Broadband Speed Issues?

Last Friday I talked about a new breed of superfast broadband heading our way

, however it would seem that in the current day many users still aren't achieving anywhere near the maximum speeds promised by their ISPs.

Several months back my parents had their Virgin Media line upgraded from a 2Mbps to a 10Mbps connection free of charge, due to the discontinuation of the older package. This week my father mentioned that he hadn't noticed a difference and so I performed a quick speed check which confirmed he was still on the old package; an issue resolved by a single phone call to Virgin.

The same thing happened when Virgin upgraded me to 20Mbps and did not replace my antiquated and rather slow modem. Similarly a quick speed test provided me with the information needed to obtain a new, faster broadband modem free of charge from Virgin.

It is important to check that you are receiving similar to what you're paying for and you can do this by visiting www.speedtest.net. Once here click 'begin test' and within seconds you will be presented with the speed you can currently download and upload between your computer and the closest server wherever that may be.

It is important to remember that the speed your Internet service provider will have quoted is most probably a maximum obtainable speed and you will almost always receive at least a little less than this. This will be evident if you are connected using an ADSL router via a regular phone line as it will be affected noticeably by your distance to the closest exchange. This is not an issue on a fibre optic (Virgin Media) connection.

Even though this cannot be helped, there are many other avenues to explore if your actual speed is substantially less than that promised by your provider:

- Chat to you ISP ' As obvious as it may seem, give them a call! In most cases your provider will run their own tests to check the problem isn't being caused by them (issues like excessive line noise are a common culprit). I have personal experience connections gaining speed massively as the result of a simple phone call due to an inherent problem being removed. As a bonus this work is also paid for by the telephone provider directly. At the very worst, in a case where the optimal speed cannot be increased you would normally get downgraded to a cheaper package.

- Update your router firmware - Most of us nowadays will connect to the Internet via a router which, if not doing its job properly, will result in slower download speeds. Problems with a router can in many instances be rectified by updating it with the latest software via a free firmware update provided by the original manufacturer. These updates are usually distributed free of charge online and serve as a way of the manufacturers improving the features, security and speed of their existing products as and when improvements are discovered.

- PC Spring Cleaning ' In a lot of cases a slow connection can be caused by a large amount of processes running in the background sucking up a large amount of the systems resources or stealing some of your potential bandwidth. By making sure your Operating System is tidy and most importantly if you use peer to peer programs like BitTorrent aren't set to run constantly as they can slow your connection substantially.

by: Chris Holgate

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