Very poor sky broadband in new house

[GlasgowTitan]

I have just moved into a new build house and had sky broadband unlimited installed for 13 days and since day one its been very slow. Supposedly up to 20meg and I can only get 1meg max! downloads at best have been around 75-80kb/s

It has also been losing the connection frequently over the last few days where the net light on the modem starts flashing yellow then goes out. I've phoned sky and apparently its gone to higher technical support who will phone me in 72hrs! Great!

Is there anything I can try at my end - the old test socket makes no difference. Here is stats from my router but I have no clue what Im looking at or how to improve anything.

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1024 kbps 249 kbps
Line Attenuation 69.5db 43.7db
Noise Margin 6.6db 2.2db

Any help would be greatly appreiated

 

[R088ieS86]

They normally have a 14 day "test" period where they slowly increase your speed to test the line capabilities. During this period the connection will drop a lot. If its a new build house the lines might of been tested for broadband use. (odd but it might be true)

At the end of my 14day period my upload was quicker than my download

Theres a good chance that they might see 14days being over on Monday which wil suck for you. I had to call up and get them in increase my line speed. (The stress testing is an automatic prceedure)

 

[wij]

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1024 kbps 249 kbps
Line Attenuation 69.5db 43.7db
Noise Margin 6.6db 2.2db

Any help would be greatly appreiated

You either have something very broken, or a very long phone line

Near enough 70dB of downstream atten. suggest you have probably got a 5-6Km phone line, so TBH getting 1mbit sync off that is hardly surprising, my parents live in the sticks and have very similar stats and sync at about 1.5mbit/sec.

A 1Mbit sync rate would equate to a 750Kbps IP Profile, so again your download speeds of 75-80KB/sec would also support that being all correct for your line.

Any idea how far you are from the phone exchange? Samknows is quite handy for finding out such things.

Some handy links:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_mapping
http://kitz.co.uk/adsl/IPprofile.htm#IP_and_bRAS_profiles
http://kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php

 

[Hairybudda]

Whereabouts have you moved to?

 

[John24]

New builds can often be the furthest from the exchange and as a result have the worst speeds. Also suddenly connecting hundreds of new lines to an exchange can push it capacity wise thus making speeds worse for everyone connected to that exchange.

New build doesn't necessarily equal high BB speeds. As wij said, that attenuation suggests you are a long way from the exchange. Your Noise Margin is low aswell suggesting there is nothing wrong with your connection.

Unless your exchange gets FTTC enabled I suspect your receiving the best speeds for your line.

 

[GlasgowTitan]

Thanks for the info. I had a look at the links wij suggested and I am 2646m away from nearest exchange, I thought there would have been more exchanges in the middle of a large city!

Is there any sort of timetable where you can tell if your exchanges will be upgraded soon or if there is any plans for fibre optic bb in my area. I used to have virgin fibre optic at old house and moving from that to this adsl nonsense is hard - cant even play Call of Duty without connection problems all the time!!!!!

 

[GlasgowTitan]

Ok I just found the broadband.co.uk site and put in my postcode and it came up with the following:

* Lines in your area usually support speeds of up to 2Mb over a standard telephone line (ADSL Max).
* Next generation broadband (ADSL2+) is available in your area. This allows lines closer to the telephone exchange to achieve faster connection speeds. Unfortunately you are too distant to gain a significant speed boost.
* 9 broadband suppliers have put their own equipment in your exchange to offer cheaper or faster broadband deals (LLU). As such, your exchange qualifies as a high competition area (Market 3).
* The speed of broadband provided over a standard telephone line depends on the distance between your home and the exchange. Your postcode area is likely 4.5km from the Bridgeton exchange.



Is it maybe worth looking at one of these other LLU suppliers or because of my location am I goosed?

 

[wij]

Is it maybe worth looking at one of these other LLU suppliers or because of my location am I goosed?

According to:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WSBRI

FTTC is already on that exchange and enabled in some areas, would certainly be worth trying to see if you can get that service as it will almost certainly be better than what you get at the moment.

Other than that you're pretty limited in your options, O2 / Be could be worth a punt as they use different settings on their DSLAMs which IME often give better results than most other providers, but I'd suggest the gain would be marginal and probably not worth the effort.

 

[ahenners]

Is it maybe worth looking at one of these other LLU suppliers or because of my location am I goosed?

You would probably have the same problem with other suppliers because of your location.

I moved into a newly built village a few years ago and we didn't get our own exchange. We use the exchange of a nearby town and because of the distance we are limited to around 2meg if that using Sky. We have phoned other suppliers who said they could only provide similar speeds no matter which package we took. Its annoying they didn't cable the area with fibre as it was built, would surely cost less than doing it later at some point.

 

[Matteysan]

Is it maybe worth looking at one of these other LLU suppliers or because of my location am I goosed?

It won't make any difference whatsoever to move to another LLU provider. You are limited by line length, I doubt any other provider will be able to offer any greater speed. Only other option is to take out FTTC from BT/AAISP/adsl24/Idnet.

For pings though try & get in touch with Tier 3 support at Sky & ask them for your max delays to be decreased. This may help with your gaming but also might sacrifice more up/down speed.

 

[KIA]

Fast path usually increase sync speed but can reduce stability.

Get FTTC if you can.

 

[blueboy2001]

Thanks for the info. I had a look at the links wij suggested and I am 2646m away from nearest exchange, I thought there would have been more exchanges in the middle of a large city!

The cable routes are not always the most direct, but even so your attenuation is far too high for a 2.6Km line.

This could be a problem with your internal wiring. New builds often just get a spare tradesman to do it when they're short of something to do.

A friend has had no better than 1mb for years with high attenuation and low noise margin. He's about 3.5K from the exchange. Complained to BT and they sent an Openreach engineer round who installed a new master socket and sorted out the internal wiring - attenuation halved and speed went straight to 6mb

 

[kg648]

Seriously, get a real ISP you just slapped yourself around the face with a fish by choosing Sky Broadband

 

[Matteysan]

Seriously, get a real ISP you just slapped yourself around the face with a fish by choosing Sky Broadband

If the OP was on Sky connect I would agree but there is nothing wrong with their LLU unlimited package.

 

[GlasgowTitan]

A friend has had no better than 1mb for years with high attenuation and low noise margin. He's about 3.5K from the exchange. Complained to BT and they sent an Openreach engineer round who installed a new master socket and sorted out the internal wiring - attenuation halved and speed went straight to 6mb

Was on the phone to sky for the 4th time tonight and after MORE tests on the line he's decided to send an engineer out tomorrow since there appears to be a line fault both with and without the modem/phone connected. Fingers crossed the noise and attenuation will improve one he's been.

 

[GlasgowTitan]

Get FTTC if you can.

Not available in my area according to broadband.co.uk

 

[jorzeh]

Whereabouts have you moved to?

Tha Moon!

 

[SimonR]

So ISP makes no real difference WRONG!!! I am over 2km from my exchange I have Be broadband my neighbour has Sky. I get 6.7Mb down and 1Mb up he gets just over 3Mb down. Both of us on 20meg packages. I was with F2S previously and could only manage 3Mb. I am not on Fastpath as it was too unstable.

I would suggest trying another ISP, O2 or Be being my first choice.

 

[KIA]

So ISP makes no real difference WRONG!!! I am over 2km from my exchange I have Be broadband my neighbour has Sky. I get 6.7Mb down and 1Mb up he gets just over 3Mb down. Both of us on 20meg packages. I was with F2S previously and could only manage 3Mb. I am not on Fastpath as it was too unstable.

I would suggest trying another ISP, O2 or Be being my first choice.

How are you comparing the lines? Sync speed? Speed test? Is he on Sky LLU or Connect?