Real DSL speeds.

[Felix The Assassin]

Fellow IWs, I ask of thee to post your real (Felt) DSL speeds.

My phone/DSL provider (of all people) called with a concern that we were not getting a full product for the price. We have unlimited DSL 750k service. The tech did a couple quick checks, pinged all three machines, the modem and the router. Thought there might be an issue as they (yes we know) had recently bundled all of their new lines in our area and wanted to further test. Yes, ok. So two days later, here rolls up a marked Alltel truck and the lineman commences to do his thing. A tech calls and away we go doing a line test. The results leave me both furios and concerned.

Furious as the linesman was getting 735K at the line/box (on outside of garage wall), and we are pulling 335K in the house.

Concerned, as this is not the first issue with this house????

They will not touch from the box to the walls without an entrage of limitations. While doing reserach and checking with others, it appears there is one commanality, The Builder. Everybody who has our builder has had some type of issue with wiring, A/C / Heater, phone/DSl, and flooring. (Hearsay) The phone wiring was perforemd by a high school kid (no biggy) who skipped school (biggy) to run the wiring in three houses that day. The builder will not acknowledge nor deny this information. However, we are pressuring him to either fix it, or let Alltel techs fix it (at his cost).

Anyhow, if you guys would/could/dont' mind, post your high speed numbers from your favorite internet speed tester.
Our MSN-CNET numbers, http://tech.msn.com/products/speedtest.aspx
run around 335-375K.

And (Real) download numbers here:
3.19Mb file @ 38 seconds, averaging 68Kb/s, from your favorite download site (Two-Cows, or Download.c)

Peace,
Felix

[ocellis]

I get 1015.9 Kbps, but i was listening to webradio while i took the test (Netherlands vs. Portugal ). Seems about right to me.

[robertthebard]

3264 kbps on cable. No web radio, and it didn't recommend anything faster except for T3 lines.

[Sir Goulum]

2720 kbps for my cable connection here.

[Seraph]

Do you have filters on all your telephones and anything else that plugs into the phone becides the DSL modem?

[ 06-25-2006, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: Seraph ]

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally posted by Seraph: Do you have filters on all your telephones and anything else that plugs into the phone becides the DSL modem?

Good point of interest, yes the phone/fax is filtered.

[Zebodog]

4020 Kbps.

I would certainly suspect sub-standard wiring. DSL requires absolutely no line noise to operate at peak effeciency. If the contractor stripped so much as an extra 1mm of insulation from the wiring, it would be enough to cause problems.

[ 06-25-2006, 10:10 PM: Message edited by: Zebodog ]

[Bungleau]

3784kbps on Comcast cable.

One of the things that may be an issue is cross-pollination. I know there's a more technical word for it (like interference), but if your phone lines are running parallel to electrical wires and are within 8 inches, the electrical wires will generate interference and slow down your speeds. You might take a look for that... I did the computer wiring in the basement home office here, and I did it twice to make sure I got it right

'Cause I never make mistakes, oh, no sir...

BTW, is there also a filter right at the phone box in the house? 'Cause there should be, IIRC.

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally posted by Bungleau: BTW, is there also a filter right at the phone box in the house? 'Cause there should be, IIRC.

I'm not tracking here B. The phone box; It's mounted on the outside of the garage, this is where the hard line ends and the standard house line takes over. The box is weather proof, and locked by Alltel. The wires feed from the hard line onto a circuit board, and transfer to the house line. There is no filter inside the box, nor is there one visible, but it could be inside the wall where the wire runs through.

To add to what Zebo posted, the phone line and the electrical main are mounted side by side on the outbound wall. I'm sure where the coax cable, Direc TV coax, the phone lines, and the electrical circuit box converge, is all well under 8 inches, more like 3 1/2" side by side through the exterior wall. Where they go from there is probably through the same route to each location.

Tanks for the info.

[Bungleau]

I'm talking about at that box, but on the inside of the house (past the demarcation point, or demarc).

One interesting FAQ here: You may be able to install a DSL-only line that eliminates all interference from other POTS equipment. They also list a couple of checks that you can do to see if it's coming from other equipment... that should be worth a try, and it's pretty easy.

Another nice link includes the question "how can my dsl line be good up to the house yet bad on the inside?"... sound familiar?


A quick search here shows that just turning the DSL modem off, waiting 5-10, and turning it back on can clean things up. I suspect your tech already tried that, though It lists a few other things as well.

As for where those lines are... they're way too damn close. In my house here (from a different builder than you, thank god), they're about 10 feet apart.

If everything's that tight, then you may be toast, and may the builder be the guest of honor at the next bonfire... You might try having the phones re-wired in the house... if he had a high school kid skip school to do it, odds are pretty good he didn't spend a lot of money on Cat-3 wire for the phone. You've probably got cheap telephone wire, and it's got little to no hope of protecting against that interference.

I'd push for having the builder pay Alltel to rewire everything properly. I would *NOT* let the builder handle it through whoever he wants... it'll probably just be some other kid from high school (since they're on vacation now). Insist it be either Alltel or a certified electrician that you approve of, and insist it be wired properly to all outlets in the house.

He made a pretty penny off of that house already... he can put a little back in to do it right.

Good luck.