Broadband speed

[Skids]

Why is my broadband so slow? My ISP is Orange (who's customer service sucks by the way) and I'm using one of their Inventel Live Box routers. Most ISPs, including Orange, claim to be able to shove up to 2mb/s down my phone line. Granted, I have a lot of wireless devices and a wired device connected (desktop PC, laptop PC, iPhone 4 x2, iPod Touch x2, iPad 2, ePad, NetBook and a PS3) but with everything disconnected except my wired laptop I measure a meagre 0.3mb/s if I'm lucky.
I wanted to go with Virgin or BT fibre-optic but of course they're not available in my area.

[Old_Geezer]

That sounds well out of acceptable limits. Are you sure it is your ISP rather than your laptop ? If so I think your best bet is to moan at Orange. Whatever their CS, they can't want to build up a rep for that sort of service.

[ChuckFickens]

Actually it's within limits, 256Kb/s is classed as broadband (crap I know)

Make sure you have your router connected to the master socket and disconnect all other internal phone points from the master socket and try again... if you have more than one filter try with a couple of different filters, also try a speed test at different times of the day/night if you are still only getting 300Kb/s at all times then that may be all your line is capable of.... unfortunately if that is the case then there isn't much you can do about it.... If you are getting better speeds at some times than others then you might be suffering from contention and changing provider to one that offers a better contention ratio may help.

[Keleez]

we used to have Orange and yes you are right they are totally rubbish, i couldnt get any kind of signal in half of my home, so we swtiched to 02 broadband, we have had a few problems at first, it got annoying when the signal dropped to hardly anything or disappeared completely, so we rang them and spoke to a really nice guy who simpley talked us through changing the channel on our router, turns out if loads of homes/businesses around you have wireless, it will interfere with your signal, and this is what was happening to us, once the router channel was changed...perfect...goodluck and leave Orange, as you said customer service is crap and even i felt like i was banging my head on a brick wall talking to them.

[Skids]

My housing estate is no more than 8 years old and the phone lines can only take 0.3mb/s?!?!?!?!? My much older previous house's phone line was delivering 1.5 to 2mb/s from the same ISP and router.
The wireless isn't the problem, the wired connection measured the incoming signal with no other devices connected. I can actually get faster broadband from 3G GSM standing outside my front door, that's 3mb/s.

[Keleez]

Must be the router then

[Gromit]

Have you tried doing the spped test from another machine other than your computer? From you iPad for example. There are a few free (I think) speedtest apps. If the reading is the same, then it may be faulty or you may be unlucky and that is the best you can get. Do you have any idea how far you are from your nearest exchange? The further you are away, the weaker your link is.