Broadband Woes (Conclusion)

Happy days, currently connected at 3mbps and holding a steady download speed of 300kbps. Bit of change from this post in September, so how did it get fixed? Read on.

BT came out and fitted a modern socket with a separate connection for Broadband and phone (so no need for microfilters). The Engineer said he managed to connect at 4mbps so there was nothing wrong with the line from BT's point of view. I bought a new high-speed cable to connect to the router but still no joy.

My suspicion then fell upon the router as the source of poor speeds, a 2wire Intelligent Gateway 1800 device supplied by BT to my work but installed at my home for work usage. A bit of checking on the Internet and a few stories of maximum line speeds being clamped by this device and the hunt for a firmware update was on. Strange thing about firmware from 2wire is that they do not publicly release any, instead they ask you to contact your ISP to get specific code from them. Unfortunately BT were completely in the dark about this device and refused to help. With nothing to lose I trawled the net looking for a suitable firmware update and, long story short, after a failed firmware update (with the wrong code probably) I was left with a brick which proudly displayed a flashing red light. No reset button, no way to reflash... dead, *sob*.

For a couple of weeks I fell back to using the USB modem supplied originally with my Demon account (Speedtouch 330) and lo and behold the first time it connected at a whopping 4mbps confirming the now defunct router as the problem. Download speeds were locked at 50kbps though I'm sure the line would have automatically configured itself for a faster rate if I'd continued using it.

So I bought a new ADSL2 Modem Wireless Router, the Netgear DG834G, and kept my fingers crossed it would sort out all the problems and allow me to make full use of MaxDSL from BT/Demon (for which I'm paying).

The set-up wizard automatically detected the required details from Demon and all I needed to do was enter my login name and password and away it went. It connected at 3mbps and the download speed was the same for the old 2wire router at about 115kbps. I knew that the line would eventually update itself to a higher download speed and today, after about 10 days, it's downloading at a steady 300kbps. I'm sure I can get it up to around a 4mbps connection if I reboot the router a few times but at the moment I'm happy with the new router and the speed boost it's providing.

Netgear provide firmware updates for download (yay), the device supplied by Amazon is the latest V3 model (and came with up to date firmware already installed), looks well smart as well in sexy white plastic. As my laptop is broken I haven't had the chance to use the wireless facility as yet but I'm sure there'll be no problems with that. Set-up is a breeze and all manner of information can be gleaned by logging into the router through a simple html web page. Much chuffed.

Lessons learned: I don't like flashing firmware, never buy a device that the manufacturer will not release firmware for public download, if somethings not broken then don't fix it. The last one should be stamped on my forehead.