Extremely poor broadband speed - possible internal wiring problem

[mbenney]

Hello,

Hoping somebody can help me.

I have BT Infinity 1 fibre optic and the latest Smarthub 6.

I am getting about 2mbps when apparently I should be getting 50 in my area.

A while back I had to have a door replaced which involved moving the entry point for the broadband to the side. This meant that the cable that runs inside the house had to be cut, and have a piece spliced in to extend it.

So it now goes network -> junction box on the wall -> cable (with two joins) -> master socket

All the internal cabling including the splices is under the floor. Wires were just twisted and taped together with electrical tape. All internal wiring is a four core cable.

An engineer has checked the cable up to the ouside of the house, replaced the master socket, replaced the broadband filter (they were a both a little rusty from a freshly plastered wall drying), and checked the wiring at the junction box outside and the master socket. He also said the internal wiring is fine, but the problem persists.

I have racked my brains and I now believe that when the wire was spliced in I may have made a big mistake. I only joined together the mostly orange and blue wires, and not the other two that are mostly white. I thought you just needed one pair for broadband. And before I put the floor back it seemed to be working fine. 

Could this be causing the problem? Do I need to take up the floor and join all four wires?

Is there any reason why the engineer would believe that the internal cabling is fine. I didn't tell him this potential problem at the time as it had gone completely out of my mind.

Is there any way I can check for other problems in the internal wire myself? I have a multimeter somewhere.

Any other ideas?

I can no longer take the buffering it's killing me 

As far as I can see, if it's not the wire under the floor, it could only be the wire that goes from the filter to the smart hub. This is the only thing that has not been replaced. It looks a tiny bit fuzzy from the drying wall I previously mentioned. Is there any chance it could be that before I think about taking the floor up? 

Thank you for your help 

All the best

Matt

[Keith_Beddoe]

You need to check it from the test socket to prove whether its your wiring.

Try connecting things up as shown below, and see if the connection speed improves.

Also, make sure your internal wiring is correct.

[mbenney]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for your reply.

In this instance the test socket wont prove anything as when the door was replaced the cable had to be cut before it reaches the master socket (previously the wire was drilled through a wooden door frame and was causing damp).

I don't have any extension sockets, just the master socket, which is all I need in a one bed flat.

I guess my question is that if a section of the wiring before the master socket only has 2 of the four wires connected, will this cause slow speed?

Thanks

Matt

[imjolly]

no  as long as the 2 main wires are solidly connected

[mbenney]

Hmm, thanks, is there anyway to test how solid the connection is?

Somehow with a multimeter perhaps?

I twisted a good 2cm of each together and wrapped with electrical tape.

Is there any way it could be wrongly wired at the junction box or the socket if the engineer didn't know that only 2 wires were connected?

Or would it just not work at all in that case?

Is it posslbe that a rusty plug going from the filter to the smart hub could be the problem? They didn't supply a new one with the new smart hub.

Thanks so much for replies so far.

[mbenney]

Just bumping this up, hoping someone has an idea.

Thanks

[licquorice]

If you used 'the mostly orange' and 'mostly blue' wires, you haven't used a twisted pair, you have used one leg from each of 2 pairs. It will make the connection more susceptible to interference and might be causing your problems.

[Keith_Beddoe]

Is there any noise on your phone calls? Dial 17070 and select option 2, there should be no noise between the announcements.

[licquorice]

Can you also post your line stats and a speedtest. Its possible your line is ok but download speed is low due to congestion.

[mbenney]

Hi guys,

Sorry got very busy with work and had to ignore the broadband pains for a while!

Last week the speed suddenly improved hugely. Going from ~1.5mbps on every speed test to consistently 22/23mbps.

It has been a couple of months since anything changed on my end.

This is still not the speeds I'm paying for, but I can cope at these speeds. Obviously I'm happy that it seems I'll no longer need to pull my floor up, but this now amounts to almost a year of extremely poor service.

Is there any way I can claim back compensation on what I've paid out in bills?

Thanks

Matt