Broadband speeds?

[balladmaker]

I believe my broadband connection is not performing to what it should, generally slow download speeds all round.

My router was showing a download bandwidth of approx. 460kbps on what should be a 1Meg line.  So I complained to BT, and eventually they sent out an engineer today.  He said that the line outside was going via a poor standard of cable, so he replaced the cable.  The router is now showing a download speed of 2336kbps, I thought this was strange as I don't know how I have over 2Meg in what should only be a 1Meg line.

Anyway, even though the download is showing over 2Meg, my actual download times are very poor.  I noticed when I did the BT speedtest via their website, I am only getting an IP throughput of 79kbps.  This seems low to my untrained eye.  Anybody got any ideas what this should be approx?

My line test results are below:


Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
    DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)  2336 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 79 kbps

[Pangurban]

We are all being ripped off, not so much by our ISPs, but by BTs failure to produce and manage a system capable of attaining reasonable speeds. When it comes to Broadband they are light years behind most other developed Countries. In the meantime us fools continue to pay for speeds which our ISPS provide but BT fail to deliver.

[David McKeown]

I installed one of the first commercial adsl lines in the country and even after doing that and working as a network engineer for several years I struggle to understand these.  Heres some points to note on a 1 Meg line your maximum download speed (not what it says n the router which is your downstream speed) is 125kbps youll usually get around 110kps on a 2Meg line its 250kbps but you get about 220kbps.  That being said your download speed will depend on a few factors, must importantly whats known as your contention ratio.  That is how many people you share the line with, its supposed to be about 20:1 but theres no hard and fast rules on this.  The more you share the line with the lower your download speed.  Also it will depend when your running the test, if its at a busy time your download speed will also fall.  As a result I recommend doing a number of speed tests with different sites over a few days and average out your download speed.  This download speed will also be greatly affected if your using bit torrent or any p2p software.  PM me if you have any other questions/

Sometimes I am glad ive had a career change

[johnneycool]

I installed one of the first commercial adsl lines in the country and even after doing that and working as a network engineer for several years I struggle to understand these.  Heres some points to note on a 1 Meg line your maximum download speed (not what it says n the router which is your downstream speed) is 125kbps youll usually get around 110kps on a 2Meg line its 250kbps but you get about 220kbps.  That being said your download speed will depend on a few factors, must importantly whats known as your contention ratio.  That is how many people you share the line with, its supposed to be about 20:1 but theres no hard and fast rules on this.  The more you share the line with the lower your download speed.  Also it will depend when your running the test, if its at a busy time your download speed will also fall.  As a result I recommend doing a number of speed tests with different sites over a few days and average out your download speed.  This download speed will also be greatly affected if your using bit torrent or any p2p software.  PM me if you have any other questions/

Sometimes I am glad ive had a career change

BT are a shower of f**kers when it comes to line sharing, they'll over subscribe their bandwidth by at least 50:1, so the only time you'll get your line rates is when very few of the other 50 people aren't using their broadband.

Until the regulators step in expect to get shafted even more.