down the internet but not to the speeds you talk off the slowest I have been was 928kbps I dropped PPP and came back on on a different central giving 4mbps took a few mins to do.
 
Hi Kits
my speed had dropped to near dialup as ran a number of speed tests from various sites & one result came back @ 112kbps I did not keep the results as I was p'd off and shut down.
 
The Olympics may have caused a fair amount of congestion, but it wouldn't affect ADSL sync rates :)

The OP's adslmax connection may have been put on a capped rate because he/she reported a fault - I think that would also affect the maximum speed reported by BTWholesale's ADSL checker ( http://www.adslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl/adslchecker.welcome ).

The OP's stats look excellent. As they have a 31db noise margin (which I think might even be the maximum the router can measure), there's little point in trying the test socket - at least not while the maximum sync speed is being limited.


Incidently, if you are on a LLU connection, then when you run BT's speedtester here:- http://speedtester.bt.com/ it will always give an error. That test also used to give an error when I had a Tiscali datastream connection. Also if you have been Capped then the test will still report a IP Profile, whereas if you've been moved to an old fixed rate ADSL product then the old BT test which doesn't report IP profile would run. (On my LLU connection I get "Authorisation failed Incorrect Telephone Number - Please try again".)
 
Last edited:
I've also been with Pipex (still am) for two years now too and I used to get 5.4MBPS or at least 3.4MBPS. Whilst only losing my connection once for a couple of hours, since the move to Tiscali at the beginning of this year (and at my exchange), my speed has dropped so much that it feels like dial up. :( I am getting a download speed of 186kb/ps and upload of 47kb/ps :( :( :( No point wasting time with support, they don't help at all.

With this in mind, I'm now hoping I can transfer to something better. I'd agree with Mark J and suggest that you move to a different ISP. Sometimes, that's the only thing you can do. Especially with a company like Pipex (Tiscali).

I'm on their LLU exchange by the way... I wouldn't be suprised, if you are too.
 
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