[HLUG] Offtopic - How to get faster ADSL speeds

[Morven Lewis-Everley]

If you coiled the wire in any way (in an attempt to save space) that can
also cause increased resistance in the wire, wich reduces the strength of
the signal.

I remember when I installed my surround sound system a few years ago, I
completley lost all internet... Turns out I placed the sub-woofer right next
to the ethernet cable (oops). The lesson that can be learned from this is
try to also keep networking cables away from magnets (esspecially powerful
eltro ones).

Mo


On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 11:39 PM, Julian Robbins <joolsr at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Hi
>
> These days with faster internet, and ADSL for much of the county (not all
> though), the times of 56k modems seem a long way off.
>
> But, living where I do, 3 miles from the exchange, I get at most 3.1 MB/s
> out of mt 8MB/s ADSL Max.
>
> Recently, I noticed this had dropped to only about 1.5 - 1.6 MB/s and
> couldn't work out why.
>
> But then, I started working it out. Quite recently, I had to neatly bundle
> the modem cable together with the other nearby cables to to avoid a trip
> hazard, (My wife is becoming a child minder, so we have to be careful ...).
>
> I remembered that when my ADSL worked best, the cable was just lying loose.
>
> So this time, I unbundled the wiring ties, and bingo, the speed shot up to
> 2.7 MB/s , much better.
>
> The reason this worked better is i believe that having the modem cable
> tightly bundled in with other power cables increased the crosstalk and
> introduces mains hum from the other cables. This degrades the Signal to
> Noise Ratio on the ADSL line, and thus slows down the speed that the modem
> negotiation reaches.
>
> By testing the highest reported connection speed on the modem, I could test
> exactly where it was best to have the modem. As you may expect, about 6
> inches away from any other live cable is best.
>
> Interestingly, I tried the modem direct into the BT Master socket instead.
> Since the line is a bit shorter, from where I normally have it you'd expect
> better speed again ? Well, i would, but instead it plummeted it to only
> about 0.85MB/s ! Wow, what happened ? I run each test a few times to make
> sure its accurate. We have a suspected quiet phone problem anyway, so I
> think the socket is dodgy, I can't think what else it could be.
>
> Either way, this shows the difference that your phone wiring can make with
> ADSL speeds, anywhere from 0.8 MB/s to 3MB/s for me. The theoretical max 3
> miles from the exchange according to BT's website is about 3MB/s so i'm
> quite pleased with what i get anyway.
>
> So, have a go at rearranging or shortening your modem cables, and move them
> out of the way of mains cables and see what happens .....
>
> BTW I have a few Ubuntu 8.04, OpenSUSE 11, and Fedora 9 CD's in nice cases
> that I picked up from the LUGRadioLive event if anyone wants one .....
>
> Julian
>
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