Regrading - what does it mean?

[moob]

Had some significant problems of late, with the old router rebooting carry on. Anyhoo, to try and keep a long story short, Sky have taken me down from 15.5Mb synch, to 12.5Mb, now 8Mb.

I reported problems with a very slow connection, especially now at 8Mb - like when I'm downloading, internet browsing is almost unusable.

The 'solution' to this was for Sky to 'run tests' on my line, which they have done for some 22 hours, and now they tell me they've 'regraded my line' which was 100% successful, according to tech support.

I've just run this speedtest below, which shows there has been no improvement, as previous tests were similar.

Namesco BroadbandMax Bandwidth speedtest | Test your ADSL connection speed

Detailed line stats below:

/usr/sbin/adslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime Channel: INTR, Upstream rate = 480 Kbps, Downstream rate = 8096 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: G.DMT
Channel: Interleave
Trellis: ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 12.7 14.0
Attn(dB): 30.0 20.0
Pwr(dBm): 19.8 1.0
Max(Kbps): 10080 1248
Rate (Kbps): 8096 480
G.dmt framing
K: 254(0) 16
R: 12 16
S: 1 8
D: 64 8
ADSL2 framing
MSGc: 1 1
B: 241 20
M: 1 8
T: 1 1
R: 14 16
S: 1.0578 8.7619
L: 1936 168
D: 64 8
Counters
SF: 5082791 5082789
SFErr: 7 0
RS: 691259650 43203706
RSCorr: 1078 84
RSUnCorr: 91 0

HEC: 5 0
OCD: 0 0
LCD: 0 0
Total Cells: 1649900239 0
Data Cells: 29132169 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 17 0
SES: 3 0
UAS: 92 0
Total time = 1 days 18 hours 58 min 33 sec
SF = 24339349
CRC = 442
LOS = 3
LOF = 0
ES = 17
Latest 1 day time = 18 hours 58 min 33 sec
SF = 4018420
CRC = 5
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 3
Latest 15 minutes time = 13 min 33 sec
SF = 47873
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52930
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 0
Previous 1 day time = 24 hours 0 sec
SF = 5079968
CRC = 149
LOS = 1
LOF = 0
ES = 9
15 minutes interval [-30 min to -15 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52930
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 0
15 minutes interval [-45 min to -30 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52931
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 0
15 minutes interval [-60 min to -45 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF = 52930
CRC = 2
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES = 1

[James67]

They mean that they've changed your line from ADSL2+ (which, with Sky, gives up to 16Mbit/sec) to ADSL1 (8Mbit/sec maximum).

Over a period of nearly two days, you've got very few errors on your line, in fact I'd regard that connection as excellent. That suggests that the speed problem as actually between your router and your PC.

Are you using wireless networking or wired? If you're using wireless, try using a wired connection. If that improves things, then it would suggest a wireless networking issue.

Are you using Windows XP? If so, I'd recommend using some kind of TCP optimiser program to tweak your Windows networking settings. On XP, the default settings seem more suitable for a dial-up Internet connection than a broadband one (perhaps not surprising given that XP is six years old).

[moob]

Hi James,

Thanks for replying again.

I'm on Win XP and wireless - will look into a TCP Optimiser but I'm sure I've already used this utility before. Will check it out anyway.

OK, just used that program, my max connection was set to 2000kpbs, so I upped that to 8000kbps and applied the changes, rebooted. Speedtests are comparable unfortunately.

[dholdi]

As James says - try it wired to see if that improves things

[moob]

Will do dholdi - got a laptop and will plug it into the test socket later on.

[James67]

Eh? You can plug the laptop into one of the four yellow Ethernet ports on the router. Or you can plug the router into the test socket inside the telephone master socket box. But you can't plug the laptop into the test socket. (Or if you can, it'll be using an old-style dial-up connection).

[moob]

Eh? You can plug the laptop into one of the four yellow Ethernet ports on the router. Or you can plug the router into the test socket inside the telephone master socket box. But you can't plug the laptop into the test socket. (Or if you can, it'll be using an old-style dial-up connection).

Oops, realised I'd made that faux pas, but forgot to correct.

Honest, I ain't that dumb.

[moob]

Well, I just plugged in the laptop and got a whopping 10800Kbps via the ethernet cable (had another conversation with Sky and my line now synchs at 12.5Mb)

So, clearly, the problem is on my wireless connection.

I took the ethernet cable out and did the same speedtest wirelessly, and got around 4Mb - sitting right next to the router.

Are there specific settings on both my desktop and laptop that I need to change, or merely use TCP Optimiser?

Or is it possible that my router has a problem with wireless connections?

[James67]

Some time ago, I did a series of test on my router, transfering a file between two computers, one connected to the Sky router via Ethernet, the other connected wirelessly - so this was a test of just the wireless networking speed, not the broadband speed. The wireless PC was about 3 metres from the router, with a clear line-of-sight, i.e., no walls or ceilings in between.

I checked each of the 13 wireless channels, and the best I got was 16Mbit/sec and the worst was barely more than 2Mbit/sec. In every case, the wireless PC was reporting an excellent wireless signal at 56Mbit/sec.

So try changing channels, you might be able to find a channel that works a little bit faster, but the truth is that wireless networking just doesn't work very.

[moob]

Weird - just got the following on my desktop 2 floors up via wireless connection: