Boost Your Internet - Part 1

Hey have you got ADSL? Does it go slow? Well here's a short guide to make it a little faster!

Firstly a list of websites that are useful:
BT's speed prediction page - Enter your BT phone number or address for a damn good estimate as to what speeds to expect. If your getting lower than this speed then this guide might be helpful.
Think Broadband's map - Do your neighbours get a better speed, or worse speed than you? With the advent of Fibre based broadband then any results above 18Mb should be ignored.
SNR calculator - We'll look at this one later.
DSL stats - A FREE tool that helps monitor your connection.
Speed test.net - We need a few samples of this while improving things so do a test and make a note of the results

Okay just to clear a few things up, this guide is not going to double your speed. Nor is it going to fix it in 10 minutes. Improving speed requires patience and either a visual mindset or a fair bit of pen and paper! Its always helpful to either write every bit of information down, or if your clever, save a note on your computer or tablet or phone!
Firstly we need to see what speed you are getting. The speed(or throughput) is easy to get, do a couple of tests on Speedtest.net, preferably over an Ethernet cable, with no other devices connected(i.e. nobody else watching YouTube!). We should expect a result such as 4.2Mb download and 0.5Mb upload, your results should vary.
Now we need to compare this to the prediction that BT's prediction page gives. If you have a BT line, enter your phone number into that link above. Otherwise if your with Sky or TalkTalk or maybe don't know, Click the link on that page that says Address checker, followed by entering your house number and post code. For both groups this now gets a little bit confusing; look through the page and under the row that says ADSL products we're looking for the biggest number possible, which should be the third row across.
Now if your unlucky BT's number should be smaller that the download number from the speed test, you did write down the number from earlier right? However if that's the case then yes your ADSL broadband can be improved. The question is how, which hopefully we can help with. But first some explaining.

A little bit of an explanation

In the UK most internet is provided over a copper pair - AKA your phone line. The trouble is that as phone lines get longer the harder it is to get the internet to you(just go with it). Really our phone lines were never designed to get internet over them, just think about the poor quality that the voice is on phone lines compared to face to face!
Now that causes a problem, our phone lines are just that, a phone line, and voice ALWAYS takes priority, so there's always a section of our phone lines reserved for voice. This is where those micro filters come in(you know the dangly square boxes that plug into our sockets?). Every phone without fail must have one of these - and weirdly enough that includes Sky boxes. Without these on every phone, the internet can get cut off, or cut in speed every time you ring out, or someone else rings in. Which brings us to point 2
Second priority is stability: think about it like this. Which are you more likely to complain about; the Internet going off all the time, or the internet going slow? clue its more of a problem having the internet not work. Which is why all devices must have those microfilters, and we should leave our modems connected all the time. Sure unplug them if your going on holiday, but they should stay connected overnight. The exchange(where our lines connect to) can see frequent disconnects as a problem and so slow our speeds to try and compensate. It only costs pence per year to leave them running 24/7
Finally the third priority is speed, hopefully you're still reading by now so lets summarise:
Have everything connected to a microfilter(use two on phones, it wont cause a problem). Some ISPs will give them out for free if you tell them you need more.
Leave your modem connected as much as possible, any more than 5 power on or off in a few hours will confuse things

For some folks that can be enough to slowly improve things, but for many this is just the start. Talk about wiring improvements will start in part 2.

Stay Tuned for part 2