"Upgrade" from Everyday to Unlimited reduces speed?

[Angel_Rex]

I opted out of the sky's own network for exactly this reason

I was debating on the whole 20mb for a year then drop back to everyday.... but i thought they might scrap the everyday after a year

[FFoxSake]

Have decided to add an NTE5 master socket (so i can test as close to incoming lines as possible) and then steel myself for another conversation with Sky....

Assuming all that goes well i'll then add a XTE-2005 Master Faceplate from ADSL Nation to make sure i have the best possible line to my router via an unfiltered connection.

Thanks for all your assistance so far. Will let you know how it goes in a few days....

[simonmpoulton]

With that attenuation I would've expected 14mb+
You can emulate test socket stats by disconnecting the extensions from the back of your master socket, confirming they are dead and then plugging the router into the master socket again. If the noise margin doesnt improve then your wiring isnt to blame!

[FFoxSake]

Well the saga continues... new master socket and XTE2005 installed.
With router connected to either the unfiltered connection of the faceplate or the test socket these are the stats now:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8160 kbps 768 kbps
Line Attenuation 19 db 5.5 db
Noise Margin 8 db 16 db

So i ring Sky back (and was as polite as possible) but they still insist that my line will only support 8.5mbps max speed.
I tried to get them to confirm that i was put back on G.DMT instead of ADSL2+ but they said it was irrelevant as my line would only support 8.5mbps.
Once again i tried to explain that the line used to support over 10.2 before the switch to Unlimited in January but no joy. They keyed in a lot of notes (i imagine saying that i am difficult customer!) and said that someone else would call me back about things...

With attenuation of only 19db is there something else that could be holding the speed back?

If all else fails it looks like i'll have to ask to be put back on the BT equipment that i had before.

[User05]

You are on g.dmt. Your SNR, at present, indicates you will not hold much more speed at all if changed to adsl2plus. I haven't read the whole thread, so excuse my ignorance, but if you are on SVBN then from your last post it seems that it has been raised to SVBN customer solutions. If sky's line checker suggests your line should hold more speed, which usually would be the case with such a low attenuation, then they'll check where the fault is. Hopefully, this will be the case when you get the call-back.

[FFoxSake]

Thanks. It's starting to make sense.
Yes I am probably now on SVBN (at least since my switch to Unlimited - which moved me off BT equipment and onto a "new system" i was told).

I always believed my low attenuation figure would mean a high connection speed but you're right - maybe something else is still dragging it down.

What frustrates me is i'm pretty sure it can't be anything inside my house or anything new with the existing line to the house, because these lower speeds only started happening with the switch to Unlimited.
To my simple mind something must therefore be "wrong" or "different" with the new Sky system they switched me on too!
Hopefully the SVBN customer solutions team will be able to track it down and then i can let the matter rest ... :-)

[User05]

As long as you've got a swapped microfilter into the test socket with the short sky supplied dsl cable and have gotten the same figures, then there's nothing much more you can do. I have come across some of these issues myself, and some of them were seemingly down to poor PSTN service, so make sure your phone line isn't suffering from crackling/static/popping (albeit, I work for sky's non-svbn team, so I didn't follow up whether the customers got it fixed unfortunately, or of course whether the PSTN fault was causing slow speeds).

I'd be really surprised if sky's line checker has an estimate of 8odd meg as they've said for such a low attenuation...

BT Wholesale : ADSL Availibility Checker

Go there and put your telephone number into the checker and reply with the speed estimate btwholesale give (sky have a few systems to estimate speeds and that is incredibly conservative in most cases).

[FFoxSake]

Thanks for the idea - but no joy with telephone number... is that because we pay line rental to sky as well now?
Message was...
"There is no data available for this number. This could be either because it is not a BT line or it is a new BT number that has just been provided. Most new numbers will appear on the checker 24 hours after BT has installed the line."

Tried with postal address and got this...
For Address xxxxx on Exchange HOVE

Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial check on your address indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line rate up to 2Mbps.

Our check also indicates that your line currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 6.5Mbps or greater.

Our check also indicates that your line currently supports a potential ADSL2+ broadband line rate of 9Mbps or greater. Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a potential ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line rate of 750Kbps and downstream line rate of 6.5Mbps.

The actual stable line rate supportable will be determined during the first 10 days of use. This rate may change over time, to ensure line stability is maintained."

[FFoxSake]

Well persevering seems has paid off - I didn't get the promised call back from Sky but i've just checked my router stats and they must have changed something with the setup today, because now i can see a whopping 15 mbps

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 15242 kbps 765 kbps
Line Attenuation 22 db 5.5 db
Noise Margin 7 db 15 db

Not sure if this is stable yet or if it will fluctuate due to any DLM but at least something is happening. I'll update again if things change.

Thanks to everyone here who contributed and hopefully this will encourage others not to give up without a fight :-)

[User05]

I'm baffled as to what sky have done myself, but that's awesome it's sorted.