Hi and welcome to SAYNOTO0870.COM.
rod2409 wrote on Feb 17
th, 2010 at 9:59am:
During my conversation with Sky (went through the main switchboard number - thanks guys) to confirm my usage and had to accept that we are now doubling our 10Gb download capacity. We now have unlimited downloads and a speed of up to 20Mbs - wow!
Stop, stop, stop! Are you called 020 7705 3000 and they put you through to customer services when requested? If so, then this may be a change in Sky's policy, as previously I understand that they wouldn't do this, and instead give out the 0844 number.
rod2409 wrote on Feb 17
th, 2010 at 9:59am:
The reason that I couldn't get that speed was because of noise on the line. He booked a BT engineer to check the line out.
Had BT knocking on my door on Monday after I had insisted that the exchange was checked first. The engineer said that he had been told by Sky that my line was 'dropping'. He checked my line and said he was happy that it had a level of around 7db - much better than needed. He said that the degradation from the exchange was around the 2Mps that he's expect and there was nothing wrong.
I queried what he had said as Sky who are 150 miles away from the exchange say that there is 20Mps there. The BT engineer confirmed that it was only 7Mps and that to be on more than 8Mps it would need to be an ADSL2+ line and it wasn't.
On the subject of your speed of your line, your modem/router will have a statistics page that will tell you the speed of your connection between you and your local exchange. That is the speed at which data is carried from your exchange to you (along your line).
Speed test websites such as
Speedtest.net tell you the speed of data from them to you, which involves many different links, any one of which may act as a bottleneck, and hence influence the result.
You should do you all you can to reduce the noise picked up in your own wiring which will be acting to slow down your maximum attainable line speed. If you have extensions running from your master socket, then there are probably things you can do.
Where extension(s) are hard wired to the master socket, the bell wire(s) on terminal 3 should be removed from the rear of the master socket's faceplate,
or a
BT IPlate should be installed. If you use extension phone leads that plug in, then there may be other things you can do, as their own bell wires will probably pick up noise.
As for the service from Sky, by the sound of it your service should be ADSL2+. Do you pay your line rental to Sky? Do you know whether it is a LLU service?