Hi all

I hope this is an appropriate forum to ask ..... if not, you can slap me later

I'm curious (or so I'm told) to find out what the minimum and maximum SNR/Loop Att settings are for specific ADSL product speeds.

I'm currently on a 1mb connection and my 2600 currently shows my settings as:

SNR:21
Loop Att: 42

From what I've read, the higher the SNR the better and the reverse for the Loop Att (guess mine isn't too great).

I've been on my 1mb conn for about a year now, but when I've checked any of the ADSL availability checkers recently, they all say 512 is the max I can get ... which is rather confusing. I understand this isn't set in stone and you can do a manual order to see if you pass. I know I used to get a quite reasonable speed on this conn (116 - 118k/sec), but over the last few months this has dropped down to about 114k/sec ... not sure why though. I can only guess that BT have changed something at the exchange.

I guess what I'm really interested in finding out is, with my current settings, would it even be worth putting in for an upgrade to 2mb now that the prices are falling?

Thanks for any help.

Yup, a HIGH SNR and LOW LoopATT is what you are looking for ideally.

I have 38SNR and 15LoopAtt, I run a 1MBps line and when the BT engineer was here for the line install he claimed that these figures would be good for 8Mbps.

Who is your broadband suppier? I hope it isn't BT, Wanadoo, NTL, etc... If their tech support people know what they are doing generally, then they might be able to advise you about the max speed capability of your line. In my experience, the amount you pay for a technical support phone call is inversely proportional to the intelligence of the "monkey" at the other end!

Part of the reason that your speed might be falling, is that ADSL is a contention based service. Since ADSL is taking off like billy-o now, there is more contention at your local level... hence a (slight) reduction is service.

I'm currently with Nildram. Was planning on migrating away due to their pricing structure ... which they have modified slightly now (still charging us monthly for static IPs though)

I did actually manage to get an answer (although not really the one I was looking for) telling me pretty much not to bother as I might end up being back on 512k with my Loop Att settings.

Guess I'm stuck where I am for now .... oh well ... could be worse

Thanks for the response

I have similar figures for SNR and Loop Attn.
A few months ago I got upgraded automatically to 2MB and lost my internet connection.
So I wouldn't advise it.
Got a BT engineer around and he says it happens alot because I was a border case ... under these circumstances they execute the tried and tested method of suck it and see, and if the customer doesn't complain it must be ok ... go figure...

Nice to know they know what they are doing :wink:

Ooh ... old thread. I almost remember writing it

As it happens, shortly after I wrote this, I bit the bullet anyway and upgraded. I've had a solid 2mb conn for over a year now (apart from a BT line fault which was causing lots of errors on my line, but has now been mostly resolved )

IIRC, the 2mb cutoff is 43db, but as long as your SNR is high enough, 2mb is quite achieveable.

Hi Folks, I am new to this forum but have been lurking for some time picking up the gems of wisdom from you all.

Just to add to this subject. I have two POTS lines each with a different broadband ISP on each. Line 2 is connected to UKonline and has a SNR of about 8 dB with a line loss of about 41dB. Our house is about 3.5 Km from the shed. It is quite stable at about 5.5M bps having sorted the MSS out and setting it to 1492. It occasionally hangs but a reboot fixes that. I am running the 255 UK2 firmware. So if you have a LLU, it may be worth going for it.

The other line is with Plusnet set to 2M bps with a SNR of 25dB and loss of 42. Since this goes through the BT network the MSS is set at 1500.

Cheers, Mike