Hi All
Have just been told by BT that I am being moved from ADSL to ADSL2+ next week and that I could get faster broadband as a result
Considering that I am 6km from the exchange and that the cables from the green boxes are circa 1966 aluminium and probably knotted together am I likely to see any improvement?
Regards
It depends whether your router supports ADSL 2+ or not. If it does then you should see some improvement. If your router only supports ADSL 1 then you shouldn't see any change.
And do you have any old (i.e. more than 15 years or so) phones there? If not, have you had the bell wire removed at the BT Master socket? That will improve your speed.
What speed do you currently get?
The "up to 24Mbps" ADSL2+ service really is pushing things very hard. The graphs of speed v line length for ADSL2 and ADSL2+ that I have seen have the two more or less the same after about 6 kilo feet (1.8km).
I've also heard that on long lines switching to ADSL2+ makes things worse as everything has to work "that bit harder". Might be worth a bit of research into seeing if you modem can be forced into ADSL2 only mode. You may have to go in via the telnet command line interface rather than the web one.
Probably not but live in hope anyway :-)
ADSL2 is no help on long lines. When I was converted the speed didn't change but the line kept dropping. In the end I got my ISP to put me back to ADSL.
In message , Tim Streater writes
From discussions on the support NG for my ISP (Demon), it would appear that getting an upgrade from ADSL to ADSL2+ might, on occasions, be detrimental to those hanging on the end of a long phone line.
My understanding is that, with a poor SNR, the modem/router can spend a lot of time wondering what speed it can work at, and correcting errors if it settles for a speed which is too high for comfort. It seemed that if you were already getting at least 3Mb/s, the speed should definitely increase. Less than that, and there is a chance that the speed COULD be less. I only get 1.4Mb/s (albeit very solid), so it remains to be seen what happens to me.
BTW, I have disconnected the 3rd (bell) wire. It made not a scrap of difference - probably because the signal is too far gone in the first place. But it does indeed work for some.
What do you currently get?
Chances are you MAY see a bit more.
Yes it does support adsl 2+
In message , TMC writes
I have to admit I've never explored what can be done with routers and modems (regarding talking to them directly from the PC, and configuring them to do what you want them to do). Am I wrong in thinking that you should be able to lock a router into a lower-speed mode (where you know it works OK) rather than allowing it to try for speeds which it cannot attain reliably?
There's nothing to stop a manufacturer building that capability in, and perhaps some of them have.
Interesting. We're 1.5 - 2 miles from the exchange, and were getting 3.7 as reported by the Netgear. It's 7.36 now, after removing bell wire and ensuring we have new short-run cable from the BT socket to the router.
That's with 6.5dB S/N ratio which is perhaps a bit marginal.
AFAIK that can only be done by the ISP/BT openreach at the DSLAM.
You can at best on some routers, sometimes adjust the gain downwards to get a bit more stability, otherwise if its an ADSL signal not tied to a fixed rate, it will auto negotiate (or not) to try and get the best.
In practice BT monitor resynchs and slap the noise margin down on the dslam.
That effectively forces your router to connect with a better SNR at slower speeds.
In article , TMC scribeth thus
At one of our remote suits we've been "upgraded" on a very similar line some 6.5 K long prolly longer, well as best BT estimate it at, an its been a bit better the upstream improved and we went from 1 and a bit to
3.5 M on the down with an 8 dB S/N ratio and its oddly enough been that bit more stable:)..
Have both cable and ADSL here, (for various reasons) and certainly my Netgear ADSL router, (with the DGT tool) can be told which SNR ratios to use, which can effectively change the synch rate.
I get 14Mbps as standard (6db) and 16Mbps when tweaked (2db) on an "up to 24Mb" connection. By comparison, the previous router could only manage 10Mbps - everything else being exactly the same.
Tweak it too far and it drops out - as you'd expect ;)
Lee
Before cabletheft1 I was on ADSL1 and got about 2.4Mbps
Between cabletheft1 and cabletheft2 I got about 2.8Mbps
After cabletheft2 my speeds went *way* down and wouldn't recover until my ISP reset BT's training data for my line, I then briefly went up to
3.2Mbps, but soon settled back down to 2.6MbpsI then changed to a different package, not expecting it to switch me to ADSL2+ but it did. On day one my ADSL1 router (Westell) connected at
3.6Mbps but wouldn't establish a PPP session, so I changed to an ADSL2+ router (Zyxel) and it connected at about 3.4Mbps and seemed quite solid to me, but according to BT the line kept dropping, and the speed worked its way back dowen to 2.2Mbps, In the meantime I've changed to a different ADSL1 router (Cisco 837) and the connection is is now stable at 2.2Mbps.My neighbour has also switched from ADSL1 to ADSL2+ and his speed has increased from 2.4Mbps to 2.8Mbps and stable, he does have an ADSL2+ router, can't remember the model.
The cisco 837 and 877 allow you offset the noise margin, transmit gain and receive gain various by plus or minus a few dB - haven't finished fiddling to see how much effect that can have yet ... but does seem to be able to reduce the error rate by preventing it trying too hard for the line.
That was the conclusion from speaking to one of the better techies at my ISP too, and therefore I had wanted to stay on ADSL1 when I changed to a different package from them, however I got regraded to ADSL2+ anyway, and ended up losing my 832kbps upload speed into the bargain which I'd "accidentally" got while I was on ADSL1 :-(
Hi Andy
Are these figues from your router or from speed checker sites?
I ask as my router shows 2.6Mbps at the moment was only showing 2.2Mbps after second cable theft
Actual download tests from a range of speed check sites average out at
1.8MbpsAs I am with BT I use their 2wire router which is ADSL2+ compatible
Regards
AT 6km from the exchange I think it's likely to be worse for you, as BT seem to have included there god awful bRAS profile system on adsl2+
FWIW im now on Virgin, via Cable and Wireless LLU adsl2+ which does not use a BT like bRAS profile, line Attenuation of 48dB, noisy overhead line at night, and i went from 1.5 Mbps to 5.0 Mbps DL with the change from adsl to adsl2+
-
Those are the sync speed of the router, IP profiles are usually a notch down from the sync speed. Downloads are generally around 225 +/- 25 kB/s
Supposedly good on ling lines, on;ly used one once, back in the fixed profile 512kbps ADSL days
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