DSL downstream speeds

[humanflyz]

I recently ordered a DSL package, and the package that I ordered advertises a downstream speed range of 384kbps to 1.5mbps. My DSL account was activated today. When I tried to use 3rd-party, independent DSL speed tests such as the one on www.dslreports.com, I found out, to my anger, that my downstream speed is only about 322kbps, way short of the minimum speed advertised. My friend, who has the exact same DSL package from the exact same company, has, on average, a downstream speed of 1 Mbps. And the strange thing is that he's only two houses down the street from my house.

Right now, I am completely baffled as to what might be causing this unusual slowness. My file downloading speed max out at 40 kb per second, but my friend usually downlods at about 120 kb per second on average. So far, the only cause that I can possibly conceive is that we have different ethernet cards. When my friend signed up, he told the company that he did not have an ethernet card, so the company shipped an ethernet card to him, along with the modem and the cables. But since my motherboard has an integrated ethernet port, I thought that it would work fine, and I was told by the company that it would work fine. So that's the only thing I can think of.

If anyone has an idea or suggestion, please tell me.

[Xandax]

Is your DSL line running over the phonelines or cable-tv?

If the phoneline, do you usually have some noice on the ordinary line when speaking?

Otherwise complain to your provider and get them to test the speed.

I also have an integrated ethernet port and it should still be a 10/100 Mbit port, (although far from that line speed ) and I really doubt you would have a bottleneck there, unless you have a defective ethernetport wich could be tested setting up a LAN and seeing with what speed you can transfere data over it.

[KidD01]

humanflyz, have you check your MTU and other stuff incl windows registry ? You can go to http://www.speedguide.net for more infos regarding speed test & registry tweaks to maximise your connection speed.

[Ned Flanders]

So how are you running your tests? Are you simultaneously visiting identical websites and comparing bandwidths? Are the specs of your computers similar? I'll presume that both of your network cards are 10/100. Do you have the same DSL provider and ISP? Do you have identical DSL modem/routers?

[humanflyz]

It turns out that my DSL provider messed up my order. They thought I ordered a lower-speed package, when in fact I had ordered a better one. So that's solved, and now I am getting the speed that I should be getting. Plus, the provider gave me a month free due to their own mistake.