Speed of connection advice?

David Hughes · 18-01-2010, 23:54

I am led to believe that the further your connection is from the exchange the more likely you are of having a poor broadband speed.

As I live in a small village and approx 1 mile to exchange and approx 200 people in between, this is my burning question?? Can BT if paid enough put a sub station/exchange in between our village and the exchange so as to boost the signal??

Reason is simple, if all it takes is cost then I'm prepared to ask our parish council to foot the bill. All small villages have PCs to whom we pay tax and therefore I don't see why they couldn't use our money to give us better connections.

**Stuart** · 19-01-2010, 00:14

to the forums.

The forum you posted in would have prevented people answering, so I have moved your post to a better forum.

As for your question. Yes, ADSL broadband (the system used over BT lines) is affected by distance from the exchange, but 1 mile is well within the specs, so you should be able to get a reasonable speed if the exchange is enabled.

ED209 · 19-01-2010, 23:03

Well according to http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php You are approximately 1.30km from the excahnge yet i get the following
You cannot receive 2Mbps ADSL
You may be able to receive 1Mbps ADSL
You can receive 512kbps ADSL

Have just upgraded to the good old "up to 8 Meg" been told will take 10 working days until i get a stable speed but so far the highest I have had is 2.9meg according to speedtest.net ( much lower according to internetfrog, highest 1.6 although the router says 5920 kbps)

I know that the 1.3Km is as the crow flys but the samknows rating of availble speed is pretty poor, who really knows!

Paul · 20-01-2010, 06:24

Don't forget those are ADSL speed estimates, if your ISP uses ADSL2+ your speed could be higher anyway.
What's your ISP and what is your attenuation reading on the router?

bart man · 20-01-2010, 09:48

there is no type of signal booster for adsl. if he lives in a small village then i very much doubt it will be adsl2. remember just because you are about a mile from the exchange the actual length of your line could be a lot more than that. it could even go a mile in the wrong direction to go through your nearest cab! and then of course theres the set up you have inside the property, extensions etc...

**Chris** · 20-01-2010, 09:55

Well, yes and no ... it's not a signal booster as such, but BT's fibre-to-the-cab project is all about reducing the length of the 'last mile' of copper to each home to a distance short enough that superfast ADSL broadband can be offered to customers.

If the OP isn't happy with the speed he gets at approx. one mile from his exchange, he could indeed ask his Parish Council to open negotiations with BT and see if he can get his village added to the top of the list for rollout of this service (IIRC the list is posted in another thread on this forum, perhaps someone can post a link?).

I suspect his Parish Council may be a bit reluctant when they find out how much it would cost them though.

bart man · 20-01-2010, 10:02

hey! i didn't get a 'welcome to the forums'

Matth · 20-01-2010, 22:32

And, especially for the steadying time, check, check and check again that you have not left anything not "covered" by a microfilter.
Pay particular attention to:
Cordless phone main base.
Answerphone (if seperate).
Extension ringer
Sky box

If you miss a microfilter (or extension already passed through a microfilter) on any device, then you lose speed and reliability.

Also, disconnecting the ringer line (or using an "I-plate" which is the same thing) can improve the line balance and increase speed, or if you tee the modem from the main box, using a filter plate is the best way.