Have Upgraded to 8meg broadband but am only getting 1meg??

Question

Hi there
Ive been a tiscali customer for around 2 years now on a 2meg broadband package, it always seemed ok though never actually did a speed test to see what speed I was getting. I have recenty upgraded to an 8meg package and havent really noticed any difference in the speed at all, I have now started doing speed tests and only seem to be getting 1.3meg max and thats after messing with the demo version of Cocktail. Ive been on the phone to Tiscali for the last month and they keep telling me I should be getting 5meg and that my lines fine and to wait 24hrs and it will all be fine but nothing changes.
Any Ideas? apart from shooting Tiscali into touch!?!
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Hi
Try and eliminate the usb adsl modem from the equation, its possible that the bottleneck is happening there. You could try and use an ADSL router instead. Netgear are easy and simple to set up as well as ADSL Nation, D-Link, Belkin, LinkSys, Zyxel etc etc, pretty much any router will do.
PCWorld are currently doing an excellent promotion for ZyXel Routers for around £50, thats a great deal that you could take advantage of.
Routers are a far better option as they have Firewall, SUA NAPT built in that require no further configuration. For somebody like you it should be as simple as plug and play. Having a router will allow your network to expand, this means that as you acquire more computers and/or networkable printers you can add them to the network so as they too can access the internet with no extra configuration.
Another thing, has there been any building work or digging up of roads recently in your area? Sometimes – in fact more often than not – it is this activity that accounts for disrupted or poor internet connectivity.
HTH