Comments for Maldon IT

Comment on BT Modem Makes Computer Slow by will

will — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:47:44 +0000

6995 is about the maximum download speed you’ll get from an 8Mbps ADSL connection. The rest of the bits are taken up by protocol overheads – i.e., the various bits and bytes that have to be sent between the two ends of a network connection to make things work properly.

I don’t know anything about BT offering those faster speeds – but they look like ADSL2 speeds to me, which will probably mean upgrading to a new (no doubt more expensive) account with them, and probably getting a new modem.

I use Virgin and they did increase the speed of my connection not long ago (although not nearly as high as 15-24Mbps). I’m about the same distance from the exchange as you and i get download speeds a bit faster than yours. Doing actual downloads, rather than testing with speedtest, i get a maximum of about 1000kBps (kilobytes per second) – which is equivalent to probably about 9Mbps. I haven’t checked it with speedtest.net recently.

Comment on BT Modem Makes Computer Slow by jaime

jaime — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:17:31 +0000

Hello, I am with bt and my conection has been behaving it´s self for quite a long time now,on the hub it is at 8.095mb download and on speedtest.net it is going up to 6995 so at a guess it is most k¡likely at 6mb,i am near st peters hospital so quite near the exchange,I wanted to ask a question if anyone knows the answer, i have heard that soon we should be getting around 15 to 24mb here in maldon.
Does anyone know if that is true,and when is it going to happen?.
thanks for your time.
jaime

Comment on BT Modem Makes Computer Slow by will

will — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:37:18 +0000

Speed tests vary with lots of factors that aren't related to your actual connection speed. The most accurate one i've found is http://speedtest.net. There are three factors involved in broadband speed. Firstly, the speed of the line between you and the exchange. Secondly, the speed of the connection from the exchange to the ISP's routers. And, thirdly, the speed of the connection to the rest of the internet from your ISP. When you're trying to work something like this out, the best way to start is to look at the line speed. Your modem should be able to tell you this. It should give a "down" speed and an "up" speed. The "up" speed should always be lower than the "down" speed. This line speed should be reasonable - and should always stay the same. If the line speed goes down, it means there's a problem with your phone line that needs to be fixed by a telecom engineer. You can't test the other two factors directly, but you can get an idea of what's happening by using a program called "mtr". This is a Linux program that's now available for Windows. The Windows version is at http://winmtr.sourceforge.net. It may take a while to work out what it all means, but basically it will show each stage in the journey a connection takes from your computer to some other system on the internet - which may give you an idea of where the bottlenecks are. Even if your line to the local exchange is working perfectly, chances are your ISP's network connections are too small and they're overloaded. Personally, i wouldn't touch AOL with a bargepole!

Comment on BT Modem Makes Computer Slow by Paul Clarke

Paul Clarke — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:07:38 +0000

Interesting comments – that I see have been posted today. I also live in Maldon (or Heybridge to be more precise) and this evening have found my broadband connection to be painfully slow. I normally get a speed of around 0.5mb on my AOL connection and, having just run a speed check (before deciding if I should thrown the laptop out the window) found that I was only getting 0.07mb. I’m too far from the exchange to get another quicker and I do normally get around 0.5mb speed but tonight is another matter.

Think there might be problems at the exchange as a week ago, couldn’t get a connection at all.