Increasing Dial up speed

[Benzowner]

My daughter lives in an area that cannot support broadband on her telephone and so has to use dial up. We bought a modem and tried it at home on our Telewest landline and it was working at 57kb. Now she is at home it is only at 28kb, very slow. Anyone any suggestions on how or if it is possible to speed up? Her sp is Tiscalli

 

[PJH]

Doesn't Tiscali have to know the number your daughter is dialing from? Not sure if that will affect things.
I suppose you have checked Tiscali's own advise...
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/help/modem/phone.html

 

[machasm]

If the line is very bad then this could explain why she does not get the same speed as when you tried it.
It might also explain why she can't get broadband either (assuming that the exchange has been ADSL enabled).
You might also want to check to see if she can receive broadband through cable if ADSL is unavailable.
Anyway, it might be worth giving BT a ring and asking them to adjust the gain on the affected line might help improve things.
Also, if you are stuck using a dial-up connection there are some ways that you can speed up the connection by using a proxy. Have a look at Onspeed
By using clever compression techniques web pages appear to load quicker and just might help your situation.
Mac.

 

[tinkypot]

Has the telephone line been split? In other words does she have two telephone lines for one house. BT usually split a single line in two if a house needs a second line. This also halves the quality/speed of the line.

I had this problem in the past. Thank you broadband

 

[Benzowner]

Thanks for the info, she is trying several things as I type this. She can't get broadband cause apparantly her phone line is a dax line ?????? although the exchange can support broadband and BT even sent out the gear for it. She is on a farm so no sign of cable Thanks again.

 

[grober]

DAX explanation

Found this description on a message board by some else having problems. Probably quite common in the country
"Beware the DAX
Here’s another example of the disregard and contempt that BT seem to have for their customers. My internet connection had been stable for several weeks when quite suddenly my connect speeds were slashed to almost zero. For days I tried to find the fault within my PC. By chance, a neighbour mentioned that a BT repairman had been fiddling with lines on the day that my connection was ruined. After a further week of calls to BT, it eventually became apparent that my phone line had been DAXed.
DAX is a BT term which in simple jargon means splicing an existing line in two to create a line for a new subscriber, and whilst this has only minor ramifications for a regular phone, it completely undermines anything sensitive such as an internet connection. BT’s response to most of my enquiries was flat denial, or lies to be more precise, and I only managed to have the DAX reversed when I tracked down the very repairman in question and pleaded for help. The episode provided me with a lot of extra stress and, once again, the blame lays entirely with BT."

 

[tinkypot]

Nice one BT [tut, tut]

 

[reflexboy]

Thanks for the info, she is trying several things as I type this. She can't get broadband cause apparantly her phone line is a dax line ?????? although the exchange can support broadband and BT even sent out the gear for it. She is on a farm so no sign of cable Thanks again.

If your BT exchange is Broadband enabled, and the line passes the relevant db loss line test then there is no reason why broadband cant be installed. As a BT engineer, I regularly remove DACS units in order to provide broadband over a telephone line. Believe me, as an engineer of over 15 yrs with BT, we do carry out a task, known as 'adsl de-dacs' for that very reason. Perhaps if your daughter is over 5.5km from her local telephone exchange then that alone can cause problem with a broadband installation. BT does have a duty to supply service to customers,but as usual the small print does state 'subject to survey'. Ofcom have been involved with this for some time and have set a cost with BT. This basically means if a customer lives in a very remote area and the cost of such an installation is above a set figure, BT can legally refuse to supply the service. Its a pain, I know.