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BT Line speed change

Hi

I have had an ongoing saga of poor adsl speed with Pipex. (up to 7.6Mbps off peak and down to 14Kbps peak!) They have said the reason is that my line now only supports 2Mbps.

When I signed up to them last December the BT line speed capacity test was 6.7Mbps and this was what I had been getting from my previous ISP. I recently checked my line speed using BT's speedtest and Samknows and they both now say my line will only support 2Mbps. An interesting element is that my other analogue phone line (have 2 lines into the house,) still says it will support 6.7Mbps and both are on the same cable and 200m from the exchange. I have had them both checked by BT and also had an engineer out to confirm all is well.

Any idea why my line capacity has been reduced, and how do I get it raised again? Pipex have refered me to BT saying not their issue and BT say cannot help is Pipex!

Many thanks

Matt
 
ISPs are very fond of fobbing their customers off with statements like "it's BTs problem not ours", but the fact of the matter is you pay your ISP for your internet service not BT.

Even if the line issue IS BT's problem, it's not your responsibility to raise the issue with them, your ISP should do that.

If you are only 200m from the exchange and only getting 2mb, then obviously there is a problem.

Threatening to leave can sometimes gets results.
 
Is it the ADSLMax check telling you 2Mbps or standard ADSL? Can you check your phone number here and let us know the estimated speed for both standard and ADSLMax?

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/checker/

FYI - We've seen a few posts like yours lately, with lines that were once extremely fast being suddenly forced back in time to almost pre-MAX or ADSL2+ days. Personally I think this is just another Tiscali/Pipex ploy to keep in line with Ofcom's new Code of Practice on speed, though that doesn’t explain the results from BT’s database on independent sites.
 
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Hi.

When I run the line capacity test then I get:

YES - Standard ADSL @ up to 2Mbps (BT Wholesale IPStream / Datastream)
Estimated Best Speed: 2048Kbps.
LineCode: GGEC


YES - ADSL MAX @ up to 8Mbps (BT Wholesale IPStream / Datastream MAX)
Estimated Best Speed: 2000Kbps.
LineCode: GEGEGEC

However if I test my other line then I get:
YES - Standard ADSL @ up to 2Mbps (BT Wholesale IPStream / Datastream)
Estimated Best Speed: 2048Kbps.
LineCode: GGEZ


YES - ADSL MAX @ up to 8Mbps (BT Wholesale IPStream / Datastream MAX)
Estimated Best Speed: 6500Kbps.
LineCode: GEGEGEZ

The DSL status from the router is:

DSL Status
Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 448
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 7392
US Margin 27
DS Margin 4
Modulation GDMT
LOS Errors 0
DS Line Attenuation 14
US Line Attenuation 18
Path Mode Interleaved

DSL Statistics
Near End F4 Loop Back Count 0
Near End F5 Loop Back Count 0


I did remember one thing. During the saga of poor line speed (tested using http://speedcheck.ispconnect.co.uk/) I ended up speaking to someone who claimed to be an engineer for Tiscali/Pipex. He said he had made some alterations and to see if that improved the stability of my throughput. It was a day or so after that that I was told about the 2Mbps limit to my line, before that it was fine. I know this as had checked it only a few days before.

I suspect I am going to have to battle with Pipex to be allowed to leave. Though based on other horror stories I have heard I doubt they will care or even respond. Is there anyway I can get Openreach to regrade my line back to how it should be before Pipex played?

Thanks

Matt
 
Max Line speed reduction

I've had a significant reduction in my Orange broadband download speed. I did all the usual things to test and improve my system but was still only getting a max of 128 kbps, so I put my phone number into the BT line checker and it came up with a max line speed of 256kbps, that's right 0.256Mbps for all those grumbling about 2Mbps connections. I'm sure when I did the test in the summer it came out with a max of 1.5Mbps and a download speed check was giving me 1.0Mbps, so I'm getting 0.125 of that now. I'm not a huge downloader so I only noticed when I tried to use BBC iplayer and wasn't able to stream even on the low bandwidth setting. I haven't used the iplayer for a few months, but haven't had this problem before. So what can I do? Changing ISP won't help as it's BT who have reduced the line speed and they won't talk to users directly and Ofcom's as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I'm about 3 miles from a rural exchange without LLU and and there's no 3G coverage, so mobile broadband is not an option. I'd like to know why it's happened and I think BT should reduce the charge to the ISP for such a pathetic service and that should be passed on to the customer.

I see from Samknows broadband that my exchange changed to 21CN in Q4 2009, is that likely to have had an effect?
The service checker comes up with:

BT Land-Line Broadband Service Availability (NOTE: 1000Kbps = 1Mbps)
■YES - Standard ADSL @ up to 2Mbps (BT Wholesale IPStream / Datastream)
Estimated Best Speed (Kbps): 256
LineCode: RAEC


■YES - ADSL MAX @ up to 8Mbps (BT Wholesale IPStream / Datastream MAX)
Estimated Best Speed (Kbps): 250
LineCode: REAEGEC


■NO - ADSL2+ @ up to 24Mbps (BT Wholesale Broadband Connect / 21CN)
Estimated Best Speed (Kbps):
(Estimated speed only shows for supporting exchanges or those with an activation date)


■NO - SDSL @ up to 2Mbps (BT Wholesale IPStream / Datastream Symmetric)
Estimated Best Speed (Kbps): 0


Any suggestions?
 
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I've had a significant reduction in my Orange broadband download speed. I did all the usual things to test and improve my system but was still only getting a max of 128 kbps, so I put my phone number into the BT line checker and it came up with a max line speed of 256kbps, that's right 0.256Mbps for all those grumbling about 2Mbps connections. I'm sure when I did the test in the summer it came out with a max of 1.5Mbps and a download speed check was giving me 1.0Mbps, so I'm getting 0.125 of that now. I'm not a huge downloader so I only noticed when I tried to use BBC iplayer and wasn't able to stream even on the low bandwidth setting. I haven't used the iplayer for a few months, but haven't had this problem before. So what can I do? Changing ISP won't help as it's BT who have reduced the line speed and they won't talk to users directly and Ofcom's as useful as a chocolate teapot.
I'm about 3 miles from a rural exchange without LLU and and there's no 3G coverage, so mobile broadband is not an option. I'd like to know why it's happened and I think BT should reduce the charge to the ISP for such a pathetic service and that should be passed on to the customer.

I see from Samknows broadband that my exchange changed to 21CN in Q4 2009, is that likely to have had an effect?

It is not likely to have anything to do with 21CN.

The BT availability checker's adsl speed estimate will be based on the information collected by BT's dynamic line monitoring systems, so will reflect the current condition of your line - eg its estimate will fall if you have a line fault. If you had a LLU connection or no adsl, the estimate would be based on BT's distance from exchange database instead.

I would suggest starting a new thread after running a BT speedtest and post the results there, plus the statistics from your router (noise margin, attenuation and connection speed etc), and hopefully someone here will be able to offer some advice.

If your BT master socket has a split front panel, then I would also suggest removing the lower half, and plugging your router into the BT test socket behind it and check/post your stats again and rerun the BT speedtester , to check if it is a problem caused by your internal phone wiring.
 
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