broadband stuff

[TTDegs]

One of the things which caused some of the issues in the TTDegs household of late was our broadband.

As a result of some digging and searching and all sort of other dohickery, I'm pleased to annouce that after some (easy) re-wiring and swapping to a new ISP, my speed has risen from a fixed 2M to a rather 7.5M, at the same cost per month D


Whilst I'm far from expert on the subject, I've picked up a few tidbits of info on the way, and if anyone is thinking they may want more speed then I'm happy to share what I found

[Bog]

I keen to now your findings TT

[britsbest]

Me too

[Kremmen]

My BB was running at a steady 3500 for ages (according to Speedtest), then slowly month by month it started dropping until it got to just under 2700.

I asked my ISP to investigate and after a new request to BT to monitor my line I am now up to 4800

I think that my old Alcatel Speedtouch 330 was proving unsuitable for speeds greater than 2Mb but now that I am running a Netgear G+ modem router greater speeds are possible.

[TTDegs]

OK

some basic bits I've picked up:

1) filters are generically rubbish
By which I mean the filters you tend to get when you buy your modem - the ones with a maile phone socket on one end, an inch of cable and then a box which you plug your modem cable and phone line into.
2) all modems are not the same.
Generically, a 'proper' modem will be connected to your PC with wireless or ethernet. Connecting to the 'net with a USB modem is not going to give you such good results.
3) all ISPs are far from the same.
Some throttle (cap) your speeds, some have very restrictive 'fair use policies' (and massively cut your speeds if you are deemed to download too much - although they won't tell you what 'too much' is)
4) THE biggest difference is if your local exchange has been 'LLU'd (Local Loop Unbundled)
5) Line noise is bad.
6) Line length is king - but don't expect too much...
7) internal wiring...


Before I go into more detail on those, some basic definitions:
SNR - Signal Noise Ratio. Basically, the higher the number, the slower the connection. BUT (and it's a huge BUT!), on (a lot of) 'proper' modems, you can adjust the SNR downwards - and as you do, your speed goes up

Attenuation - pretty much relates to the length of your line - again high numbers are bad - but there is no much you can do about this one.

Mast Socket. The first box on the wall where your phone line enters your house. This may then have extensions wired off it, leading to other phone points around your home. It will (if fitted in the last good few years) have a removeable front cover (2 screws) behind which is a normal looking phone socket. This is the test socket, and it has the most 'pure' phone signal that your house can get.
Removing it is completly fine and allowed. Touch the wires behind it though, and your touching BT owned bits - not a good idea...

I'll go through each point in more detail below - please bear with me...

[TTDegs]

in more detail

1) Filters. The first thing I did on my quest was to throw away the free filters I got with my modem. (The key word being 'free' - you get nowt for nowt as they say). And I replaced it with one of these -> ADSL Nation - XTE-2005 - Filtered Master Faceplate for £12.00
This then replaces the faceplate on your Master Socket.
The signal is immediately split into 2 - one for your b/band, and one for your phone.
Doing this alone increased my SNR from 18 to 30!

[TTDegs]

2) Modem. A bit like filters, you pays your money, and takes your chances...
Some ISPs provide their own routers - SKY and BT (HomeHub) being obvious examples. These are then quite locked down - which is not great They can be hacked, but that's a bit beyond what I'm explaining here!
However, if you're with a generic ISP, using your own USB modem, then do yourself a favour and splash £50 - £70 on a decnt one. Netgear's DG834GT, Billion BiPac 7300G, or an unlocked 2700hgv are considered dog's bits

These modems all connect to your PC via wireless or ethernet (network cable), so you will need to make sure your PC can do this.

The main advantages are:
You can then share your b/band connection with other PCs / xboxs / PS2/3/Ps etc in your house
And these modems are able to cope with low SNRs without dropping the line - more on that in a minute

[TTDegs]

3) Your ISP. A biggy!

I used to be with VISPA, on a fixed 2M speed package - and I got 2M.
VISPA are considered a 'good' ISP, in as much that they clearly state what your download limit is. If you go over it, you pay extra, simple as
There tech support is also UK based and good at fixing things (generally).

Other ISPs - are not so great
Many run overseas tech support, who do little more than read from scripts and end up telling your to reboot and run a virus scan - not much help when your speed has dropped from 6M to 1M overnight

Others will smack you big time if you step over the download limit - although they won't tell you what the limit is... Usually only happens if you're big into newsgroup downloads.
But if you do step over, you can suddenly find yourself on dial up speeds

[Kremmen]

I replaced my 'supplied' filters with a better quality set soon after converting to BB as I also read the same somewhere.

USB modems (like the Speedtouch for example) throttle the throughput considerably. Try to convert to a Modem Router as soon as. You will also benefit from a harware firewall to backup your software one.

When you sign up with an ISP, or change, they usually get BT to do a line test, if you have a USB modem connected when they do those tests you may be limited to just over 2Mb even though you could run faster.

I agree with TT about some companies deliberately throttling supply and some also breaking BT agreed contention ratios. I know of one well known company, beginning with "T" and ending in "I" that were well known for having too many subscribers on the same line to reduce their costs.

[TTDegs]

4) Which leads me to... LLU

LLU - Local Loop Unbundle.
This means that (hopefully!) some ISPs have decided to invest money into your area
They have paid BT big bucks and bought the kit in your local phone exchange, and replaced it with their own stuff (bit more to it than that, but that'll do )

This then allows them to have full control, and therefore offer significantly better connection speeds

In my case, several ISPs had done this at my exchange - I went with a relatively small, but well respected ISP - UKOnline.

To find out who is offerring LLU at your exchange, the best checker I found was DSL ZoneUK - Broadband checker

[TTDegs]

5) Line noise.
Having naff connections inside your house will not help
Fitting the faceplate (as per 1 above) will help a lot, as it cuts the 'phone' side away from the b/band side.
But if when you pick up your phone you gets crackles and hisses and pops, it's not a good sign

Unplug ALL your phones, then take one, and plug it into each extension in turn - when you find the culprit, it's time to do something about it! (but that's a bit detailed for here)

[TTDegs]

6) Line length.
Basically, the shorter the line to the exchange, the faster you will be able to go

But unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do about that

What you can do though, it avoid adding another 100m to your line once it's got to your house

Move your modem as close as you can to the master socket (remember, that's the first socket after the line enters your house), and use good quality cable to connect it.

This probably won't make a LOT of difference, but ever bit helps

[TTDegs]

7) internal wiring.
connected to 5 and 6 really.

Make sure that all your wiring is top notch. There is a LOT of detail here, but most of it only really applies if your not getting the speed you think you should be.

Basically, rule of thumb - fit the faceplate from 1) above, and make sure that everthing flows from there, using decent quality wires.

Again, plugging a phone into each socket in turn and just listening is a good start

[TTDegs]

Other bits.


ADSL - this probably what you're on if you have a fixed speed 1 or 2M service. All ISPs used to offer this, as it's the 'lowest' package.

ADSL2 - generally what you are on if you have an 'up to' package.

ADSL2+ - what you might be on if you're on an 'up to' package in excess of 8M

[TTDegs]

Phew!

Was all that worth it?

Well - when I did all the above, I went from

to



At that point, my SNR was 6 - which is considered to be about as low as you can go and maintain a stable connection
(remember, my SNR was 30 - my new connection traded this off, giving more speed as the SNR was reduced)

Becuase I knew that my new modem (Netgear DG834GT) was good at keeping a connection at low SNRs, I then tweaked it downwards... to 2.5 (this is very low!)
And I got


That was a bit tooooo low though - the connection dropped out after a couple of days.
Which is fine if you can live with rebooting the modem every now and then, but I wanted a better compromise really.

So I've set my SNR to 4, and now get a stable


so I'm happy

[TTDegs]

PLEASE NOTE!

all the above is for phone line internet connections - if you're on cable (Virgin etc) then it's a completly different ball game...

[dave525]

Originally Posted by TTDegs

in more detail

1) Filters. The first thing I did on my quest was to throw away the free filters I got with my modem. (The key word being 'free' - you get nowt for nowt as they say). And I replaced it with one of these -> ADSL Nation - XTE-2005 - Filtered Master Faceplate for £12.00
This then replaces the faceplate on your Master Socket.
The signal is immediately split into 2 - one for your b/band, and one for your phone.
Doing this alone increased my SNR from 18 to 30!

TT
If I use a filtered master faceplate as above will i still need to use filters on my other phone extensions ?
Thanks

[TTDegs]

Hi Dave

Almost certainly not

With the filtered faceplate, extensions are connected to it in one of two ways:

1) they go into the 'back' of the unit, and each wire is pushed (seperately) into the connectors
2) they are into the front of the unit (in the socket marked 'phone') using a standard phone jack ended wire (the ones which are typically white, about 10mm wide and 4mm deep)

But in both cases, the signal going down the extension wire will be 'voice only', so you won't need a filter on the end of it

That said, one or two people who have Sky+ boxes have found that they do need a filter on the end of the voice only extension line - but no one knows why!


Please note that this applies to the adslnation XTE-2005 from my earlier link - I'm not sure if they all work like this.
You can get cheapy ones on ebay for about a fiver - but at £12 the XTE is the dogs dangly bits

[dave525]

Thanks TT, Just ordered one as per your link above

[TTDegs]

hope it works as well for you as it did for me!