chrispy

Hi,
Probably a familiar story to many, signed up to Telstra/Bigpond 20Mb ADSL2 broadband.. expected it to be whizzy superfast (they advertise it as the way to download songs and films) but i am only get speeds of 1.2Mb and not anywhere near what i am paying for. The wireless modem is plugged in via a USB1 port but it was the same in England and i got much faster speeds. The exchange is only about one km away so the distance shouldn't be an issue. Any ideas on what might be wrong (apart from going with bigpond) before i go through the triel of phoning them. If it doesn't improve do i have a right to cancel the 12 month contract without penalties and go with someone else? Will another provider be better for speed? I am in Perth up in the hills.

Cheers

Chris

bcworld

Dunno about your right to cancel.....im sure they'll always have some sort of disclaimer saying that 20Mbps is the max speed.

I'm with iinet on a 24Mbps plan - i'm probably at least 3-4km away from the exchange and can generally manage to get about 12Mbps - iinet use Telstra's infrasructure but for some reason seem to manage to get a lot more out of it.

By the way, and just to check....you do realise that 20Megabits per second is the same as 2.5Megabytes per second......so if you're getting 1.2Megabytes per second you should be relatively happy.

(8Megabits = 1Megabyte)

Amazulu

Pretty close. I have iinet 24Mb ADSL2+ and usually get 17-19Mb at just over 1.5kms from the exchange. So not bad really.

loz

Wish we could get any adsl service!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are on bigpond nextg wireless and it is total s***e:curse::curse:
How this 'puter hasn't been fired through the nearest window this last week I don't know.
Out of the 4 times today I have tried to get online the connection has dropped out 3 times
And we paid $300 for this crap:curse:

Loz x

tictac

Could be your contention ratio

If you can, monitor any speed fluctuations throughout the day

if it slows down considerably during 'peak' periods, high contention could be the problem

If speeds are consistently slow, try doing an isolation test to rule out iffy filters etc

debsy

How can I tell what speeds I am getting as mine seems slow and I am paying for asdl2
Any tips?

chrispy

Hi,
There are plenty of websites that allow you to do speed tests, if you put Broadband speed test into google. If you are on Bigpond they will insist you use their one. Eitherway, all it does is download a picture of known size and check the speed. This is the one i used
http://www.ozspeedtest.com/

Cheers

Chris

chrispy

Sorry, how do you run an isolation test?

Cheers

Hutch

Unplug all other devices from the phone lines around the house (phone, fax etc).

bcworld

Not sure if this provides any worthwhile info:

http://www.speedtest.net/

debsy

Thanks
This is my results - any idea what it means?
Your line speed is 1.02 Mbps (1020 kbps).
Your download speed is 128 KB/s (0.12 MB/s).

Sunny_Glesga

I think that some people miss the point a bit about download speeds and connection speeds. Just for instance it is quite simple to throttle any bandwidth from any known download site to suit the provider. the speed the likes of Bigpond tells you that your getting means very little as there is no way on earth you will use full bandwidth on your downloads. If i had a site up and running no matter what speed you have i could simply set it to allow you to download from my site at 56k speed and give you 5kb ps. you could contact your ISP and go nuts but the end result is there aint nothing they can do about it unless they initially set yours to be throttled and know fine well that is why you have crap downloads, if we all got what we are told we will get you would only complain more about the download sites servers crashing

chrispy

Hi,
The difference is that when i had a 2Mb boradband service in the UK my download speed was at least 4 times fasater than the 20Mb service i now apparently have.. something aint right. Of course speed is regulated by the website provider but those that allow downloads of large files normally try and have good bandwidth.. my work download speed here in Perth is at least 4 times faster..

Don't see why you should pay a premium rate for a fast service when it doesn't deliver.. i know the technology is there to allow me faster download speeds. I was just wondering if this is a problem with BigPond as most people suggest to steer clear of them, there must be a reason for this.

Cheers

Bert'n'Stella

You need to check that its not anything to do with your wiring in your house. ADSL2 is very sensitive to bad wiring, and it could be something as simple as a poor connection in one of the phone sockets in your house. Fr example do you have a lot of sockets in the house? How old is the house/wiring?

I'm on ADSL1 8meg service from Internode, about 3.5km from the exchange and get about 6500kb on the speedtest. As someone else said, unplug everything from the phone sockets, plug the modem straight into the phone socket, no filter, then run the speedtest. This will tell you if anything is interfering with your connection. Things like Foxtel dialling up or a home alarm system with auto dial can cause issues.

I'm on Bigpond ADSL1 1500 service, right now at work and get faster than your speedtest.

May also be your modem. You can get Telstra to do a line test, how clear is your line? do you get pops or crackles when on the phone?

Lots of things to try but Bigpond tech support should run you through some of the basic tests first. Thats said on a 20MB, whats your download allowance, because at full tilt you'll burn through a few gigs pretty quickly!