So, we've been signed up for a while on BT Broadband, you know, with the Home Hub and Softphone. We're supposed to get up to 8gb speed on our tariff. After being annoyed at a slow transfer rate, I did a speed test online and discovered I'm getting on average a download speed of 1224 kb/s.

The Sheffield average is around 4000 kb/s (go to www.speedtest.net)

Surely there's something dramatically wrong here? We're paying all this and getting such a tiny amount of possible speed? Has anyone contacted their ISP before over a similar issue? We're thinking of contacting BT, but not sure if there's any specific person or department we should aim for. We're not happy, if this is true. :rant:

It depends on how far away you are from your local exchange and the quality of your line. It also depends on the time of day to a certain extent. My connection hovers around 6mb but drops to sub-1mb during busy times.

But I'm paying for a possibility of 8gb and getting nowhere near it. Do you think it's worth contacting BT and telling them we're not happy?

8gb? That must be expensive :)
Online speed testers have all kinds of inaccuracies. Best bet would be to check out BT's website for a Help section and follow the details in there. They're bound to have a section on speed etc.

So, we've been signed up for a while on BT Broadband, you know, with the Home Hub and Softphone. We're supposed to get up to 8gb speed on our tariff. After being annoyed at a slow transfer rate, I did a speed test online and discovered I'm getting on average a download speed of 1224 kb/s.

The Sheffield average is around 4000 kb/s (go to www.speedtest.net)

Surely there's something dramatically wrong here? We're paying all this and getting such a tiny amount of possible speed? Has anyone contacted their ISP before over a similar issue? We're thinking of contacting BT, but not sure if there's any specific person or department we should aim for. We're not happy, if this is true. :rant:

I was told by Sky id get around 3mbs but ive never had less than 5.
BT are a joke and i left them for this and many other reasons. Im happier with Sky, far happier.

But I'm paying for a possibility of 8gb and getting nowhere near it. Do you think it's worth contacting BT and telling them we're not happy?

Thing is its 'up to' 8mb but if you read the small print of your contract there will be somewhere saying you can have a really crappy speed and they are still fulfilling their end of the bargin.

I am about 3 miles as the crow flies from our exchange.
When I changed to my present ISP the max download speed they told me I could get was 1 Mb/sec, although the ISP speed was up to 8Mb/sec.
I tested the speed at 7pm the other night and it was down to 0.1
It took nearly 90 minutes to download a free trial of PS Elements 7
Ive just tested the speed and it was 0.8 and 30 seconds later 0.9.
We can only dream of the speeds you get in Sheffield.

another thing to consider is. even if you are X miles from the nearest exchange, doesnt mean thats the exchange your on, because exchanges are added/incresed as others fill up.

Try this site, enter your phone number and see what it says:-

http://www.btbroadbandinformation.com/broadband-speed-checker/

But I'm paying for a possibility of 8gb and getting nowhere near it. Do you think it's worth contacting BT and telling them we're not happy?

I'd say yes - ring their support line and tell them you're not happy. Have you tried different microfilters, unplugging phones, etc? Has the speed got worse since you plugged in Xmas lights? (don't laugh, dodgy electrical wiring can affect your internet speed - don't ask me how tho :))

dodgy electrical wiring can affect your internet speed - don't ask me how tho

Basically it causes radio interference (seriously, if you mess about with the tuning on a MW radio you can hear sources of electrical interference in the house... we do actually ask some users to test this in order to find the possible source of some faults). This, if close enough to the phone wiring, can interfere with the ADSL signal and at best reduce the speed, at worst actually prevent your router from connecting.

Try this site, enter your phone number and see what it says:-

http://www.btbroadbandinformation.com/broadband-speed-checker/
Just tried it ............max is 0.5 Mbits/second!
The BBC test gives 0.9.
Which is correct?

Yeah things like old, poor quality, extenstions and the like plugged in to your phone line can interfere with the connection as well.

Overall though that's pretty low for an up to 8m connection.

Just tried it ............max is 0.5 Mbits/second!
The BBC test gives 0.9.
Which is correct?

Both, and neither. All the speedtests depend on external factors that you cannot control.

Best thing is to do a few different tests at varying times of the day and average them. That will roughly reflect your usable max speed.

Unfortunately there may not be anything anyone can do about it.

That site gives me 0.5 mb as a maximum but I get up to 1.4 mb on a good day as I use ADSL2. I've no idea of the technology behind it but it's more than double what I was getting with ADSL.

If it's BT then try testing the speed at http://www.speedtester.bt.com and post the results up here - hopefully that'll shed some more light on the situation. It should show your line profile as well as actual speeds, and if there's significant differences there you may well have grounds for raising a fault.

Just tried it ............max is 0.5 Mbits/second!
The BBC test gives 0.9.
Which is correct?

the site predicted 0.5Mbps as your max speed based on your location compared to your echange.. (the estimated distance you are from your exchange)

the BBC site tests your actual connection speed to the BBC site its self.. so your actually getting MORE than predicted for your line length.

If it's BT then try testing the speed at http://www.speedtester.bt.com and post the results up here - hopefully that'll shed some more light on the situation. It should show your line profile as well as actual speeds, and if there's significant differences there you may well have grounds for raising a fault.

Here are my results:

Results Image not loaded

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 1376 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 1000 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 908 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

If you are experiencing problems with specific applications, servers or websites please contact your ISP for assistance.

Your test has completed please close this window to exit the performance tester.

That’s the site I was looking for, I have a BT hub and they quote up to 4MB for our area, the test is showing 3MB, not bad I suppose.

I'm on BT Option 3 which is hideously expensive and I've never been able to get more than 500k/s since I live 3.5km from the nearest exchange. I can live with the speed but not at the price I'm having to pay.

Only 3 more weeks before I can switch providers! Yay!

I'm on BT Option 3 which is hideously expensive and I've never been able to get more than 500k/s since I live 3.5km from the nearest exchange. I can live with the speed but not at the price I'm having to pay.

Only 3 more weeks before I can switch providers! Yay!

If the problem is with your exchange how will changing providers help, are you going for cable.

I get horrible speeds with Orange - the BBC test and others are showing 0.3 MB speeds. However, if I run the tests on my laptop, they come out vastly faster, over 5MB.

So it's always possible that it's your computer, not the provider at all.

@Davyboy - unfortunately the line profile matches the line speed pretty well, so unless your fault threshold rate is significantly above that (only your ISP could tell you that, unfortunately) then there's not really much you can do other than making sure all your extensions are filtered. If you have a sky box it's well worth making sure that's filtered too.

Hope that helps,

I did the test.. click onto a different tab I already had up, went back.. it had returned back to the page and won't let me test again for another 3 hours *headdesk*

I'll post my results up later.

Here we go:

Your DSL connection rate: 1280 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 1000 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 927 kbps

.. Not that I'm understanding much here, haha. Can anyone help?

You need to get in touch with BT and ask them to check your broadband connection out. I had the same with AOL and it turned out they had never set it at the right speed. Now they have uncapped my connection and it's running fine.

Your IP profile is based on the maximum throughput that the computers believe your line can reliably reach determined from previous errors. It's possible that you might be able to get that increased by a BT engineer, but firstly - good luck getting a front line person to do it and secondly the computers will re-train the line over time so if you do have a poor quality connection it'll go back to that fairly quickly.

If the lack of speed is causing you a problem then your best option may be cable if you are in a cabled area.

good luck getting a front line person to do it .

Tell me about it, been there done that, after all the automated nonsense I got to speck to a real person, then another, then another, if they cant sort it they seem to just pass you to another department. :(

It may be just where you live, a example is a ISP gives you 8mb/s you get 4mb/s because of where you are you will still only get a absolute maximum at a very very very quiet time of 1mb/s on a average day at noon you'll get about 600kb/s actual download speed so if your far away from the exchange and you only actually get a connection speed (hover over connection on taskbar) of like 2mb/s you'll get around 20% of that in download speed as the connection speed decreases the download speed rapidly decreases also it depends on the location of the server where your downloading from, most of the time this doesn't hugely affect anything but if you download a file see what your average download speed your getting you should be able to work out what actual connection speed your getting compare that with what the connection thing in the taskbar is saying, if they differ, then it's BT's responsibility to sort it as it's at there end, if they are the same then it's at your end, check or swap the modem/router, filters check what changes occur with the use of electricals around it, it could even be your speakers.

I'm on BT Option 3 which is hideously expensive and I've never been able to get more than 500k/s since I live 3.5km from the nearest exchange. I can live with the speed but not at the price I'm having to pay.

Only 3 more weeks before I can switch providers! Yay!

I'm in the same boat, I'll be switching ASAP I would have thought. Day to day the service is good but sometimes it'll just drop for know reason or be extremely dialuppy slow for a week out of the month.
That site reckons I should get 4mbps in my area, the tester keeps timeing out!

I find this one a more easy and accurate speed check
http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/

And if you got to the how fast i can get bit it will show you where the exchange is

Cheers jrowl, I'm only about 3 miles from the exchange and according to BT I've paid for up to 8meg but at my distance I'm only capable of receiving 4mbps. According to that site I'm capable of 5mbps. At the moment off peak I'm getting a download of 3.5mbps and an upload of 361 kbps. Doing okay this morning.
Thanks for the link though