What is a reasonable broadband speed, relative to my line's capability?

**Chris** · 02-04-2009, 11:09

As the thread title suggests.

I have VM ADSL, on the 'up to' 8 meg service. My line syncs between 3 and 3.5 meg (very good for the length of the line). On rare occasions I get up to 2.7meg down, but it's usually more like 1.7 to 2 meg. Upstream is rock sold, always syncs at 448kbps and delivers about 350kbps.

To my mind, if I was synchronized at 8 meg, contention issues would justify them only giving me about two thirds of that speed at peak times. However it seems that whatever speed I'm synchronized at, I only get about two thirds of the sync speed. I have seen this happen; on occasions when my sync speed has deteriorated, the actual speed I get has fallen in direct proportion to it. That to me is totally unjustified.

What I don't know is (because I've never used any ADSL provider other than VM), is this behaviour typical? Do all ISPs routinely shave off a third of your capability, regardless of what your sync speed actually is? Or are VM just pants at ADSL?

The logical follow up question is, who else could I get broadband from who would be better, and give me reliable 'up to' 8meg ADSLmax for less than £20 a month (without a ridiculous cap or other nasty STM).

southwell · 02-04-2009, 11:31

I was with Sky for a year before i moved and had a constant 15mb sync speed, this gave me 1.3mb speed all day every day. The modem needing resetting about once a month as it would drop out every now and again, but on the whole the service was fantastic.

I cannot get the same speed at my current home but i am considering going back to Sky.

Ignitionnet · 02-04-2009, 11:37

I refer the honourable gentleman to a little research on ADSL Max.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/IPprofile.htm will be most relevant to this question.

Also give http://test.speedtester.bt.com:50301/ a go - might be informative as to what the profile on your DSL is at this time.

EDIT: Looking at the numbers you describe I reckon you're straddling this range of sync speeds:

2848 kbps - 3392 kbps 2500 2560 Up to 2.5 Mbps
3424 kbps - 3968 kbps 3000 3072 Up to 3 Mbps

With an occasional drop to:

2272 kbps - 2816 kbps 2000 2048 Up to 2 Mbps

Which will reduce your throughput for a little while until your line adjusts back up.

Any further questions that might not be immediately apparent from Kitz's excellent site I'm about.

**Chris** · 02-04-2009, 11:53

I received this:

Quote:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:

-provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 3520 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 2000 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1855 kbps

My sync was a lot lower for most of yesterday as my line started suffering audible noise. Sadly this was intermittent and had gone by the time the engineer arrived this morning. However if I'm understanding Kitz correctly, I can expect to wait anything from a few hours to five days for the IP profile to improve, and only then if I manage to maintain a decent sync speed for the duration.

---------- Post added at 11:53 ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 ----------

So it looks like the apparent one-third drop off, regardless of my sync speed, is simply a function of DSLmax working normally rather than Virgin taxing my available speed due to congestion?

Ignitionnet · 02-04-2009, 12:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

I received this:

My sync was a lot lower for most of yesterday as my line started suffering audible noise. Sadly this was intermittent and had gone by the time the engineer arrived this morning. However if I'm understanding Kitz correctly, I can expect to wait anything from a few hours to five days for the IP profile to improve, and only then if I manage to maintain a decent sync speed for the duration.

---------- Post added at 11:53 ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 ----------

So it looks like the apparent one-third drop off, regardless of my sync speed, is simply a function of DSLmax working normally rather than Virgin taxing my available speed due to congestion?

Correct - it will increase and you will end up back on that 3 Mbit profile, it's not a VM issue.

**Chris** · 03-04-2009, 10:21

Ah well, in that case I should give VM their due as the speed I get seems to be always close to the maximum available set by my IP Profile. My sync has dropped slightly this morning, it's now hovering just above 3 meg, so hopefully I'm on track to get my IP Profile uprated to 2.5 meg before long.

**Chris** · 05-06-2009, 23:48

I had a rotten sync period earlier in the week ... there's some intermittent crackle on our voice calls which appears to be affecting broadband as well, causing occasional dropouts.

In my experience I can get a BT engineer out to fix it easily enough, provided I wait until the audible crackle is persistent enough for it to perform on cue when he gets here. It's certainly easier to report a voice fault direct to BT, my supplier of voice calls, than it is to interest VM in doing anything about a mostly-fine-but-occasionally-ropey internet connection.

Anyhoo, in the meantime, after a re-boot this evening I've persuaded my modem/router to talk to the exchange and its sync has improved from about 1.3meg to somewhere slightly north of 2meg. But the IP Profile according to the BT speedchecker is now down at 1meg. What isn't apparent from Kitz's information site is, is a 100% increase a 'large' one or not? He gives examples that are huge and tiny to illustrate his point (1200% and 10%) but nothing in between. I want to know whether I'm going to find the profile has fixed itself within the next 24 hours or so, or if I have to wait a week.

Anyone (cough broadbandings cough) have experience of this? Does the adaptive max logic system regard a 100% improvement as big or not?

dragon · 07-06-2009, 00:52

It's not impossible for it to get stuck or if you've had a lot of resyncs take a while before it decides the line is stable enough to up the profile if it has got stuck then your ISP needs to raise a stuck profile case with BT wholesale.

I do sort of understand why your ISP might be reluctant to send an engineer basically it's a case of if all is ok when the engineer turns they get a nice Big bill (Upwards of £150!) for an SFI and with a standard line fault if its testing ok then it will most likely get closed off as line remote tested ok and them charged

I suspect it's that crackle that's causing you the problems though it will also mean there's probably noise across the DSL frequencies as well as the audible range Is your line overhead or Underground? if its overhead does the noise co-inside with wind.etc? (I'm thinking perhaps a bad joint at a guess)

Also have you tried in the test socket if you have one? if you have a modern installation you should be able to remove the lower faceplate of the socket disconnecting the internal wiring, it's a pain I know but if it happens with the internal wiring isolated you know it's going to be the Line and not any extensions (If an engineer proves a fault onto your internal wiring it could mean you get charged, so best if possible to test with it isolated)

Ideally the cause of the noise needs to be fixed and that should hopefully also fix the broadband.

It's also worth noting even if the BRAS profile didn't exist about 13% of the sync speed is used in overheads so your actuall IP throughput would be lower than the sync speed anyway.

Ignitionnet · 07-06-2009, 21:03

Diving back a bit...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

The logical follow up question is, who else could I get broadband from who would be better, and give me reliable 'up to' 8meg ADSLmax for less than £20 a month (without a ridiculous cap or other nasty STM).

Doesn't exist, those that aren't capping / shaping / throttling are badly congested. There are no non-LLU services at that price point like that. Most of the LLU services of that type at that price point are hitting it through subsidy.

dragon · 07-06-2009, 21:22

Are Be/o2 available on your local exchange?

I'll be honest though I work for them So couldn't give an unbiased recommendation.

injuneer · 08-06-2009, 14:36

I've got o2 8MB service for £12.23 a month. I get speeds of about 5 to 6 MB, BT could only offer me 4MB (ADSL2 as opposed to ADSL2+ from o2)

**Chris** · 08-06-2009, 14:48

No LLU here. We're a remote rural exchange that only has broadband at all because the Scottish Executive subsidised the installation.

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether a 100% increase in sync speed is considered 'large' for IP profiling purposes? Actually I'm about to revisit the BT Speedtester so I guess I'm going to find out. My modem sync is still sitting slightly over 2meg.

---------- Post added at 14:48 ---------- Previous post was at 14:41 ----------

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:

-provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 2016 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 1750 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1591 kbps

I guess that's my answer - it has improved by 75% in a little under 48 hours. I seem to be at the very bottom of the 1750kbps band with my current sync so hopefully it's not about to deteriorate again ...

There have been no crackles on the line for a few days anyway, so here's hoping.

**Chris** · 14-09-2009, 14:33

Bump ... for a rant, although I also have a question ... I had an awful time with my line yesterday morning, with the modem/router dropping and re-acquiring its connection constantly for a number of hours. Then there was a phantom crackle on the line during voice calls as well. I got the faceplate off the phone socket this afternoon and plugged in the corded phone. I was just about to call BT faults and the crackle vanished. The voice line is now crystal clear. The broadband speed is now rock solid. The only problem is, the exchange has re-set my IP profile to 135 kbps.

Now, the sync speed in my router is already back up to 1728 kbps. My question is, how long is the IP profile likely to take to catch up, and is there anything I can do to hurry it along? Missus is getting cross because none of her Facebook Playfish games will load. Although that may actually be a good reason not to get my speed back.

Ignitionnet · 14-09-2009, 16:12

You would need to contact your ISP to get this issue resolved, or wait the probably 4 - 5 days for the BRAS to catch up.

Given who your ISP are I wouldn't hold your breath as far as contacting them goes

**Chris** · 14-09-2009, 22:14

I already did ... the call centre guy was nice enough, but he seemed to be following some checklist of 'anyone we can blame apart from Virgin Media'. He wanted me to phone BT faults and report it as a general line fault, until I insisted that I had nothing I could complain to BT about as the voice service is absolutely fine. It's interesting though, that the tactic I was advocating on this very thread three months ago for getting a tech out quickly (namely, call it a voice fault, and so long as you're a BT customer you can get a BT tech out within a week to fix both voice and broadband in one go) now seems to be some sort of unofficial Virgin Media policy. I guess it saves them having to raise (and pay for) a ticket with Openreach or whatever BTW are called now.

After insisting for several minutes that (a) I had nothing to complain to BT about; (b) There is nothing wrong with the setup of my computer; (c) Nothing and no-one else is using my internet connection and (d) this issue started suddenly yesterday morning with the modem/router dropping the connection lots of times over several hours; I got him to agree to investigate further. He said he would phone back and I didn't hold my breath.

That said, he did phone back ... to suggest that I wait 4-5 days for the BRAS to catch up. :Banghead: Guess that's me shafted then; if they're not prepared to intervene in any way. Best I can hope for is that I have a week or so of stable, quality connection and the IP profile crawls back up to where it should be.

This is really annoying - it stayed at 1.7 meg for ages after the last little blip I had, about three months ago, and then very slowly edged up until it hit 2.5 meg only a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm back to square one.