I recently had a few problems with my home broadband connection, provided by Demon Internet. Working with Demon to resolve these, I learnt some useful stuff applicable to anyone whose underlying connection uses BT’s ADSL Max service.
Many British ADSL providers use this BT Wholesale service to connect their customers to their own network. The exceptions are those who have taken advantage of the local loop unbundling (LLU) concept to place their own equipment in BT’s exchanges.
If your service is based on BT ADSL Max, you can check your connection speed by using BT’S SpeedTester service at www.speedtester.bt.com. The tester will ask for the phone number on which your ADSL line is based and for your ADSL login name.
Numerous internet speed testing websites are available. For services based on ADSL Max, the BT tester provides one crucial piece of information you won’t find anywhere else: your IP Profile. This figure has a direct impact on your speed of access.
If you know how to login to your router, you might find – as I do, usually – that you have a downstream connection speed of about 5Mbps, in line with the “up to 8Mbps” guideline for this type of service. However, sometimes the IP Profile is much lower.
The IP Profile is essentially the highest speed at which the BT network management systems will let you download data. If you’ve been experiencing connection problems and have temporarily connected at a lower speed, your IP Profile drops accordingly.
However, when you manage to reconnect at a higher speed, the IP Profile does not automatically rise again. It can sometimes take several days to regain a higher profile, during which time your apparently fast connection feels much slower.
Here’s an example of the test results for me at the moment, when everything has been running fine for a couple of weeks:
Your DSL connection rate: 5728 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 5000 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 3077 kbps
Compare that with the following results from a few weeks previously, when my connection speed was slightly lower, but my IP Profile had dropped considerably:
Your DSL connection rate: 4544 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 350 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 296 kbps
Demon indicated that certain information needs to be provided in order for a persuasive case to be made to BT to get a fault investigated, otherwise the fault report is liable to be rejected. Specifically, evidence of instability and slow speed.
Instability means line drops and reconnects. Your ISP can usually provide this information itself. Slow speed means poor performance and three separate sets of BT SpeedTester results (spaced more than three hours apart) are the best evidence.
If you can also provide evidence of having used two completely different routers to reproduce the fault, this is useful. Typically most people don’t have a spare router though, and with retail prices of around £50 this is fairly understandable.
ADSL fault reporting in the UK
I recently had a few problems with my home broadband connection, provided by Demon Internet. Working with Demon to resolve these, I learnt some useful stuff applicable to anyone whose underlying connection uses BT’s ADSL Max service.
Many British ADSL providers use this BT Wholesale service to connect their customers to their own network. The exceptions are those who have taken advantage of the local loop unbundling (LLU) concept to place their own equipment in BT’s exchanges.
If your service is based on BT ADSL Max, you can check your connection speed by using BT’S SpeedTester service at www.speedtester.bt.com. The tester will ask for the phone number on which your ADSL line is based and for your ADSL login name.
Numerous internet speed testing websites are available. For services based on ADSL Max, the BT tester provides one crucial piece of information you won’t find anywhere else: your IP Profile. This figure has a direct impact on your speed of access.
If you know how to login to your router, you might find – as I do, usually – that you have a downstream connection speed of about 5Mbps, in line with the “up to 8Mbps” guideline for this type of service. However, sometimes the IP Profile is much lower.
The IP Profile is essentially the highest speed at which the BT network management systems will let you download data. If you’ve been experiencing connection problems and have temporarily connected at a lower speed, your IP Profile drops accordingly.
However, when you manage to reconnect at a higher speed, the IP Profile does not automatically rise again. It can sometimes take several days to regain a higher profile, during which time your apparently fast connection feels much slower.
Here’s an example of the test results for me at the moment, when everything has been running fine for a couple of weeks:
Compare that with the following results from a few weeks previously, when my connection speed was slightly lower, but my IP Profile had dropped considerably:
Demon indicated that certain information needs to be provided in order for a persuasive case to be made to BT to get a fault investigated, otherwise the fault report is liable to be rejected. Specifically, evidence of instability and slow speed.
Instability means line drops and reconnects. Your ISP can usually provide this information itself. Slow speed means poor performance and three separate sets of BT SpeedTester results (spaced more than three hours apart) are the best evidence.
If you can also provide evidence of having used two completely different routers to reproduce the fault, this is useful. Typically most people don’t have a spare router though, and with retail prices of around £50 this is fairly understandable.