Broadband in Marple

[ironbridgecottage]

Not a comment on the site you have posted below, just for general information. What you need to be careful of is who is hosting the sight that the tester is recorded against. Some of them are hosted overseas and therefore actually have to complete a number of hops before hitting the site. From the same PC I have been able to record a speed variant of 4 meg depending which site you are trying to test against. Anyway, In answer to the original question about BT. If you use the post code checker, this uses radial information in relation to the exchange and is therefore indicative for the area that you live in only. The telephone number checker now has the capability (recently introduced) to actually determine specific characteristics about the line condition operating in the last week or two.Therefore, it is conceivable that you got a 3meg response last year but are now getting a notofication of less. This could be because the line is suffering from REIN ( Random Electrical Impulse Noise ).  There are a number of situations that can cause this and it is very localised ( one house suffers, next door doesn't).  This can be down to recognisable impacts such as extension sockets, faulty DSL filters, central heating but can be as bizarre as Christams tree lights or Jacuzzi. My suggestion would be to check your DSL connection back to your master socket, check your filters and run the checker again. Depending on when the last check was run, I would be interested to see what result you get.

[amazon]

Broadband Speed Check .Try zdnet.co.uk . and look for bandwidth speed check This is the one ntl use .

[ironbridgecottage]

As the Project manager that introduced the 8 meg service for BT to the UK, I hope the following advice may help. It is conceivable that 2 households living adjacent to one another using the same telegraph pole can be notified of different capability speeds. The wiring may run via different cabs, may have 'splitter' from a period when lines were in demand added etc etc. I am quite happy to take the persons issue up with my team who will invesitgate the matter properly for you if you contact me at the following e-mail address 'peter.j.pearson@bt.com.' If you could provide a cono as well that would be helpful. With regards to download speeds, I can confirm that the following performance tester site is due to be launched on 05/10/06 ( I am just finishing this project so there may be intermittant periods between now and 5th Oct when I have to upload latest changes ) and would welcome any feedback on it. You can access it at www.speedtester.bt.com. It has been tested for comparison against the exisiting sites out there and has been welcomed.

[Howard]

Quote (alfred @ Sep. 23 2006,23:12)

I tried BT.com again today and it still gives 1M for my phone number (Marple 449 code) but gives 3.5M for my nexdoor neighbour (Marple 427 code). Very odd as we both share the same telegraph pole! Incidentally if I use my post code it gives 3M.

I wouldn't trust BT's figures as your online search seems to demonstrate - if they can't even match their databases when you search by  telephone or postcode, I don't really know how you can work out your connection speed other than by empirical means (i.e., experimenting at various times of the day with the online speed tests).

Despite ADSL broadband seeming to be a simple service, actually it's extremely an extremely fragmented system with all sorts of "spagetti" computer code and hardware to make it work. ADSL is a system that has evolved rather than being designed and, in some cases, is managing to run Internet connections over 40 year-old copper wires that were never intended to handle this sort of communication. When you know how it is strung together, it's a miracle it works at all!

The other thing that you may not be aware of is that your download speed is only a theoretical maximum and you are limited by a factor called "contention ratio" which BT has as 50:1 for home users and 20:1 for businesses. That is, the number of users using their ADSL connection at the BT exchange can be up to 50 users per single exchange connection. Therefore, if you have a large number of users, al doing heavy use of the connection such as streaming media or file sharing, you will achieve a significantly lower speed then that which you may be expecting.

I have worked with computer networks for the last fifteen years and the one thing I can tell you with some certainty is that there is nothing you can be certain about!

[alfred]

I tried BT.com again today and it still gives 1M for my phone number (Marple 449 code) but gives 3.5M for my nexdoor neighbour (Marple 427 code). Very odd as we both share the same telegraph pole!
Incidentally if I use my post code it gives 3M.

Any explanations?

[wardie]

Just to clear up some of the speed numbers reported by Mr Mansfield.

Orange are correct, if your computer is connected to a router (which could be one of these wireless ones) rather than to the internet directly, it will only report the speed between the computer and the router which is usually 100Mbps (where Mbps is Mega BITS per second).  If you are using wireless (sometimes called Wifi), from a laptop for example, the speed is usually 54Mbps.

If you are connected directly to the internet (i.e. not through a router), then the computer should report the true connection speed.

To test your download speed quickly, go to Microsoft and download MSN Messenger (best to do this in the mornings before the US wake up).  The link is http://get.live.com/messenger/overview, click on the "Get it free" button and then hit "Save".  Choose where to save and a new box appears showing the download speed in KB/S (which is Kilo BYTES per second).  Now there are 8 bits in a byte, so multiply the number you see by 8 and you have your typical download speed.  Mine showed 480KB/S, which is 3840Kbps (480*, and as I'm on 4Meg NTL, that sounds about right to me.

Hope all that helps clear up some common confusion.

Now those who are still awake will have noticed that 4Mbps or 8Mbps is much much slower than 100Mbps or Wifi's 54Mbps, which means that when you're downloading from the net, it will be your Internet speed, not your Wifi speed which constrains the download.  Again, another common confusion.

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[jogger]

Alfred    If you go to BT.COM  and go to Broadband on the site follow the instructions eg phone number or post code it tells you want speed to expect,I tried it with mine and it was right with 5.5meg.

[alfred]

Thanks Mr Mansfield - I suspect you are on a cable connection with such a fast speed so that is not really relevant to my query.
I presently have a fixed 1Mbps broadband connection over my phone line.
The speed I was referring to is the speed indicated when you initially try to upgrade to the  new 8mbps system on a telephone line. You have to put your telephone number in a box (on a special website) and it checks the telephone exchange etc and then predicts what you will get if you upgrade. This facility is run by BT. This gave 3Mbps in June but now says 1Mbps and I need someone with telecomms knowledge to explain how this can be!! Especially as I have agreed to go over to it on the basis I would get 3Mbps even 2miles from the exchange as I am. With your BT experiance do you have an explanation  "jogger" ?

[Mr Mansfield]

Well I was a bit confused after reading your post.

My indicator at the bottom of the screen said 100mbs.
I telephoned Orange in Mumbai or Bombay and they said that is the speed between my router and my comp. They said I was updated to 8 In June of this year.

They suggested I download:

www.adslguide.org

to check my actual broadband speed, Ive tried this but cant get it to work and it suggested I might have a firewall stopping it so.

[jogger]

Seeing as I work for BT I use BT Broadband,I have just upgraded to the 8meg deal(which is free if you use BT Broadband).Plus a free wireless router.
I live approx 1 mile from Marple ex and it is now running at 5.5meg.Hope this helps.

[alfred]

Three months ago I checked my Marple phone number on BT's website to find what broadband speed I could expect and it came up with 3Mbps. Now it only showing 1Mbps. Has anyone else experianced this? I wonder if Marple Exchange has been downgraded. If I change to one of the new "up to 8Mbps " services what speed can I realistically expect?

Alfred