I'll sleep on it. Many thanks again for all your help (not forgetting Opti) Goodnight.

Just as a matter of interest, my home line rental and broadband is now completely with TalkTalk as my exchange has been unbundled. If I were to move my master socket, who do I have to feel irresponsible to? :-)

PC World taking pre orders for Windows 7, home version 50, prof 100. States its a 50% reduction on RRP

Mrs Calcutta telephoned to see if I'm happy after the BT engineer's visit. I told her I was now getting 1.2 down and she said the line had been set at 1.7 However, she said she would set my "rastro" (couldn't quite make that out) profile at 2.5 so that I could get over 2meg. What's she talking about, please Kayak? I promised her a big hug if it worked but she didn't seem impressed'

Jeff - Amazon have cheaper time-limited offer.

I don't think they do hugs in Calcutta...

There is always confusion about three different numbers. The physical line speed is the one at which your router is physically connecting to the exchange. You can get this from the router statistics pages. It is a number you should know and you really can't make sense of Mrs Calcutta unless you do. That together with the "attenuation" and "noise margin" show how welll your line is performing.

The second number is the data throughput. This can never be higher than the line speed, for obvious reasons. That is what you are measuring with speed tests and it is dependent not only on the physical line speed but on the performance of the ISP's network.

However, because of the way the IP (Internet Protocol) works, the ISP network needs to know how fast your line is physically. Otherwise, it will pump a lot of data through its network which will be thrown away at your end because it can't get down your slow line and it will have to be retransmitted from the other end causing a lot of additional load on the network. Unfortunately the physical line speed is not easily available at the IP level and so the third number, an 'IP profile' is used which is lower than the line speed you normally connect at and gives the ISP an indication of how much data it can pump down the line.

So translating, I think your conversation boiled down to you telling her that you were getting 1.2 (throughput) in a speed test, whereupon she said that the IP profile (maximum throughput) had been set to 1.7. She would set your IP profile to 2.5 so that you might see over 2 in a speed test. One can't really check whether all this makes sense without knowing your physical connection speed and attenuation/noise margin.

Rastro could have been RADSL (rate adaptive DSL). Are you on a 2 meg max service?

Looks like I'll have to hop on a plane and give Mrs C her hug. She did as promised: 2meg plus this morning.

Figures from the huib show (down/up)Noise margin 9.6dB/18.0dB
Line attenuation 59dB/31.5
Output power 18.6dBm/12.1
ADSL line status connection information: Down 2656 kbps/Up448

Service is "up to 8meg" LOL

On reflection, Mrs C will have to wait. Off on hols tomorrow.

Looks like a good result. At 59db your line to the exchange is either very long or of bad quality. You're pretty lucky to get 2656kbps. A better quality filter might help (e.g. the ADSLnation one, either the XF-1e or the faceplate previously discussed). ADSL2 might give you a bit more speed.

Kayak - 2300m from the exchange. I'm happy with what's being delivered if it's maintained. So I'll leave well alone for now. Many thanks again for your interest, guidance and general help.

had an upgrade,

and the result is WOW

7/16/2009 1:08 PM GMT 47.57 Mb/s 1.65 Mb/s 28 ms London

Just checked mine (Zen Internet)

Down: 2656 Kbs Att: 61db noise 7db
Up: 448 Kbs Att: Att: 15.5 db noise 15 db

Guess I'm lucky too. I doubt if changing the filter (or the oil ;-) would make much difference, but I might invest in one of those fancy filters anyway.

FWIW, Virgin cutting their 50MB service to 28/month from September (+11 for phone line)

I've fitted a new ADSL filter from ADSLnation as recommended by Kayak.

Comparative results (this morning - speeds are always a bit variable):

Before:

Down: 2626 Kbs Att: 61db noise margin 7db
Up: 448 Kbs Att: Att: 15.5 db noise margin 15 db

After:

Down: 2626 Kbs Att: 60db noise margin 9db
Up: 448 Kbs Att: Att: 15 db noise margin 15.5 db

The significant thing is the notable improvement in the downlink noise margin which has reached the next standard threshold of 9db.

Not a huge improvement. You might get a better improvement by removing the ring wire, either by disconnecting it inside all master and extension sockets through the house, or by fitting an iPlate. Always assuming you have extensions of course.

Expected maximum ADSL/ADSL2+ connection speed

This is a dedicated lline with a single master socket (I have a separate voice line, but the prognosis for ADSL on that is poorer than this one.). Only things connected are ADSL and a FAX machine (HP OfficeJst Pro), so I doubt there's much to be done. The distance to the exchange is the problem, of course.

When I use the built in Voda 3G in my ThinkPad I get 7.2Mbps on HSDPA as Messrs Vodafone thoughtfully built a nice big macrocell nearby. I use it to barbecue burgers on nice days too.

You guys probably already knew this but it came as new to me when I came across it but will I share it anyway.

I wanted to rename a large number of picture files with a new tag and sequentially numbered. Here is a way to do it using just windows.
Highlight a bunch of files that you wish to sequentially number
Right-Click and scrolling down to the "Rename" function
First; type the desired file name: e.g. test
Second; followed by the INITIAL desired number in PARENTHESIS: e.g. (1) or (20) or (300), etc
Third; finish renaming file with a dot and the 3-letter file extension: e.g. ".jpg"
Then press the Enter key
The highlighted files will now be sequentially named, as follows:
test(1).jpg
test(2).jpg
test(3).jpg
etc.
NOTE1: All files must be of the same (extension) type or it will number each file type from the original number start.

Neat eh what?

M

You may or may not remember this:

zzaxx99 - 24 Jun 2009 10:20 - 8163 of 8276
Anyone have any bright ideas how I can tell whether my router's WiFi is dying or whether I'm suffering from interference from the (large number of) neighbours with WiFi?

symptoms are that I cna usually see a high-strength signal from the router, but can't connect (doesn't authenticate). This has happened over the last couple of days.

Scanning the area shows up to 10 visible WiFi networks at any one time.

I've just found out the cause, and thought I'd share it in case anyone else gets similar.

To recap - my config is a Virgin cable modem, with a WiFi router/gigabit switch attached; the router is configured as a DHCP server, allocating addresses in the 192.168.x.x range

Wired connections have been working fine, but wireless either wouldn't connect at all, or would connect very unreliably.

I've been puzzling over this for weeks, but finally got the clue to the problem when I saw that my laptop eventually connected, but was allocated and address outside the non-routing 192.168 range, which meant that it was getting a routable address from somewhere beyond the router - probably the modem.

Rebooted the model, then the router, and suddenly wireless is working perfectly

zz: not sure how your wireless laptop would get an IP address from anywhere other than the WiFi router -- surely more likely it was attaching to a neighbour's WiFi router? Or have I misunderstood?

The laptop was probably giving itself an address beginning 169.x.x.x, which is what Windows does when it can't find a working DHCP server. Rebooting everything fixed whatever was stopping communication between the laptop and the router.

If there is any doubt as to where the IP address is being obtained from, you can verify this by 'ipconfig /all'.