talkmagic.co.uk

Hi all,

My desktop has a wired connection to my router but I'm getting <1 Mbps download speed. My laptop is connecting wirelessly and I'm getting 7 Mbps. When I connect my desktop via a wireless card I get about 3Mbps. Can anyone help with this please?! I can't understand why my wired connection is so poor.

Thanks,

Craig.

First thing to try is your cable - it's possible it could've been damaged somewhere. Next thing to try (if you can) is your network card

It could also be that you have an older network card, unable to support higher speeds, whereas your wireless card can.

Thanks for the advice - doubt it is the age of the card because it has been working perfectly well until the last month or so. I'll try a new cable.

Craig.

On a similar internet related question. I'm living in Hull at the moment which, as you may or may not know has only one supplier. Kingston Communication Karoo Broadband. BT is not allowed, nor is any other. They have a monopoly on the cabling meaning they can charge whatever they like. None of the cheap packages like Sky are available without paying for their rental.

My question is are there any broadband devices that would allow me to surf & game without having to pay the telephone rental plus broadband package charges?

russpie wrote:On a similar internet related question. I'm living in Hull at the moment which, as you may or may not know has only one supplier. Kingston Communication Karoo Broadband. BT is not allowed, nor is any other. They have a monopoly on the cabling meaning they can charge whatever they like. None of the cheap packages like Sky are available without paying for their rental.

My question is are there any broadband devices that would allow me to surf & game without having to pay the telephone rental plus broadband package charges?

Wouldn't that be stealing?

No I meant like a mobile phone company contract for wifi broadband. I'd rather pay £25 a month than £35 plus a landline fee.

Just about all the major mobile telcos offer a broadband package.
Whether it will be enough for gaming is a tough call and will depend entirely on the signal available in the specific corner of the house you want to put the kit.

Orange and T-Mobile (customers of either have access to both networks these days)
O2
3
Vodafone (even tho I'll never use them after seeing some pretty horrendous customer support from them)

All provide some sort of mobile broadband. I don't know if it's possible to test the coverage somehow before committing to a contract with them, but if you know someone on that network, get them to come over and try their hardware at your place. Telco monopolies are always bad, but if it really is a monopoly in Hull, I'd be stunned if you didn't know quite a few people who'd used the mobile companies to get better rates.

In other news - I'm surprised they are allowed to get away with that. After BT were forced to make their cabling available to other companies I would have thought any area-wide monopoly would have been nixed too. Apparently not.

To the original question. It sounds like you have a signal leakage problem. Replace the cable. It could also be the port to your ethernet port in your computer. The good news is the leak is not in your walls or from the drop outside. (however non of your speeds are wonderful, but that may be the way things are in your area) It is probably not the cable leading to your modem otherwise all your speeds would suck, because it is your wired set up that is affected the most, I would say it is the card, the port or the cable from the router to the computer.

Cards and ports do sometimes suddenly go bad. Have you checked with your cable company? They may have changed something on their end that no longer functions well with your card. I know over here (I work for Comcast Cable) we just increased our speeds and our old modems, while work just fine only bring in the old slower speeds. If somebody wants the newer faster speed they have to upgrade the modem. However the old speeds are not affected, in other words they don't move any slower than they were previously.

seriously though, it sounds suspiciously like a loss of signal. If you can ping your modem (or call the cable company and see if they will) and see if there is any packet loss.

I'm not sure how you would go about pinging a modem in the UK. I ping mine now and again but I have a program at work that is strictly in-house and is a tool for the techs to see if there is a problem, without having to test the lines.

Oh you can also try changing the ethernet port in your router to one of the others as it may be the port in the router. Just a thought.