[HLUG] Offtopic - How to get faster ADSL speeds

[Julian Robbins]

Mark Broadbent wrote:
> Hi Julian,
>
> There is also another free way of improving the stability of the
> connection.  Simply disconnect the ring wire from the extensions, it
> has no purpose if you don't use old fashioned bell ringing phones.
> Instructions are here:
> http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html#235
>   
Hi Mark

Yes, it did help a bit,another 300kB/s . Mind you I have the type of 
faceplate that it shouldnt make any difference , so .....

Julian


> Thanks
> Mark
>
> 2008/7/31 Julian Robbins <joolsr at fastmail.fm>:
>   
>> 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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>>
>>     
>
>