How come my broadband is running at 1mbps when its supposed to be 8?
Question by bronson: How come my broadband is running at 1mbps when its supposed to be 8?
Hi, i have had this connection for a good few months now (sky broadband). Its supposed to have speed of up to 8mb but mine is only on 1 and my mate has the same and his runs on 4mb whats going on do i need to change something? Cheers 
Best answer:
Answer by MICHAEL P
Check with your provider!!
I have been told that broadband speed reduces the further you are from the exchange. I have also read that while some companies claim a certain speed – in reality they are not.
I would take it up with Sky.
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Guy’s I’m not sure if it’s my power supply or if the Broad bands not on yet But I got sky Bb ect 4days ago yet they sent me a message sayings it’s on But it’s not it still has 2 lights with 1 dull one?! So it kinda looks like 3 but it’s not and also my wireless isn;t working on my laptop
I had an issue similar to yours when I first switched over from BT to Sky. Within your first few days of connection your new provider will test your line speed then assign a maximum speed to your line. Mine was assigned at an unbelieveably low figure!. Unless you bother to check the assigned speed you would bever be aware of this!!. It took a couple of phone calls to their tech dept to sort it out but the general gist was that –
Your (Sky) router MUST be connected direct to the first incoming phone socket in the house and NOT via any sort of telephone extension cable.
In laymans speak a ‘bog standard’ phone extension cable is designed for voice calls only and cannot carry the quantity and quality of electrical data required to send broadband data TO the router, hence anything transmitted BEYOND the router will already be at a low speed.
So, for arguments sake – a 10Mb speed enters your home. It then gets sent down a 20 metre telephone extension cable only designed for handling voice calls of 1.5Mb at best, INTO your router. Thus your router can only ever ‘forward on’ at 1.5Mb speed max. However if your router is connected direct to the first phone socket via its half metre ‘incoming’ cable, it is then receiving broadband at ‘full strength’ and can thus foward that signal onwards either wirelessly or via a much thicker ASDL/Ethernet cable to your computer.
Makes sense when you think about it!! – all wired computer cables are thick and chunky when compared to the very thin phone extension cables available.
You WILL need to contact Sky / your provider to get them to reset you line speed AFTER you have made remade the necessary wired connections as they will not automatically restest.
This worked for me
Seeing that you are ADSL broadband there is not a lot you can do about it.
It all boils down to how far you are away from the exchange, condition of the telephone cables and exchanges and how updated they are, how heavily your exchange is subscribed to, and how many are on the system at any one time.
That’s why they say they CANNOT guarantee any speed up to 8 Mb. Even BT cannot change the basic laws of physics!
That’s why fibre optic cable is far superior and ADSL can’t hold a candle to it! BT‘s system is about as dim as a Toc H lamp!
I’m on 10Mb cable and I get what I pay for, 9980 Kbps 24/7/365
I have the same problem with Virgin Media. I had the same when it was NTL.
Three reasons
1) distance form the exchange, yes this does make a difference,
2) the number of users on the same line as you, this is like a motorway (or freeway), the more people online at the same time, the slower it gets,
3) downloads, the more people that are downloading in your area means the amount of info the line can handle is reduced to stop it from becoming frozen.
It’ll be a rare day that you get the full speed from any network.