can someone look at our BB speeds and advise please?

Andy From Sligo

Hello was with UTV Connect, which is now transferred to 'Vodafone at home' provider. We are getting very poor slow speeds especially uploading very slow. The package is supposed to be up to 8mb broadband download speed, its through telephone line ADSL (not fibre) here is the DSL Status page of my wireless router:



Does everything look right there re: line attenuation, downstream and upstream attenuation etc?

And here are a couple of Speedtest.net tests I done 1 minute after the other at 3.30pm today. We are in Sligo but it picked Enniskillen server as its best server. Bear in mind this is done from laptop hooked to 802.11g wireless router wirelessly and not done through cabled ethernet straight to lan socket on the router if that has any bearing.

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The 1.57mbps download is terrible for a start - another time I could do the test I could have something like 192ms ping and 345mbps download speed but i have never got higher in this house. we are in 5 min walking distance of the exchange. our previous house with UTV Internet / Connect speedtest was reporting around 6mbps and we were further from the exchange. When we moved in the first week in june a engineer from eircom/kn networks installed a new eircom telephone socket with the broadband filter built in. Anyone got any advice on these poor speed test results and whether vodafone at home could bump up the rates their end or could it be faults on telephone lines themselves? - the silence on phone calls is crystal clear with no noises or crackles or hums and the DSL light on the router latches on very quickly from when its flashing to steady green lit.

same ol sh1te

There is a problem with your upstream, the attenuation of 2.5db is odd, they should be trying to get as close to 8db as possible, therefore your line is only syncing at 192kbps upstream. Have you tried without a filter with everything else unplugged, phones, sky boxes etc.

Andy From Sligo

same ol sh1te wrote: »

There is a problem with your upstream, the attenuation of 2.5db is odd, they should be trying to get as close to 8db as possible, therefore your line is only syncing at 192kbps upstream. Have you tried without a filter with everything else unplugged, phones, sky boxes etc.

Thanks for reply, its one of these sockets with the filter built into it - I can try to take of faceplate though and plug the modem/router straight into the test socket behind the faceplate, will do that later to check it. Theres only one other thing plugged in and thats a panasonic DECT cordless phone, no sky boxes or anything else. So im looking at around 8DB figure for the upstream attenuation then? -

Andy From Sligo

Does anyone know what the upstream Kbps should be on Vodafone at home DSL broadband package because all I can seem to find on the vodafone website is download speeds, nothing at all about what upload speeds they are offering?

Andy From Sligo

This is strange - I tried adjusting the modulation on the router settings to ADSL2+ and then it wouldnt connect but when I put it back to Multimode modulation in the router settings the upstream rate has changed to 384kbps (it was 192kbps before) and I think uploads seem a bit faster now - the upstream line attenuation is still 2.5db though. Heres what is reporting now:



And here are my speedtests now which dont seem too bad I suppose:

same ol sh1te

That looks spot on, remember you'll only ever get 85% of the speeds your modem syncs at due to the overheads of the protocol used to deliver. Sunday would be fairly busy all day so what you're seeing is a little contention. That looks decent and very usable.

ED E

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Thanks for reply, its one of these sockets with the filter built into it - I can try to take of faceplate though and plug the modem/router straight into the test socket behind the faceplate, will do that later to check it. Theres only one other thing plugged in and thats a panasonic DECT cordless phone, no sky boxes or anything else. So im looking at around 8DB figure for the upstream attenuation then? -

Using the direct port onto the drop as above is always the best way to test it.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

This is strange - I tried adjusting the modulation on the router settings to ADSL2+ and then it wouldnt connect but when I put it back to Multimode modulation in the router settings the upstream rate has changed to 384kbps (it was 192kbps before) and I think uploads seem a bit faster now - the upstream line attenuation is still 2.5db though. Heres what is reporting now:

-IMG-
And here are my speedtests now which dont seem too bad I suppose:
-IMG-

Dosntream of 7dB is a very short local loop. You're op says walking distance which matches the 500m approx length so we can assume this to be correct. That being true I'd expect slightly higher SNRs as the line itself is well capable of a 20Mb sync if everything is in working order. Have your provider confirm with a line test.

The 7Mb profile and not 8 or something like 17 or 20 suggest to me that you're probably on an old exchange. That or the package is wrong. The legacy exchanges suffer from congestion and are often limited to 1 and 3Mb packages, but seems you're on one that supports the 7Mb product.

Check with vodafone that 24Mb isnt available and if its not pray for an NGB upgrade.

Andy From Sligo

ED E wrote: »

.... The 7Mb profile and not 8 or something like 17 or 20 suggest to me that you're probably on an old exchange. That or the package is wrong. The legacy exchanges suffer from congestion and are often limited to 1 and 3Mb packages, but seems you're on one that supports the 7Mb product.

Check with vodafone that 24Mb isnt available and if its not pray for an NGB upgrade.

We were with UTVinternet/UTV Connect and that was on a max 8gb download package, or rather the line tested up to 8MB so i suppose with my 5.91mbps on a max 8mb line test i must be doing good - but now UTV Internet has gone on july 1st we have seamlessly gone over to Vodafone home broadband. - I cant see getting speeds up to 24mb unless they change to lines to fibre optic ... or can you get up to 24mb speeds through normal copper phone cable? - interestly on U-Switch it says the Vodafone at home speeds offer up to 100mb, but obviously that must be with modern exchanges and fibre optic cabling surely?

ED E

100Mb is VDSL. You'll get over 80Mb when VDSL is turned on in your exchange.

Right now the line to your exchange can take 20 maybe even 24Mb. Thats regular ADSL2+. Problem is the kit in the exchange is old or its fed by bad backhaul (say 200Mbps radio link shared between the whole village) so they cant sell you the better package.

If eircom Wholesale do an NGB upgrade you can get 20Mb with no change at your end. At the same time they'd swap the kit in the exchange so when comreg release exchange VDSL(eFibre) it'll just be a matter of a new modem for you. As you already have a new NTU(double socket) you wont need any visits from techs or anything.

Andy From Sligo

ED E wrote: »

100Mb is VDSL. You'll get over 80Mb when VDSL is turned on in your exchange.

Right now the line to your exchange can take 20 maybe even 24Mb. Thats regular ADSL2+. Problem is the kit in the exchange is old or its fed by bad backhaul (say 200Mbps radio link shared between the whole village) so they cant sell you the better package.

If eircom Wholesale do an NGB upgrade you can get 20Mb with no change at your end. At the same time they'd swap the kit in the exchange so when comreg release exchange VDSL(eFibre) it'll just be a matter of a new modem for you. As you already have a new NTU(double socket) you wont need any visits from techs or anything.

Thanks for the advice - yes im pretty sure the whole village is served by a wireless radio link pointing to mast on the nearby mountain and then fed into the exchange at a park in the village and then fed down the telephone wires overground on poles to the houses in the village. I might be wrong, but I think thats how they are doing it in our village - I cant see us getting fibre/efibre for a very very long time - if we ever get it at all!

ED E

You'll see crap speeds and high pings when the link hits max throughput. Fun times indeed.


In order to do anything they'll need to run overhead(most likely) fibre backhaul to the exchange. Then they can provide ADSL2+ to long lines and VDSL2(10-100Mb) to shorter ones(up to 2Km). Probably wont happen until theyve finished the eFibre rollout to the first 1.4 Million homes(over 0.8Mil right now). Then exchanges like yours become good targets for works.

Andy From Sligo

ED E wrote: »

You'll see crap speeds and high pings when the link hits max throughput. Fun times indeed.

Yes, ive seen that happen a couple of times - a ping was 356ms the other day and not even 1mb download speed

ED E wrote: »

In order to do anything they'll need to run overhead(most likely)...

so fibre optic cable doesnt necessarily have to go underground then? - it can run overhead on the already there telegraph poles yes? - thats interesting, I always thought fibre optic cables had to be run underground, would certainly be more economical and less time consuming to run them overground. Thought I also heard on news a couple of days ago ESB have teamed up with vodafone to roll out broadband to rural places. - wonder if they are going to run it along the power lines or is that old technology now?