# Broadband speed not at its full potential



## paddyjnr (4 Sep 2008)

I'm living in a rural area and have only recently been able to get broadband. I am supposed to have a download speed of MB with eircom (DSL) but with when I checked on www.speedtest.net i have noticed that my max download speed is 1.MB at tops. When I rang Eircom they said that it is because of the quality of the line and that's the most I will be getting until it's upgraded. They refused to tell me when or how it's upgraded. Do they mean all the Phone lines have to be replaced (which I can never see happening) or is it an internal thing. Can anybody shed any light on this for me?


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## ClubMan (4 Sep 2008)

*Re: Broadband speed not at it's full potential*

Broadband speed depends on a number of factors including the quality of the line/infrastructure, how far you are from the exchange, contention ratio etc. Even if you are on, say, 3Mbps you will almost certainly not get that rate due to these and other (e.g. protocol overhead) factors. Sounds like your line is simple not capable of anything better than 1(?)mbps.


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## paddyjnr (4 Sep 2008)

*Re: Broadband speed not at it's full potential*



ClubMan said:


> Broadband speed depends on a number of factors including the quality of the line/infrastructure, how far you are from the exchange,


 Thanks Clubman, I am approximately 4km from the local exchange (as the crow flies) which I would not consider excessive. Will it be the case that is all I will have or will it be in Eircom's interest to have it upgraded?


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## ClubMan (4 Sep 2008)

*Re: Broadband speed not at it's full potential*



pat murphy said:


> Will it be the case that is all I will have or will it be in Eircom's interest to have it upgraded?


Haven't _eircom _already told you?! 


pat murphy said:


> When I rang Eircom they said that it is because of the quality of the line and that's the most I will be getting until it's upgraded. They refused to tell me when or how it's upgraded.


Nobody other than _eircom _can tell you if/when your line/exchange or whatever will be upgraded. I'd imagine that rural areas with presumably a low density of subscribers might be down the priority list for upgrades compared to areas with a higher density of subscribers.


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## dieseldave (4 Sep 2008)

Log onto the router homepage 192.168.1.254 (if i remember correctly) and check the line attenuation, the higher the numbers in db the higher the noise on the line generally because of distance, have you filtered all other phone extensions, you have to remember when other people are online at the same time it's slows down like a traffic bottleneck, do you know what your contention rate is? you could try it late at night to see if it's better.


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## paddyjnr (4 Sep 2008)

dieseldave said:


> Log onto the router homepage 192.168.1.254 (if i remember correctly) and check the line attenuation, the higher the numbers in db the higher the noise on the line generally because of distance, have you filtered all other phone extensions, you have to remember when other people are online at the same time it's slows down like a traffic bottleneck, do you know what your contention rate is? you could try it late at night to see if it's better.


 The line attenuation rate is 63/31 dB  I have filtered all extensions. How do I find contention rate, Thanks


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## ClubMan (4 Sep 2008)

The contention ratio is specified in your package terms & conditions. You won't be able to find out the actual contention ratio at any specific point in time as only the _ISP _can do that.


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## paddyjnr (4 Sep 2008)

Thanks Clubman but I'm at a loss as to where to start looking for my package details!!


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## ClubMan (5 Sep 2008)

Your contract terms & conditions. If you don't have a copy then they should be online.


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## dieseldave (6 Sep 2008)

That's fairly high line noise, what i was getting at with the contenion rate was if you were on a package with 48 to 1 , this would mean there is a potential of 48 people using the bandwidth(speed) at the same time, so at peak times it may be slower, another theory might be you've reached your download limit for that month and they're throttling you? (not really sure if this goes on any more)


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## paddyjnr (6 Sep 2008)

Still cant find the contention rate but I do know that I never exceed the my download limit of 30GB, I have noticed that some times the speed is slightly faster at different times. I suppose I just have to be happy with what I have as it's a far cry from the dial up which I've had to endure for so long. Thanks for all your help....


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