Internet Problem

[rockyracoon]

My mum had BT internet a few years ago, but was getting ridiculously slow speeds, they maintained that they were delivering a lot faster than she was getting. She got fed up and went with Virgin. A few weeks ago, she signed up with a Sky package and now has crap internet again, she can't stream as most of the time she is getting less than 2mb. Sky maintains that she should be getting faster than that. Could it be something to do with the wiring in the house, or, were BT, and now Sky, giving her a load of waffle? She doesn't live in the sticks, in fact she lives 2 minutes walk away from me and I get a decent speed from Sky.

Are there independent professionals who can come and have a look to see what's going on?

[bhg481]

Sky and BT both use the same wiring to your house, so you would expect no difference between them. Virgin use fibre-optic cable, so should be faster. If you switch to BT or Sky's fibre service (whatever they call it) you should see a speed increase.
The other problem you might have is with the house itself. Are you using wi-fi or ethernet wire connection from the router to your computer. If wi-fi you might have a signal-strength problem; try moving the computer closer to the router (if you can). If that speeds things up you might benefit from a wi-fi extender - look them up in Amazon as there are a whole load of them.

[rockyracoon]

It's wifi and the computer sits about 6 feet away from it, so I don't think a booster will do any good.

[bhg481]

If you have an ethernet cable around (they're usually yellow, the connectors look very similar to telephone connectors and they usually package one with your router) try connecting directly from the router to the computer and see if that makes any difference. If your computer is so close to the router I can't see that wi-fi strength is a problem but there could just be a problem with the wi-fi module on the computer. A range extender would make no difference.

[Togo]

First thing to do is change the faceplate of the line in that runs to the router, and any filter that is fitted. Tarnished contacts can cause it. If you make a visual inspection the contacts of the plug and socket(telephone line)should be a shiny gold colour. If they are black change them.

[rockyracoon]

Thanks all. I don’t think it’s anything to do with the lap top as the Skybox takes forever to download anything. I’ll try the ethernet and see what happens. What kind of engineer type person would I need to call to change the faceplate?

[Togo]

It is dead easy Rocky..BT will want to charge you £120 or so. You can do it yourself easily. No mains power involved just put the wires from the old one in the same place in the new one.
Has your socket got 1 outlet? If soit is likely a GP NTE5.
If it has 2 outlets(1 for a phone extension) it will be a GP NTE5ADLS.

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Telephones_and_Accessories_Index/NTE5/index.html?ad_id=80607958566984&source=msn&kw=nte5%20master%20sockets&matchtype=b&;qry=nte5%20faceplate&msclkid=c3ee1674277118b35ddb4cb37933eb96

[Togo]

Just another tip....if you carefully remove the faceplate cover you should find a test socket inside. Plug your router in there and see if there is any improvement. If so it confirms that your internal wiring to the router or as I said originally the contacts on the faceplate socket.

[Togo]

[rockyracoon]

Thanks Togo. I’ll go round later and have a look

[margarettom]

I had a problem with BT internet a while back. Slow speeds and cutting out. I phoned BT and they said they would come out and look BUT, if it was my fault, they would charge me about £120.
I got them out anyway and it was a socket fault and they fixed it for free. So, if you can test the socket and it's faulty BT will repair it. Hopefully, this applies to Virgin too.