Improving broadband speed with BT

If you are not one of the lucky ones to have received a recent cost-free upgrade from BT to 20MBit/s ADSL, and your broadband speed is less than good, here are some steps to diagnose the problems.

First we'll check the actual line speed.

Go to http://bthomehub/ or maybe http://bthomehub.home/ - note: no "www" or "com" in there. If you get a status page then you are looking at the modem/router (BT Home Hub). It should give some stats like these:

My broadband connection
Your broadband line is connected. Broadband connection details: Downstream 15,323 Kbps Upstream 888 Kbps Connection time 3 days, 22:58:21 Data transmitted 166.57 MB Data received 3.21 GB

It's the Upstream an Downstream values which you need to record somewhere. The values should be at least 2,000 Kbps Downstream ("2 Meg") and at least 200Kbps Downstream for a basic broadband service (these speeds will soon be mandatory).

If your speeds are less than or close to these values, you can try some of these steps:

1. Get a BT Broadband Accelerator - basically a better microfilter.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/ consumerProducts/displayTopic.do? topicId=25075&s_cid=btb_FURL_accelerator

Go here, and select "Yes" in response to "Do you have more than one working phone socket in your home?" Then choose the socket which matches your "master socket" - hopefully it's like #4. Sockets #1-#3 do not work with the Accelerator. Then you pay the P&P and BT deliver it - no other charges.

Installation should be simple. Do this first (or else establish that your socket is incompatible), and then (if the speed does not increase) try option 2 below.

2. Run the BT speed test wizard: http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/enduser/cci/bt_adp.php? p_sid=&cat_lvl1=346&cat_lvl2=401&cat_lvl3=407&cat_lvl4=753 &p_cv=4.753&p_cats=346,401,407,753&p_faqid=12666 or here: https://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/ php/enduser/doc_serve.php?&5=7. This asks you some questions about your connection.

This page also contains some good advice, which you can check, particularly around faulty wiring: http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/ php/enduser/cci/bt_adp.php? p_sid=bgLqHKKj&p_faqid=9611&cat_lvl1=346 &cat_lvl2=401&cat_lvl3=407& p_cv=3.407&p_cats=346,401,407

e.g.

Check for faulty home internal phone wiring

Poorly-installed home phone wiring or poor quality phone extension leads (often with a flat rather then round cable profile) are the most common causes of slow broadband speeds. This is because they are more prone to electrical interference, which causes BT Broadband to reduce data speeds to compensate. You can test for this as follows:

1. If you have a phone master socket like the one in the photo here (that is, square with a horizontal groove halfway down it, and removable upper and lower cover), we recommend you remove the lower cover as shown, taking care not to dislodge any wiring. Do not remove the upper cover. This will reveal a test socket on the right-hand side. This connects directly to the exchange, bypassing your home phone wiring and extensions.
2. Plug your router or modem directly into this test socket via a microfilter.
3. Recheck your connection speed as per Step 2 above, ensuring you refresh your browser page first. If your connection speed has increased significantly, this indicates a likely fault or interference source within your home wiring. If it remains unchanged, this indicates either no fault, or the fault or interference is more likely to be in BT's wiring or in your local exchange.

Re-run the line speed checks (at http://bthomehub/) and check the new Upstream and Downstream speeds. Are they significantly different?

3. Finally, if the above do not fix the issue, BT have a "Broadband Accellerator" service where an engineer comes to the house:

http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/ php/enduser/cci/bt_catpage.php? cat_lvl1=346&cat_lvl2=1282& cat_lvl3%20=1859&p_cv=3.1859&p_cats=346,1282,1859

"The work we do on your home wiring should increase your connection speed by at least 1Mbps" - if your current connection is only 2Mbps, this would represent a 50% speed increase. "If your Internet connection speed (independent of the broadband network speed) has not increased by at least 0.5Mbps, you are entitled to claim your money back."

It's not clear how much this service costs, but I think it's about £80.

Your final option is... move to the city!

MBCS

I have just been accepted as a member of BCS i.e. MBCS - which I think makes me a professional geek :)

Within BCS there are good opportunities for industry networking, and they push uphold the standards which are so needed in software and IT.

How to tile groups of windows in Windows

A little-known trick in Windows for arranging desktop windows quickly is to hold down CTRL, select items in the task bar, then right-click: you can cascade, tile, minimze or close the group of selected windows together.

The result is immediately-positioned windows, as you like them. Apparently, this window-controlling feature has been around since Windows 3.1