My move away from Pipex to Plusnet proved a very fruitful experience, and prompted me to investigate and understand the issues relating to broadband speed. I hope the following tips will prove helpful.  My thanks to the guys and girls at Plusnet, who were of immense help in not only providing information I couldn't find elsewhere, but in also reacting promptly when I found there were things to do at their end. They are the real experts here. With their help my broadband connection speed has increased from a mere two and a half Megabits to over seven.

There are websites available that test your broadband speed, and then map your speed against others in your area. It is obvious from these maps that there is a great deal of disparity, even between close neighbours. As we are always told by BT and others that broadband speed depends on the distance you are from the telephone exchange, then there must be other factors that lead to this disparity. 

Most broadband providers now use an "adaptive" connection to your router.  There are robots at the telephone exchanges that monitor your telephone line, looking for "noise" on the line and other factors, and this monitoring will ensure that your line is connected at the best possible speed to give a stable connection.  Distance from the exchange influences the power of the signal, which is why this is an important factor in determining the best speed.

Other than distance, there are two more factors that influence the speed, even more significantly than distance.  These are the general condition of the telephone line between exchange and your house, and the condition of the wiring within your own home.  Of course, BT, who are responsible for the condition of the exchange to home line, will always insist their line is perfect until it can be proved beyond all doubt that it isn't !

The first thing you must do then, is to ensure that there is nothing amiss with your internal telephone wiring.  Every wire that emanates from your BT or Openreach main socket has the potential to add "noise" to your connection and therefore reduce the broadband speed.  For the technically minded, the normal telephone cables that run around the house to extension sockets contain 2 "twisted pairs" of wires, four in all.  The purpose of using twisted pairs is to reduce the induction field that would interfere with the signal, as the induction from the "up" wire is cancelled out by the opposite induction from the "down" wire.   All modern phones operate using only two wires, and thus use one twisted pair. However, ancient telephones did need a third wire, the bell wire, or ring wire, and this wire is one of the culprits in the problem, The bell wire uses a single strand from the otherwise redundant second twisted pair, and having no energised partner, causes a great deal of induction interference. (the fourth wire is usually connected to a dummy terminal in the BT box and serves no purpose).  There is no colour standard for the wires, but the two real telephone wires are connected to terminals number 2 and 5 in the main socket, the bell wire to terminal 3,  the unused wire can be connected to any one of the other five left.

The more extensions you have in the home with the bell wire connected in, the more interference there will be. In fact, the more extensions you have, irrespective of whether the bell wire is connected, will also downgrade your system. 

Two things to note here, however :

1. If you have the new Openreach front-plate on your main BT socket, the bell wire will be filtered out anyway.

2. If you do have an ancient telephone in use, and have a modern appropriate extension socket, you still do not need the bell wire, but if you do not have the appropriate socket, but have a broadband filter plugged in, this will substitute for the proper socket.  (Of course all sockets in the house should have the broadband filter in place anyway).

So, the first step in ensuring your house wiring is in order is to check that you either have a main socket that is clearly marked OPENREACH, or disconnect the bell wire of every extension from the main socket.  Also ensure that your router is connected to the main socket, and not to an extension. You will have to do this eventually (see below), so do it now and gain immediate benefit.

Next, take a while to consider whether your need all those extension sockets, for example, would a set of cordless telephones fill the bill? Disconnect any that, on reflection, you do not need. Then look at the cabling of those you leave. If they have screw connectors, make sure the screws are tight. Make sure the cable is undamaged, and does not, for example, run under carpets etc. 

So, once you have disconnected superfluous sockets, disconnected the bell wires on all the rest, you will no doubt be sorry to see that your download speed has not improved !  This is because it takes up to a fortnight for those robots at the exchange to notice the improvement and increase the speed accordingly.  One thing that does immediately respond is your connection speed, or "Sync speed", and work that you have done will be immediately reflected here. You need to interrogate your router to see this, and to do that you must know the routers address which is accessed through a normal Internet browser programme such as Microsoft Internet Explorer etc. Router addresses are usually in the form of a series on four numbers, such as http://192.168.1.1, and can be established from the router manual.

Once you have your increased sync speed, not only will you download speed be adjusted to suit over the following week or two, but your sync speed itself will carry on increasing too. This step by step improvement could take place over a number of weeks as those robots  gain confidence in your stable clean connection.  Of course, if after doing all this you see no improvement, it is time to call your Internet Service Provider to get them to get BT to check the line from the exchange. 

Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC).

This is the next big step for broadband, and involves using optical fibre rather than copper to send the signal from the exchange to your nearest street cabinet. This is expected to increase speeds some ten-fold.  It will naturally cost more, but if you are willing to pay not much extra, all your problems will be over.  The installation of the necessary equipment at your home is not a DIY job, and engineers will be despatched to do the job by your ISP or BT.  All you need is a two socket mains terminal near your main BT socket. The router can only go here too, so you should plan for that now.

BT are calling  their FTTC product  "Infinity", and watching their advertising, you are given to believe that this is the only product available that will give these speeds but of course, all ISPs will provide the same service once BT get those optical fibres connected in !  In my area, BT have been giving implementation dates for the last year or so that change every quarter to the end of the next quarter.  One can only guess ! 

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