Sky & Noise Margin. Help Greatly Appreciated.

[djdclarke]

Hi! We've recently moved house and have since got a new line once again from Sky (previously used them in my old flat and was very happy). The DLM has now completed and the line has been capped at 2mb which is about half of what other residents in the building get when it comes to other ISPs. I understand the Noise Margin on Sky DLM is set to be around 7db and as such won't go any faster if it can't get 7db which I spose makes sense, what doesn't make sense however is my small tad bits of research.

The Sky Router that was provided to us was the Sagem black ones and that provided 6.7db Noise Margin at this point of time. I then decided to try and use a Netgear DG834G that I had about (at this point I'd like to stress I know using non-official routers isn't supported and will be returning to the other router) and once again viewed the noise ratio - it's nice and stable at 11db. What could be causing such a massive difference in noise ratio between the two routers, and is there anything I could do to get my speed up even with the Sagem reporting poor noise ratios?


Netgear DG834G Router

Connection Speed 2048 kbps 608 kbps
Line Attenuation 53 db 15.5 db
Noise Margin 10 db 15 db

Sagem Sky Router

Connection Speed 2048 kbps 608 kbps
Line Attenuation 55 db 16 db
Noise Margin 7.2 db 13 db

Thanks, and Hi!

[Exdee]

Different chipsets will give you different noise margins.

You can ring Sky with your Netgear router plugged in and ask them to bump the speed up a little.

[djdclarke]

As much as I'd love to do this I'm pretty sure Sky would just respond with a complaint I'm not using an official Sky Router, as in they'd be able to tell wouldn't they?

[Exdee]

Chances are they wont find out until you tell them. Just tell them you made improvements to your wiring and was wandering if you could get more speed.

However make sure you lay emphasis on the fact that you want to stay on G.DMT. Don't let them switch it to ADSL2+.

[Isitme]

Have you checked your stats in the Test socket?
How to test your ADSL in the Master Test Socket

If you don't have a test socket unplug everything you have plugged into the phone line and plug the router only into the Master socket and take your stats.