(sky) ADSL variable speeds

Hi All,
The connection speed on my Sky BB seemed a little slow last night.
Checking the router admin page I got:
System Up Time 00:01:24
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s
Up Time
WAN PPPoA 249 155 0 5465 2358 00:00:25
LAN 10M/100M 342 479 0 1718 2126 00:01:21
WLAN 11M/54M/108M 71 30 0 155 120 00:01:14

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1534 kbps 412 kbps
Line Attenuation 38.5 db 22.5 db
Noise Margin 6.7 db 22.5 db

The connection speed's pretty poor, and I'm quite close to the
exchange. Don't know how long it's been like this though.
Phoned Sky today and they remotely checked and got 4.1Mbps.

Does local contention etc affect connection speed? I thought the
connection sync speed should stay static, pretty much.
I'll check again tonight and see if it's improved, but in the mean
time anyone want to give me a brief primer on how the speeds are
negotiated by the router?
If it's relevant I had been running bittorrent earlier, which I guess
could possibly upset the router with a large number of simultaneous
connections?

Ric

 

Hi Ric, sorry don't know enough about what your asking but here's my
status from this afternoon.
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 6880 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 22.0 db 15.5 db
Noise Margin 16.1 db 13.0 db

Notice the noise margins & attenuation? maybe something to talk to BT
or SKY about. I'm on SKY & have noticed slow periods recently, I
usually say its that time of year again(wether its true or not?) Lots
more people buyng first PC's and connecting to broadband. Increase in
numbers has to have an effect but also I do wonder if BT or ISP's do
alot of upgrading prior to the Christmas period to cope.

 

[snip]

Looks like a lot of noise somewhere. You don't have a failing/failed
filter somewhere?

For comparison, my figures:
2048/58/13 down; 416/31/14 up

--
PeeGee

"Nothing should be able to load itself onto a computer without the
knowledge or consent of the computer user. Software should also be able
to be removed from a computer easily."
Peter Cullen, Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist (Computing 18 Aug 05)

 

Surely all that's likely to do is allow noise on the 'phone line?
Could be a dodgy cable or connection though.

 

"Hi Ric, sorry don't know enough about what your asking but here's my
status from this afternoon.
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 6880 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 22.0 db 15.5 db
Noise Margin 16.1 db 13.0 db

Notice the noise margins & attenuation? maybe something to talk to BT
or SKY about. I'm on SKY & have noticed slow periods recently, I
usually say its that time of year again(wether its true or not?) Lots
more people buyng first PC's and connecting to broadband. Increase in
numbers has to have an effect but also I do wonder if BT or ISP's do
alot of upgrading prior to the Christmas period to cope."

Not to mention that everybody who is watching "TV over broadband"
is clogging the whole UK infrastructure up with the commercial P2P
application that is installed onto their PCs. "kservice" is installed by
most of them (eg 4OD) and sits there sharing your paid-for bandwidth
with joe bloggs down the road who is catching up on his soaps.
And most people don't even know it is happening. Bye-bye, fast
broadband.

 

I would seek expert advise on

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/threads.php?Cat=

forums.

 

All sorted. Got a time-served ex-BT guy to fit a new master socket
with built-in ADSL socket, which pushed the s/n ratio up massively.
Spent an hour on the phone with sky last night, got put through to one
of two techs in the whole company at that time who could actually play
with line profiles. He pushed it up to 13meg without errors. I'm
only paying for up to 8 so unfortunately couldn't leave it there (!)
but I'm now on 8meg with a *really* clean connection. Cost me £80 for
the socket.