[HLUG] Offtopic - How to get faster ADSL speeds

[dusty]

Julian Robbins 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
>
Hey Julian,

I would be interested in a cd of each (Ubuntu, OpenSuSE and Fedora) if
you still have them going?

Kind Regards,

Dusty.