Speedtester won't work and then tells me I need to...

Question

My broadband performance has been poor and intermittenly appalling over the last week (I read so many people complaining they're only getting 20Meg when they were promised up to 70. I get 1.5 Meg on a good day..I live in the sticks and all the village is the same..we're told this is as good as it's going to get). 
But this is not about the poor performance. After the last week, I finally decided to run BT's Speedtester.
1/First I enter the phone number and hit START TEST..every time, the next message I get is 'Sorry there is a problem checking your details - please check you have entered the number correctly and restart the test' 
Why is this?
2/ I HAVE entered the number correctly first time, so I hit START TEST again. This time the test starts (will take up to 60 seconds) then I get 'Sorry - we are not able to match all your details. You can continue to run our download speed test but we can only offer a limited assessment of your results'
Why is this?
3/I continue with the test - then I get 'We have detected you don't have Flash installed on your browser. Please download and install from here' where I get the option to start a download. I know I have got Flash installed.
Why is this?  
I was at a friend's house yesterday and found her broadband was slow too (we're on the same exchange) so tried the speedtester and her's also went through exactly the same sodding rigmarole. As I wasn't sure if she had Flash I decided to run the download (which took about 30 minutes) and then restarted the test - same as above then it still told me Flash wasn't installed.
We both have Macs but both are fully up to date with all latest Apple updates.
Anyone any ideas?
Incidentally, I found the BT Wholesale speed tester and ran that successfully twice. I got 0.02Mbps and 0.05Mbps download speeds!! Is that a record?!
I'll report the poor performance tomorrow, but I think I'll get better answers about the speed tester from the forum community.

Answer 1

Here are my ADSL results:
ADSL line status
Connection Information
Line state
Connected
Connection time
2 days, 14:16:31
Downstream
1,472 Kbps
Upstream
352 Kbps
ADSL Settings
VPI/VCI
0/38
Type
PPPoA
Modulation
G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type
Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up)
6.9 dB / 7.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up)
63.1 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up)
2.4 dBm / 0.8 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote)
0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote)
0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote)
0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up)
1948 / 199
CRC Errors (Down/Up)
260 / 89
HEC Errors (Down/Up)
1346 / 71
Error Seconds (Local/Remote)
151 / 43
The router is connected to the main socket via a BT filter. The main cordless phone is plugged into a slave socket via a BT filter. 
BT Speedtest (http://diagnostics.bt.com/login/?workflow=Speed) fails as usual, telling me I don't have Flash. I do! It is the latest version. 
BT Wholesale test runs and gives: Download Speed (Mbps): 1.23   Upload Speed 0.29 Ping Latency 42.88
Going back to ADSL Stats after the speedtest now shows:
ADSL line status
Connection Information
Line state
Connected
Connection time
2 days, 14:35:20
Downstream
1,472 Kbps
Upstream
352 Kbps
ADSL Settings
VPI/VCI
0/38
Type
PPPoA
Modulation
G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type
Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up)
6.8 dB / 7.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up)
63.1 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up)
2.4 dBm / 0.8 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote)
0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote)
0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote)
0 / 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up)
1956 / 199
CRC Errors (Down/Up)
261 / 89
HEC Errors (Down/Up)
1348 / 71
Error Seconds (Local/Remote)
152 / 43
 This evening, my broadband is running at normal speed, ie about 1.5meg. I will run these tests again when I am experiencing trouble.
 My BT broadband is generally incredibly reliable. In the 5 or 6 years I've had it, i would estimate I've had no more than 5 or 6 interrupts, normally due to lines down. I've habitually turned the router off overnight, but am now leaving it on all the time, though given that my tests in the past have shown my speed is about 1.5 meg and BT tell me that that is the best I'm ever going to get, then I'm not sure if there's anything to be gained by leaving it on.
Oh yes, the very poor speed I've experienced that has increased markedly in the last week or so...I am sure this first started right after I upgraded my BT account to unlimited download about 3 or 4 months ago, though my average usage is still only 37.69GB
But in the meantime, my original question is, why does Speedtest not work, on my Mac, my wife's Mac, my daughter's Mac and my friend's Mac, all with up to date software, all giving the same errors described above