I am with O2 for last few years and never had any problem with them previously.
But lately, my broadband speed has turned like dial up! YouTube, BBC iPlayer etc. are un-watchable. Earlier my speed was close to 2 mbps. Now it falls to 0.5-0.6 mbps!!
I rang O2 and they asked me to do this and that, plug and unplug etc. etc. but finally could not do anything.
However, I have noticed that in early morning, I am getting speed over 1 mbps and at least I can watch streaming videos in standard quality.
Surely it means it is a contention issue and nothing to do with inside my house?
Or something else?
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Reboot your router, then log into your router and tell us what speed it is connected at from the supplied information page.
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Seems a crazy situation where some parts of the country are dribbling along with 1 or 2Mb, whereas some, like me, get 20, soon to be upgraded to 60 for free.
I know there's a long and patchy history for broadband in this country, but crikey, it's taking its time to get sorted.
For my own part I don't need the full 20 I have now, never mind 60. What am I going to do with that kind of speed? If I could give 50 away I would!
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>> Seems a crazy situation where some parts of the country are dribbling along with 1
>> or 2Mb, whereas some, like me, get 20, soon to be upgraded to 60 for
>> free.
>>
>> I know there's a long and patchy history for broadband in this country, but crikey,
>> it's taking its time to get sorted.
Its the nature of the country we live in. Small villages, minuscule exchange building, houses miles away from the exchange, its amazing that everyone has a phone let alone broadband.
There are large number of people in the states that don't have, and will never get, broadband.
Even their mobile phone coverage is patchy, far worse than ours.
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The problem may not be yours.
I had an email from my ISP this morning:
Network Due to a problem with some of our transit providers you might experience high latency / slow browsing.
Exchange There is currently an unplanned outage at our Stevenage & Welwyn Garden exchanges and also the whole Birmingham area. Our engineers are already working to resolve the problem as soon as possible. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.
I expect some undesirable has pinched a lump of Fibre, again, thinking they were getting copper cable.
Last edited by: AnotherJohnH on Fri 10 Feb 12 at 09:42
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the O2 1st line support said they can't help so they would pass it to 2nd line support.
But I think if I can get good speed in unsocial hours, then it must be a contention issue.
My exchange supports upto 4 mbps although I never got more than 2 mbps anyway. I am quite happy if I can get at least 1.5 mpbs - then I can watch YouTube or iPlayer without any hiccups.
How do I know if I can get a better speed if I move to another ADSL broadband?
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O2 dont control contention, they have simply bought BT wholesale broadband and sold it on to you. You have not paid for a QoS, (Quality of Service) so in effect they can deliver whatever speed they want.
Log onto your router, and tell us what speed it has connected at.
Untill you do that, everything else is just speculation at this moment
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>> Log onto your router, and tell us what speed it has connected at.
>>
>> Untill you do that, everything else is just speculation at this moment
>>
+1
Zero asked you to do that in his 1st reply, so come on, give us the facts.
Also, which exchange are you connected to?
How far from the exchange are you?
www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search
www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_mapping
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I am not at my home computer now. Will paste stats once I'm back home.
Exchange is 2 miles from my home.
Last edited by: movilogo on Fri 10 Feb 12 at 10:22
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>> I am not at my home computer now. Will paste stats once I'm back home.
>>
Okay.
>> Exchange is 2 miles from my home.
>>
Repeat question: What is the name of the exchange?
Last edited by: John H on Fri 10 Feb 12 at 10:25
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My exchange (SMLEA) info showing LLU for O2/Be enabled.
When I log in to my O2 a/c page, I see this message.
You get a download speed of around 3.0 meg.
Other customers with lines like yours get between 1.0 meg and 4.5 meg.
Last edited by: movilogo on Fri 10 Feb 12 at 10:29
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Ah. Sorry, I didn't read your original post properly.
If you find someone who is "unbundled" on your exchange, and they have a decent network of their own, you may get what you want.
I was in your situation this time last year and went with "Bethere"
www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/homepage
Usual warning waffle: satisfied customer/your mileage may vary/somebody who's awake may know better/etc
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My router status showing this
DSL Connection
Uptime: 0 days, 0:01:24
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 934 / 415
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
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>> Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 934 / 415
I can see you just rebooted that, you wont need much contention to knock that down, thats not a good number.
Looks like a line issue, try taking off all the phones at home, rebooting the router and seeing again what you connect at.
Any noise on the line? use the phone to dial one digit and clear the dial tone, and listen for hums buzzes and crackles.
Whats the noise margin and attenuation numbers from your router stats?
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Last night O2 support asked me to do all that. They also couldn't find any problem with phone line.
Now my stat looks like
Uptime: 0 days, 0:52:17
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,010 / 1,679
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
I have not done anything in the meantime!
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it will always try and constantly negotiate higher (but sometimes lower) speeds. Its rate adaptive.
Still not brilliant tho, and the fact it started so low and climbed a bit still smells like a line issue to me.
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A friend of my wife's had problem this week with TalkTalk broadband. It had gone very slow (like 300kbps type slow)... they had been onto TalkTalk support and had been told to buy new micro filters.
I suggested the following:
- Try modem in master socket with all other devices removed - result was 2.9Mbps
- Try modem back where it was with everything still removed - result was still 2.9Mbps
They then plugged everything in one by one and tested speed - it was the micro filter the Sky box was using.
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Electronics is Greek and Chinese combined to me.
I have never understood why a straight pass through ADSL signal is affected by the filtering on the voice side of the filter.
circuits of used by two filter-makers shown here:
www.adslnation.com/images/filters/YPL-002-microfilter.gif
www.adslnation.com/images/filters/MF603UK-microfilter.gif
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It may be a logical pass through, but much can go wrong to make it no so mechanically or electrically "pass through"
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At least some of the voice circuitry is effectively connected across the two wires connected to the ADSL, so if the components go fault it can act like a low impedance across the ADSL connection and cause problems.
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This is the diagram of my home's phone/internet connection.
i.imgur.com/0QGIC.png
If connecting as shown in diagram, then speed is ~ 415 kbps!!
If connecting router directly to master socket then speed is 3500 kbps. [nothing else connected in the house]
If nothing is connected to floor1 socket, then speed is ~ 3000 kbps.
If I connect router in floor1 [with or without ADSL filter] then speed is again 415 kbps.
I can't leave router connected to master socket as it is behind a door and taking power cable there means I have to keep the partition door open which will freeze the house!
But I am puzzled why connecting a simple phone in floor1 socket making the connection via floor2 so slow! Is it at all possible or problem is elsewhere which I have failed to discover?
Last edited by: movilogo on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 12:51
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ADSL is not filtered, but every "voice" side (fax, phone, sky) connection needs a filter.
Put in a good micro filter for your phone on floor 1 (and for the phone on floor 2).
www.adslnation.com/support/filters.php
p.s. also remove the bell wire - search this forum (or google) for previous discussion.
Last edited by: John H on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 13:16
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If the speed has dropped recently and was wired up like this previously, something has changed in the wiring. Interference from the wiring is causing a problem. You've proved there is nothing wrong with the connection to the exchange because you get 3.5Mbps when connecting directly to the master socket.
I'd be double checking the cabling for starters.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 13:22
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You are going to need to rewire your telephone extension sockets with new cable and new sockets, just using two cores of the 5 core cable.
Are you sure nothing else is plugged in?
Told you it was a line issue ;P
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In my diagram, the floor1 socket connects to both a cordless phone and Sky box via a split phone connector (i.e. 2 connections forking out of one input).
Now I have removed the Sky box (but kept phone still connected) and getting good speed.
So the Sky box was the issue?
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Ah right - Something else WAS plugged in!
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and the Sky box was connected just 3 weeks back. I noticed this drop only recently too.
Surprisingly, Sky didn't supply any micro filter. The installation guy just used a phone splitter to fork out two connections (one to my existing phone and another to Sky box).
Last edited by: movilogo on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 13:29
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Two slow broadband connections in a week I am aware - and both down to a Sky box :-)
Our house doesn't need micro filters because of the face plate used for BT Infinity - a bit like an iPlate.
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Sky fitter may have assumed that your phone line was an extension from a master socket with a built in filter.
Fit a filter on floor 1 and cut the bell wire:
www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html#235
broadband-speedup.blogspot.com/
or
Use a BT-iplate adapter, or rewire as Zero says and use one of these mastersockets
www.skyuser.co.uk/skyusernews/adsl_faceplate_filter.html
www.solwise.co.uk/adsl_splitters.htm
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>>They then plugged everything in one by one and tested speed - it was the micro filter the Sky box was using.>>
I'm also with TalkTalk (LLU). Apart from one occasion when I had a noisy line, sorted out by BT, I twice had an unexpected reduction in download speeds. In both cases a new ADSL splitter (filter) at the Master Socket cured the problem.
In the case of the noisy line (this was after the splitter failures), the engineer kindly suggested and installed a filtered Master Socket faceplate after one or two goodies, including a top notch (and expensive) ADSL filter, were donated to his personal collection...:-)
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Very slow broadband - Zero
