Hello,

My FTTC broadband speed has been pretty slow for a while and with lack of other options (e.g. FTTP, Virgin) I want to get the most out of my connection so I am looking for some guidance.

It is worth saying I used to get around 40mbps when I first moved in to this house and the Openreach wholesale checker thinks my line should be able to support up to 48mbps but over time this has dropped to around 28mbps and I have for a long time assumed this is due to increased load on my cabinet but I wonder if I can make the line quicker.

I am with NOW broadband (basically Sky) on their top FTTC package, I think up to 80mbps is it?

Router stats:

Code:

---------------------- ATU-R Info (hw: annex A, f/w: annex A/B/C) ----------- Running Mode : 17A State : SHOWTIME DS Actual Rate : 32397000 bps US Actual Rate : 6184000 bps DS Attainable Rate : 40680004 bps US Attainable Rate : 6184000 bps DS Path Mode : Fast US Path Mode : Fast DS Interleave Depth : 1 US Interleave Depth : 1 NE Current Attenuation : 19 dB Cur SNR Margin : 5 dB DS actual PSD : -3.-1 dB US actual PSD : 11. 8 dB NE CRC Count : 0 FE CRC Count : 19591 NE ES Count : 0 FE ES Count : 14428 Xdsl Reset Times : 0 Xdsl Link Times : 2 ITU Version[0] : 00000000 ITU Version[1] : 00000000 VDSL Firmware Version : 07-07-09-05-01-07 [with Vectoring support] Power Management Mode : DSL_G997_PMS_L0 Test Mode : DISABLE -------------------------------- ATU-C Info --------------------------------- Far Current Attenuation : 23 dB Far SNR Margin : 5 dB CO ITU Version[0] : b5004244 CO ITU Version[1] : 434dc190 DSLAM CHIPSET VENDOR : < BDCM >

Do these stats look OK? Can anything be improved? I am using a SNR margin delta of -40 but maybe this is too much and making my line less stable?

Yesterday I realised my phone line ran parallel with some mains power between the master socket and router and thought perhaps this is why my line is degraded so I have separated them and waiting to see if the DLM might increase my line speed but so far very little movement. Is this likely to happen and how long would this normally take? I'm thinking between 48hrs and 2 weeks but don't know.

I don't have any phone extensions off the master socket so no problem with internal wiring (that I can do anything about).

If anyone can offer advise on what I can do to squeeze more speed from my line I will be much appreciated! I realise most likely nothing but I thought it would be worth sharing my stats to see if there is anything out of the ordinary.

Thank you

People obsess with speed. Honestly, I don't know what it is, but they go crazy and lengths to do whatever.

I think you should learn to accept that it is what it is. It's what is available in your area, what your cabinet/line can handle etc., but also what package you have (as they call it: SuperFibre vs. FabFibre).

However, if you can't, you may want to invest in an ADSLNation filter.

Not a huge amount you can do TBH. Or not without probably more effort than you'd like.

From the stats, when that VDSL session trained up, it worked out it could do 40mbit down. So I guess that 40 has you hopeful. But the profile on the DSLAM said its gonna do 32mbit.

Your router will have a chipset in it from some manufacturer. There is a speed variation for how well that works with whatever DSLAM is at the other end of the line and it's chipset. So if you're keen, you could research what chipset is in the DSLAM and what works well with it and get a router with that. Plus hope the DSLAM line card facing you is not swapped to some other one with a different chipset!

Then there is how much interference your line picks up along the way. Short of fault on the line, it is what it is. Neighbours and near neighbours with ADSL and VDSL, faults and various other bits of kit to spit out EM interference to impact that signal coming to you. If you've still got classic old PSTN voice service, try and quiet line test, or even just pick up the phone and press a digit so dial tone goes away. It should be silent. No crackles, whines or other continuous or even intermittent weird noises. If you can hear horrible noises, you can try raising a fault to get those fixed. 32mbit suggests there isn't going to be much. Your copper line comes from the exchange, to a cab somewhere with the DSLAM (which has some filtering for noise from the exchange to cab in it), then to your house. So it comes a long way with plenty of opportunity to collect interference you can't identify the source of nor do anything about. The further from cab to you, the more loss occurs and more interference gained along the way. You could try looking on a few sites with speed test results to see what your neighbours get. How do you compare? Does the router have any stats for ES, SES, UAS etc. If those are counting up, your router is seeing interference and so will DLM.

DLM will take several days to decide to change what its doing based on changes to your line. Most ISP go for stable DLM behaviour over speed. So you connect at a slower speed, but any interference on the line is less likely to cause the connection to fail and take 1-2 mins to re-establish. A very noticeable outage, especially if you're streaming some TV service! So they sacrifice a few mbit/s for that as most customers prefer it. DLM is pretty quick to slow speed to get stability. Less quick to raise it up again. So changes of modem (and therefore DSL chipset) or fixing interference sources will take a little while to show up as a speed change, assuming they actually made any difference at all!

Hope that helps?

Matching the chipset thingy is a myth, I'm afraid, as lots of conditions involved in negotiating a connection (time of day, line quality, presence of interference). So, in order to support it, you'd need to have two modems running on an experimental line (lab conditions) to see if they sync at significantly different rates. Here's an interesting thread about it: https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=23419.0

Using an ADSLNation filter may increase the speed of a connection, regardless of what chipsets are involved, as it has a better filtering ability.

For example, on my line I'm using a Fritzbox (Lantiq/Intel chipset) but connecting to a Broadcom cabinet. Apart from the SHINE on my line (during evenings), my connection is very stable and I get 71,166 Bps down and 17,050 Bps up (vs. 80MBps and 20Mbps maximum) using an ADSLNation filter. Previously, I had an HR fault on my line, and I still got better results with a Lantiq-based modem than a Broadcom one.

Furthermore, there was a difference in the performance of Fritzbox and Draytek, both Lantiq based, in that the former performed better than the latter, despite different modem codes available on Draytek. So, no performance is the same, even though it's the same chipset. I've used a Zyxel (Broadcom) on my line, too, but the difference was miniscule, and as I prefer the cleaner interface and regular updates of FritzOS, rather than the clanky web interface and lack of updates of Zyxel, I use the former.

So, one should always experiment with different equipment, as no line is the same, but making generalizations about chipsets is probably not the best thing.

If your speed has slowly dropped over time it could that your phone line needs replacing.
You can also try different modem codes too see if that does anything.

If your isp provided a modem stick that on and see what speed you get.

Also make sure the cables to the modem aren't damaged.

Finally if FTTP is availble in your area there's a good chance it's cheaper than the adsl line you're using.

 

I had a flaky ADSL+ line that had issues annually, either dry joints, rain affected joints or failing batteries. FTTC may be higher in speed but this decays with the line condition and with the more connections from other FTTC users on the cabinet.

So I went Mobile and as the local masts got upgraded from 3G to 4G I went from a flaky 8mb on ADSL, 15mb on 3G and the best I ever got on 4G was a solid 120mb with burst to 180mb.

I am now on FTTP at 150mb but other than the ping being 14ms instead of 40ms there is no real difference to 4G plus masts do go down for maintenance.

Take a phone and wander both around inside and outside of the house and use the speedtest app. EE give the best coverage, Three do the cheapest deals. 

Use https://bidb.uk/ to check the coverage from the 4 networks.