Seems that we can’t get enough reports telling us that we don’t have the Broadband speed that we are paying for – what’s new! – or that we don’t have the Broadband speed that we deserve – how long will we have to wait?
With the latest OFCOM survey and report telling us again what we all already know; that we all pay too much for lower speeds than we thought we would get!
The full OFCOM report is here. At this stage, I don’t see that it gives much confidence in us achieving the Digital Britain landscape that the government has been recently talking about.
How can you ensure that you can have a good broadband connection. This is not intended to be a tutorial, but here are some pointers (in no particular order) for making sure you have the best chance of good broadband speeds.
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First check out the various speed tests available here. When the test is running don’t be doing any internet work, it will affect any results.
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Check the physical connections inside your house. make sure that you don’t have extension lead plugged into extension lead etc. to connect your router to the telephone line, it could have some effect. You really want the router plugged directly into the first socket on the line (via the filter).
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Make sure that your filter is in the right place.
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Make sure that your telephone line does not have any noise, clicks, hums on the line, it will have a very bad effect on your speed. If you find you have noise on the line, report it and keep pestering your supplier until it is fixed.
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Never switch off your router, even when you go on holiday. A router left on will gradually build up its speed capability – it works in conjunction with an equivalent box in the exchange that looks at how many routers (it can be in some cases up to 50) it has to deliver its share of broadband services to. If you keep switching off your router; believe me, you’ll be at the bottom of its (the box in the exchange) list of potentially bad connections!
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Check that your router is working correctly, make sure that it is using the latest firmware. A word of warning! Be very careful when updating firmware, my last update of a Netgear router completely stopped the router working! Thank goodness I have a spare router (old but working) while it took me a two days to get the Netgear router working again.
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Take time to understand the technology of what broadband is and why it may not be working properly. Your phone line can be working perfectly for voice calls, but the ADSL service may have dropped off at the exchange. Understand what you need to tell the support agent when you report it. In a lots of cases, you will know more than they do. Don’t accept suggestions that your equipment is at fault when you know it is not! That said, if it’s all working okay, don’t fiddle!
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After all that, check out the various speed tests again here. When the test is running don’t be doing any internet work, it will affect any results.
Hope these pointers help.
Beasley's Place 