Is it possible to request a decrease in download speed for an increase in upload speed?

[navran]

Hi there,

I have broadband coming in on copper ADSL (sold as Fibre 1 via BT) and the best speeds I can currently get (likely due to the distance from the closest exchange), is around 20mb down and 1mb up. As we are working from home a lot more, we are finding the upload gets saturated really quickly causing degradation to the whole line. 

I have employed some intelligent QoS/Traffic Shaping to prioritise real-time traffic and queue up other upload traffic. It seems to do a pretty decent job of keeping our video calls somewhat useful as well as the rest of the line, however, is it possible to request from BT (or Openreach?) a lesser download speed e.g. 15mb down, to achieve a higher upload speed e.g. 5-6mb? 

As I understand it, this should be theoretically and practically possible as we wouldn't be asking the copper to perform outside of the overall bandwidth it is already providing. My guess is it would be getting the line sync speeds for the up and downstream to be amended but I don't know who has control to actually do this. 

Can anyone shed any light on this one?

Thanks,

Navin

[imjolly]

welcome to the BT community forum where customers help customers and only BT employees are the forum mods

in order for the forum members to help please can you post the stats from your router (if hub enter 192.168.1.254 in your browser) and if  HH5 then go to troubleshooting then helpdesk and if HH6/SH2 then advanced settings then technical log information . 

are you on adsl where it is distance from exchange or on Fibre 1 which is fibre to street cab and then copper from cab to your home so it is distance from cab that counts  there is no giving up down speed to increase up speed

enter your phone number and post results  remember to delete number   https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Someone may then be able to offer help/assistance/suggestions to your problem

[navran]

Hi imjolly!

Thanks for coming back to me so quickly.

I was just thinking to grab exactly this info! I've attached the BT speed checker info. As I say, I am doing custom traffic shaping so I have had to use a dedicated modem  (pretty sure its a rebranded Huawei hg612 -  picture attached) to get the connection available to my custom firewall (that does the traffic shaping/QoS), so it's not easy to get modem stats without plugging in direct which I can do a little later on! The reason I have to use a dedicated modem is that the superhubs nowadays don't provide a modem only mode!

Thanks!

Nav

[imjolly]

from the dslchecker results your connection speed on 22/12/21 was 23/1.2mb and is a fast as you will get and is virtually top of expected speed range

as I posted there is no giving up down speed to get faster up speed

[navran]

Hi imjolly

I understand the speed checker says that is the maximum, but surely that is the maximum upload speed based on the maximum download speed? e.g. the copper line will support a max of 21mb safely so 20 is assigned to download and 1 is assigned to upload. 

I imagine those speeds have been set by DLM. I can't see why we couldn't use the same bandwidth quota (e.g. 21mb) but assign it to the upload and download in a different ratio?

The physical copper would still be carrying the same amount of bandwidth over the same amount of distance to the cabinet therefore not affecting line stability. I am not asking for an aggregate increase in bandwidth remember!

You say that there is no giving down speed to get up speed. Is this something that is mandated by BT? or is there an actual technical reason for this?

Thanks!

Navin

[imjolly]

your connection speed is determined mainly by the distance you are from your street cabinet similar to adsl which was distance from the exchange.  your line speed will be as fast as your line can handle .  the estimate for your connection is 24/17 and you have 23mb

[Keith_Beddoe · Accepted solution]

@navran 

Its a technical limitation. Most of the upload frequency allocation is at the top end of the spectrum, and that has the greatest loss on a copper cable. You can see that the main upload allocation starts at 8.5MHz, which does not propagate very far without a lot of loss.

See diagram below. This profile is fixed.

[navran]

Brilliant explanation @Keith_Beddoe ! 

@imjolly I thank you for your time!