So, someone posted about their ADSL speed on Facebook, then asked me about how they can make things better. Meanwhile I got in a bit of an argument with a guy who runs one of those back yard computer shops because he said wireless would make a ~5mbit ADSL connection slower, and copied and pasted generic garbage from Bigpond’s help pages to back his point up. Ugh.
Unless you think your Internet’s slow, I wouldn’t sweat it. If you think it’s slow and you’re bored, read on for my hastily written guide to the extreme (and free) way of doing things better.
The speed you’re getting is based entirely on the length and quality of the copper wires that run from the back of your ADSL modem to the exchange. If you can make that run shorter and better in any way it’s a good idea. Try unplugging any telephone cable splitters, extension cords, double adaptors and additional phones - or all the phones, just for the test. You’re looking to reduce any impact things can have on the signal to the exchange. Then turn your modem off for a few minutes, then back on.
Give it half an hour or so - the modem adjusts itself to an extent automatically - then run a speed test - make sure only one computer is on while you do it. If that makes it better, put things back onto the line that you *need* and see what happens.
For an idea of what kind of speed you should expect, try putting your address into this. The phone wiring on your side of town is *shit* because it’s old and and Telstra doesn’t give a shit for a whole load of reasons. Mainly money.
[person’s] wireless comments *can* be valid - but only in extreme situations. If you’re running windows in the bottom right there should be an icon showing your wifi connection - if you click on it you should get a little status window [So, someone posted about their ADSL speed on Facebook, then asked me about how they can make things better. Meanwhile I got in a bit of an argument with a guy who runs one of those back yard computer shops because he said wireless would make a ~5mbit ADSL connection slower, and copied and pasted generic garbage from Bigpond’s help pages to back his point up. Ugh.
Unless you think your Internet’s slow, I wouldn’t sweat it. If you think it’s slow and you’re bored, read on for my hastily written guide to the extreme (and free) way of doing things better.
The speed you’re getting is based entirely on the length and quality of the copper wires that run from the back of your ADSL modem to the exchange. If you can make that run shorter and better in any way it’s a good idea.
Try unplugging any telephone cable splitters, extension cords, double adaptors and additional phones - or all the phones, just for the test. You’re looking to reduce any impact things can have on the signal to the exchange. Then turn your modem off for a few minutes, then back on.
Give it half an hour or so - the modem adjusts itself to an extent automatically - then run a speed test - make sure only one computer is on while you do it. If that makes it better, put things back onto the line that you *need* and see what happens.
For an idea of what kind of speed you should expect, try putting your address into this. The phone wiring on your side of town is *shit* because it’s old and and Telstra doesn’t give a shit for a whole load of reasons. Mainly money.
[person’s] wireless comments *can* be valid - but only in extreme situations. If you’re running windows in the bottom right there should be an icon showing your wifi connection - if you click on it you should get a little status window](/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/qaIGl.png) which will show you the speed. If it’s over 6mbps - it should be one of 5,11,22,54 etc it’ll not be impacting anything.
Time for cider.