Problem upgrading to from 1M to 3M DSL; speed now 160K

johnnyboy08

Hey all,

the folks were recently moved from BT to Vodafone and decided to upgrade their broadband package from a 1Mbps connection to 3Mbps.

After the move though, the actual speed of their line inside the house has dropped to 160Kbps. I think the problem could be the Attenuation rate. They live around 3.5 miles from the exchange and I think the margin is just too high for a 3MB line. I've read that lower connection speeds can deal with more noise that higher speeds so I'm hoping that if they go back to a 1M connection then their broadband will be back up to what it was (around 800Kbps).

To verify the downspeed is 160Kbps I tried their Belwan DSL Modem and my own 3com one, both of which returned the same figures. I'm surpirised by the drop actually, I was expecting to see 3Mbps down speed and a lot of errors instead of such a low speed.

Would the low down rate be attributable to the high connection speed and noise levels? Would dropping back to 1Mb sort it?

I've attached a screenshot of what the numbers are if someone can make sense of them.

Sponge Bob

The noise margin indicates that they should be getting a lot more than that . In fact it indicates they should be good for more than 1mbit if not 2 .

What happens if you turn it off for a good few minutes and back on again ??

--SmItHy--

Hey,
The line speed was more than likely put down to 160 by vodafone(eircom line) to test the line. Ring up the customer support and explain the problem. Eircom usually drops the download rate to 160k for line tests and often forget to put them back up.

johnnyboy08

Dang, well that blows my theory out of the water! Tried all that many times, also tried the old reliable disconnect everything else from the phone sockets in the house e.g. phones, sky box etc and still no joy. The Belwan modem has the dsl filter built it but just in case it was that I tried my own modem with 2 different filters I had, both of which are working perfectly.

Just as a note, BT checked the line to the house and said the signal was clear and reading 3Mb.

Seems a bit coincidental though that by doing an upgrade (or changing provider) the speed takes such a huge hit. It was running sweet on the 1Mb connection.

Is there anything else I can try to try and resolved this considering I've tried more than one filter, dsl modem, disconnected all other phone connections and on/off routine? It couldn't be some screw up by Vodafone during the move could it?

johnnyboy08

--SmItHy-- wrote: »

Hey,
The line speed was more than likely put down to 160 by vodafone(eircom line) to test the line. Ring up the customer support and explain the problem. Eircom usually drops the download rate to 160k for line tests and often forget to put them back up.

Really? That would seem to be exactly what's happening. As I said I would put any slowness on the line down to errors but the down rate still around the 3Mbps mark but the error count I'm getting is 0.

I'll contact BT/Vodafone and confirm if that's what happened. Although that would contradict the line test they had done previously that was found to be ok. Sure no harm having another one done anyway just to give the techies a bit of work

DECEiFER

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The noise margin indicates that they should be getting a lot more than that . In fact it indicates they should be good for more than 1mbit if not 2 .

What happens if you turn it off for a good few minutes and back on again ??

I have to concur with Sponge Bob. Your noise is high but your signal is spot on. Your folks' line should handle 3Mb just fine, and then some!

The only thing I'd say is to make sure you're using the filters correctly. Take all other services using the phone line out, and plug the router into the main phone socket. That's your best way of testing.

You only need to filter other devices that use the phone line, not your router. The double filter with two sockets has one for Phone and one for DSL. The DSL socket is unfilterd and the Phone one is. You can use that if everything is using the one main socket, OR, you can use the single filters on any other wall sockets that are used by phones or the Sky box. If your router is the only device using the main socket, then you need no filter at all.

lucernarian

The gob****es put you on the remediation profile. A call to Vodafone should sort that out within a day. 3mbits is likely with the attenuation but definetely not certain either. The modem will sync around 2 mbps at least.