Question on adsl sky anyone recomend a better provider

Se7en

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Hi all,

i am on sky basic broadband cant get fibre.

However have an issue with dropouts due to sky messing around with the SNR on the line and the DLM or the way they do it.
I dindt have internet for two months four openreach engineers out saying line was fine.
Anyway having logged on to the router statistics the SNR is up down like a yoyo causing dropouts. I have phoned sky lots of times to try and set the SNR to a constant variable but unless i phone back every ten days they cant do this.

So what internet provider can i go to where they maybe better or i can use my own router im thinking a billion router to set SNR values.

thank you
 
Just seen your post and whilst it is probably too late in the day to help you in case it helps others... My GF switched to Orgin Broadband, (disaster) anyway to cut a long story short she was without internet for about 10 days and when we did finally manage to get it to work it was giving less than 2meg download against 5.6meg with her previous supplier.

The one good thing Origin did provide was an ASUS router which gives you a lot of control over set up, including SNR margin and the option to switch off automatic settings from the exchange. By playing about with the ADSL SNR margins I have got her back up to 5.5meg and the ping down from 150ms to about 40ms against same server on speedtest.

The ASUS router is a very basic model

I also changed the phone socket faceplate and added a very short adslnation (tandy) cable between that and the ASUS router but it only gave a 0.5db improvement in SNR. I was hoping for more but I guess the D-link filter in place before was ok.
 
That's good news there mate which Asus router did you get if you don't mind my asking?
It could still help me tweak snr ratio etc if needs be.
 
A lot of the parameters (such as SNR for the downstream transmissions) are set in the ISP's equipment in the exchange and swapping routers is going to have no effect on such.

If you've got a crap line, you've got a crap line and you need to get it sorted. No amount of swapping ISP's (they all use the same physical cabling,) playing with routers and settings can "fix" it (though you can "make the best" of what you have.)

ISP's don't like getting OpenReach out as it costs them if they return a "no fault found" diagnosis.

Recently I've had issues with a relative who was suffering (and would have been delighted with 5.5 mbps - they were on 287k - ie as low as you can go - with frequent disconnects.)

Eventually, I did some work to disconnect all the extensions in the property and run some tests directly attached to the "test" connector in the master socket and we convinced the ISP it had to be a line fault, despite OpenReach previously declaring "no fault" on the line. (Incidentally, it was affecting voice calls too - it was virtually unusable.)

OpenReach visited again and did a TDR test on the line which found a fault (discovered to be some corroded components in a street cabinet somewhere,) fixed it and after a few days training DSL jumped back up to 15mbps (and recently it's gone even higher to 20mbps) on a line we know is around 400m long (so sayeth the TDR.)

Sometimes you just have to be a bit politely persistent to get the fundamental problem sorted out.

If you think of it using a motoring analogy, if you have a bumpy road and want a smoother, faster ride, you need to get the road sorted out. Yes changing cars for 4x4 with floppy suspension and/or changing you driving style can help, but you're polishing a turd and ultimately the solution is to get the road fixed.
 
I general terms I agree but sometimes it is just quicker and easier to tweak the modem than trying to get an unresponsive ISP to adjust the ADSL/2/2+ setting and or get SNR margin charged.

Through the modem I was able to see the set up, switch ADSL 2 to ADSL, switch off the dynamic SNR control and play about with SNR margins until I got a reasonable speed and a stable connection

The original router was an ASUS DSL N14 but it was swapped out as suspected faulty for the advertised ASUS DSL N16. These routers cost about £30 new so probably only a few pounds second hand, if you have the server login details it might be worth a try with a second hand router/modem.

I would be risk spending lots on a new cutting edge router because I don't think it will deliver much improvement.

Disconnecting the phone and plugging the modem straight into the master socket, ie without a filter ( which is needed for the phone not the modem) might be worth a try first, then leave it alone for 3 or 4 days to see how the exchange reacts.

In general terms though keep switching the modem on/off is to be avoided because the exchange sees this as a poor quality line and reduces the line performance to try to keep it switched on and in sync
 

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