Classicamiga Forum Retro Edition
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Thread: Increase your broadband speed
Harrison 12:50 14th March 2012
I've been having some strange issues with my broadband connection with it suddenly dropping the connection, then reconnecting instantly. Not a huge issue when browsing, but in an online game it kicks me out of the server, and it also could be an issue if performing a server update when the connection drops.

Anyway, that isn't what I wanted to say. Whilst investigating this issue online I came across loads of posts and sites talking about removing the bell wire (ring wire) from the house's master socket as it is no longer used by modern phones and can cause extra interference on the line and interfere with broadband speeds. Now where I love the broadband speed isn't great at the best of times. On my line I average 2-3Mbits so any speed increase is good.

So I decided to try removing the bell wire (ring wire) from the BT Master Switch, to see if there was any truth in what I was reading on many sites about it reduce line noise and increasing bandwidth. After rebooted the router my download speed has almost doubled! It was running at only 2672Kb/s (2.61Mb/s) when I tested it this morning just before I removed the wire, and is now running at 4567Kb/s (4.46Mb/s). Not ground breaking speeds by many peoples connections these days (especially those in cities or other countries), but a good speed increase for me, and I can instantly feel the speed increase when browsing websites, let alone downloading anything!

So if any of you have a BT master switch I highly recommend you try this. The master switch will be your main phone socket and it should be split with the bottom half removable with 2 screws. Unscrew it and you should see 4 wires connected to it. You want to remove the Orange/White wire which is connected to pin 3. Don't cut the wire, but remove it by teasing it out because if you ever sell your house or have a BT engineer visiting you should reconnect it.
[Reply]
Stephen Coates 07:45 15th March 2012
I did this a couple of years ago, and it didn't make any difference to my connection, but I was only on the old fashioned fixed speed 2mbps type of connection then.

Maybe it would differ now I am on ADSL2+. I suppose I could always reconnect it to see what it does.
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StuKeith 14:34 2nd November 2012
May have to try this! Just moved into a shared house with skyBB. When the other guy is playing world of tanks its slow to dl anything and ping goes hi as well.
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Harrison 15:33 2nd November 2012
Nice to see you around Stu. Hope things are getting back on track for you?

Sounds more like the game is saturating the network. On quite a few routers you can throttle certain IPs, so if you could find the range World of Tanks uses (BTW great game) then you could restrict the game's usage to something like 1Mbit which should be plenty for playing. Although with the ping going high and the download speed slowing right down it sounds more like the upload speed is being saturated as this will stall the download speed. So try to find a way to throttle the upload bandwidth he is using.
[Reply]
DonAmiga 16:04 3rd November 2012
I opened mine up to find I only have 2 wires A & B I think no bell wire. I have my line straight into the test socket but only get 1.5 at the best of time, no infinity either in my area
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Stephen Coates 18:35 3rd November 2012
My DSL has got a bit slower recently and keeps disconnecting.

There is some kind of fault on the line. It seems to be connected to someone else's telephone line in some way. When I pick the telephone up, my dial tone starts, and I can hear some old lady's call. They can obviously hear my dial tone as they keep moaning about it when I pick the phone up.

When I dial 1471 I get both my last call and their last call simultaneously.

Judging by listening to their calls, they thought this 'dial tone' issue was down to a fault with their telephone set . I suppose I shouldn't be listening in, but I'm too nosy .

The line was really noisy a week or so ago, so I wonder if they may have connected something up wrong at the exchange.
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Kin Hell 18:19 4th November 2012
My 42Mb Fibre is absolute utter sh*te for playing games on. Worse than ADSL ever was when it was at it's worst. ....must update Sig ffs.....
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Harrison 00:58 5th November 2012
Sarcasm or you are having real issues with it?

Pretty lucky to be located someone with fibre rollout though! I think Chichester is going to be the last place in the UK to ever see it... our exchange is still not upgraded to proper adsl2+ yet! I get a maximum of 6Mbits.
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Kin Hell 13:38 6th November 2012
Real issues, but the higher frequency @ which VDSL works, now borks gaming further still. BT Infinity2 is now only connecting @ 42Mb down & 13Mb up over 52Mb & 13Mb. Adding insult to injury, I now get 30ms pings to Google.co.uk on 700m of copper wire, when ADSL MAX (8Mb) gave me 15ms pings over 3.1Km of copper wire.

Game severs that use to give me 5-1 Kill Death ratio on ADSL that was never right, now return a 1 for 1 Kill death ratio, and some deathmatch results mean I die more times than I get kills

Summat is beyond seriously F'kd & BT will not listen to me about Downstream & Upstream noise Margins being slaughtered to this address over several years. BT are of the opinion that a LOWER noise margin is better than a HIGHER one. They have obviously been trained @ the Skule for Blind Telecoms Engineers.

Only days ago, I couldn't stream 1080P video off you tube in the evenings. 99k/sec off nVidia & Micro$0ft with a 42Mb connection that normally thows me 5Mb/sec from those sites. Too laughable to believe.
[Reply]
Harrison 23:46 6th November 2012
Sounds like a lack of resources at your local exchange. That is the thing. You can have the fastest connection in the world between your house and the exchange, but it is the connection from the exchange to the internet that is the real connection.
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