Is there a way to improve upload speeds?

[W00DY]

Hi All,

As the title states, is there a way to improve your upload speed (other than going on a different plan)?

I am with telstra bigpond and pay $90 a month for 12gig limit with 2000 download & 512 upload speeds (I know you don't actually get this speed).

The downloads are great, super fast but uploading is painfully slow and having to upload images to my lab every week it is driving me insane. My router says I am only getting about 20mb speeds for uploading (a LONG way from the 512 advertised).

Would bypassing the wireless router help? (I would then have to have a very long ethernet cable running through the house though)

Of course Telstra say that because we are 1km from the exchange there is nothing they can do.

I really don't want to have to burn CD/DVD's all the time and send them to the labs after all it is the year 2008!!!

Any thing anyone can suggest?

Cheers,
W00DY

[Bindii]

I am with telstra bigpond and pay $90 a month for 12gig limit with 2000 download & 512 upload speeds (I know you don't actually get this speed).

Cheers,
W00DY

Woo.. thats expensive...

I pay $99 a month with Optus for ADSL2.. and thats unlimited time, 40 gig limit and way faster upload times.. they provided me with the modem and a wireless router and a dongle to hook up another computer... I also get my home phone on that plan... all calls within Australia to a landline are free, and all calls to Optus mobile phones are free..

I'd be changing if I were you..

[Bindii]

Double post... ooops..

[W00DY]

I'd be changing if I were you..

Unfortunatley where we have just moved to Telstra is our only option

Believe me I would prefer not to be with them. We can't even get cable so we were forced to pay an extra $20 a month for a home phone line which we don't even use and didn't want but had to so we could get ADSL2+

[Bindii]

I'd be changing if I were you..

Unfortunatley where we have just moved to Telstra is our only option

Believe me I would prefer not to be with them. We can't even get cable so we were forced to pay an extra $20 a month for a home phone line which we don't even use and didn't want but had to so we could get ADSL2+

Thats Telstra for you... the previous house I lived in was in the inner suburbs... less than a block from a major university and 2 blocks from a major hospital..

yet the only internet connection that we could get was dialup...

I moved house...

Good luck with it though..

[Bindii]

crap I did it again..

[sirhc55]

Hi All,

As the title states, is there a way to improve your upload speed (other than going on a different plan)?

I am with telstra bigpond and pay $90 a month for 12gig limit with 2000 download & 512 upload speeds (I know you don't actually get this speed).

The downloads are great, super fast but uploading is painfully slow and having to upload images to my lab every week it is driving me insane. My router says I am only getting about 20mb speeds for uploading (a LONG way from the 512 advertised).

Would bypassing the wireless router help? (I would then have to have a very long ethernet cable running through the house though)

Of course Telstra say that because we are 1km from the exchange there is nothing they can do.

I really don't want to have to burn CD/DVD's all the time and send them to the labs after all it is the year 2008!!!

Any thing anyone can suggest?

Cheers,
W00DY

WOODY - I’m with Telstra Bigpond on a 12Gb plan (Extreme Liberty $69.95 per month) and after checking their plans I see nothing at 12Gb for $90 per month. Are you sure about the plan? The one I’m on has 30Mbps/1000kbps and I can upload to an ftp at approx 150-200kbps. Of course downloads run very fast, a 50Mb file taking around a minute.

The other plan running 12Gb from Telstra is $59.95 and 8000/128kbps.

I believe you are getting 20kbps (not 20Mb)

It is normal NOT to get the full upload speed due to many factors including traffic.

My only suggestion is to get a pair of Nike’s

[photohiker]

Well,

The first thing you could do would be to dump Bigpond.

The classic situation bigpond users find themselves in are high fees, low speeds, and excess usage charges that break the bank.

There are lots of alternatives, but which you choose is up to you. You will need to do some research as all providers are not equal - some just resell Telstra ADSL offerings, and some install their own ADSL hardware in the exchange. Internode, for example, is offering ADSL2+ connections with a variety of download limits ranging from 10Gb through to 100Gb. $89.95 gets you 55Gb download limit. When you exceed the limit, Internode slows your connection down 'throttles it' but does not charge you per megabyte like most Bigpond plans. You can see the Internode fees page for ADSL2 HERE

Good information is available on the Whirlpool forums HERE. Most of the major ADSL players have a dedicated area on Whirlpool, so you can get a pretty good idea what their service is like.

Michael

[sirhc55]

Interesting Michael but if you check the posted speed chart and then read the copy under the chart you will notice the word ‘theoretical’ and that’s about it.

Most people would find these speeds impossible to attain and remember they are listed ‘download’ speeds - not upload

[photohiker]

Without wanting to have a big debate about it all, the original question was how to make uploads faster.

So, I have showed an alternative providers offering, that shows higher 'theoretical' speeds and cheaper fees. I also pointed out where more information can be had.

Woody says he is just 1km from the exchange, I think he is in pretty good shape to get higher speeds if he can get himself onto ADSL2+ and a decent plan. I'm not an Internode customer, but I do know plenty who are, and I have met Simon Hackett (the Intenode MD) and he's a good guy in my opinion.

I don't think I should embed the image here, but Internode have a good graphic showing the theoretical speeds attained for various ADSL and distances HERE which is part of this product explanation page.

Yes. Download speeds. ADSL2+ AnnexA (as above) has a theoretical max of 1mbps upload. You can go faster with AnnexM, but you need to pay more for that, if you can find someone offering it in your exchange. I don't think you'll find anyone guaranteeing any actual speed on the ADSL network regardless of carrier. It just doesn't work like that, there are too many reasons it might not reach full speed, and many are outside the carrier's control.

Michael

[photohiker]

By the way, it's a good idea to get a handle on why your upload is slow.

It's possible that it's not your ADSL at all, but the server you are uploading to has issues of it's own.

There is a speedtest site used quite a lot on whirlpool: http://www.ozspeedtest.com/

If you look closely, there is an upload speed test as well as the download one. My 'old' ADSL2 connection achieved 743 kbps upload speed. We are over 3km from the exchange.

Michael

[W00DY]

Thanks for all the replies...

Sirhc55 - Yep, ADSL Liberty 12gb (2000/512) is correct.

As per my original post, moving from telstra or to another plan was not what I was after. I checked a lot of companies and they all said that they could not provide ADSL at this address!!!

I guess I was hoping that it might have been something to do with my setup (Mac, Router, whatever) rather than just my connection

[photohiker]

Some questions then.

How old is the phone wiring in the house?
Does ADSL share the line with anything else?
Does your ADSL modem/router match the ADSL Service you have?
What is the real-life upload speed you get to wherever you are uploading to? (Not what the router says, how long for how many megabytes)
What results do you get from the speedtest above? (ozspeedtest)
How big are your uploads?

If you are 1km from the exchange, you should get pretty quick uploads (well, relative to those further away) The comparative of the speedtest vs the actual real-life rates might be interesting.

ADSL filters are cheap, you might try a new one. We had a problem a while back where everything got progressively slower and then died. In the end, I discovered the filter was shot. (our ADSL shares with a fax)

Michael

[ATJ]

Andrew,

What does http://www.speedtest.net/ tell you is your upload speed?

Also note that both upload and download speeds are not only dependent on your connection. You have to consider the whole path to the site you are downloading from or uploading to. Perhaps that is part of your problem.

I'm on a BigPond ADSL Liberty (25GB) 1500/256 $79.95 monthly and this is what Speedtest says:

[MATT]

WOODY - I’m with Telstra Bigpond on a 12Gb plan (Extreme Liberty $69.95 per month) and after checking their plans I see nothing at 12Gb for $90 per month. Are you sure about the plan? The one I’m on has 30Mbps/1000kbps and I can upload to an ftp at approx 150-200kbps. Of course downloads run very fast, a 50Mb file taking around a minute.

The other plan running 12Gb from Telstra is $59.95 and 8000/128kbps.

I believe you are getting 20kbps (not 20Mb)

It is normal NOT to get the full upload speed due to many factors including traffic.

My only suggestion is to get a pair of Nike’s

This makes me cry......adsl only choice....

MATT

[Pehpsi]

I'm on Optus Cable. Think it's about $70. I get 36GB each month; 12GB + 24GB free-time between 12am-12pm.

Pretty happy with it I gotta say! Download speeds are about 1.1MB/s on my comp, which gets its wireless from the Airport in the lounge room. TV show in minutes? Yes please!!

[photohiker]

ATJ, Speedtest seems to work pretty well.
Adam ADSL2 $69.95 and 40Gb/month


Michael

[ATJ]

WOODY - I’m with Telstra Bigpond on a 12Gb plan (Extreme Liberty $69.95 per month) and after checking their plans I see nothing at 12Gb for $90 per month. Are you sure about the plan? The one I’m on has 30Mbps/1000kbps and I can upload to an ftp at approx 150-200kbps. Of course downloads run very fast, a 50Mb file taking around a minute.

The other plan running 12Gb from Telstra is $59.95 and 8000/128kbps.

Chris,

I believe the plans that Telstra offers vary from location to location and on what speeds are possible.

These the plans that are "available" to me (which includes Andrew/WOODY's plan), only the fastest available to me is only 1500/256kbps as ADSL2 is not available in my area.

BigPond ADSL 200MB 256/64 256/64kbps 200MB per month $0.15 per MB $29.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL Liberty* (12GB) 256/64 256/64kbps 12GB*, then slowed N/a $59.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL 400MB 1500/256 1500/256kbps 400MB per month $0.15 per MB $39.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL Liberty* (12GB) 1500/256 1500/256kbps 12GB*, then slowed N/a $69.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL Liberty* (25GB) 1500/256 1500/256kbps 25GB*, then slowed N/a $79.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL 600MB 20000/512 Up to 20000/512kbps 600MB per month $0.15 per MB $59.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL Liberty* (12GB) 20000/512 Up to 20000/512kbps 12GB*, then slowed N/a $89.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL Liberty* (25GB) 20000/1000 Up to 20000/1000kbps 25GB*, then slowed N/a $99.95 monthly
BigPond ADSL 60GB 20000/1000 Up to 20000/1000kbps 60GB per month $0.15 per MB $149.95 monthly

* Once you have reached your usage allowance, the speed of your service will slow to 64 kbps. No additional usage charges apply to BigPond Liberty plans.

Plans with download speeds of up to 20,000kbps are not available to all customers.

1. Monthly Plan Usage Allowance (MB and GB) means combined upload and download data transfer. For the purposes of calculating usage, 1 Gigabyte = 1000 Megabytes. Unused usage forfeited.
2. 20000kbps plans not available to all customers. All speeds are theoretical network maximum speeds, apart from the 8000 and 20000kbps download speeds which are based on Telstra tests. Actual speeds may be less due to a number of factors including network configuration, line quality & length, exchange type, customer premises interference, traffic and equipment. About 50% of customers on the 20000 kbps plan can access speeds around 10000kbps or more.
3. Discounted monthly plan fees for Telstra full service fixed phone customers.

[gstark]

As per my original post, moving from telstra or to another plan was not what I was after. I checked a lot of companies and they all said that they could not provide ADSL at this address!!!

If Telstra provide you with an ADSL service, then every one of their resellers can provide you with that service too. And Telstra MUST provide them that connection.

Many will offer a churn that takes just a couple of days to process, and is often free of setup charges.

That is absolutely the first thing I'd doing: telling Telstra where to go. Remember that uploads count towards your quota: if you've uploaded heaps, perhaps you've already hit your limit and yo're seeing the bandwidth throttling?

I would look at almost any other ISP: see who offers a churn, and look at their plans. It has to be cheaper.

[W00DY]

Ok, well it seems it could be my wireless router causing the issues!!!

I have connected the iMac directly to the ADSL modem and I am getting upload speeds of about 150kb/s (which is much better than 8!!!) I also have not had any drop outs (when connected to the router I was getting an error message saying "pipe broken" which I thought was Telstra's issue).

So...

Woudl it be a configuration issue with the router? I have a Belkin N1 Vision wireless router which I thought was one of the best woreless routers on the market (at least the price tag indicated this ). Is there anything I should be checking on the router to try and improve the performance and also stop the drop outs?

I tried calling Belkin but they said every thing was correct and it was Telstra's issue (of course it is!!!)

[photohiker]

Probably.

Or a channel conflict with a neighbouring access point.

I'd leave it plugged into the ethernet, especially when you want to do your uploads, it's always going to be faster and more reliable than wireless.

Michael

[W00DY]

Probably.

Or a channel conflict with a neighbouring access point.

I'd leave it plugged into the ethernet, especially when you want to do your uploads, it's always going to be faster and more reliable than wireless.

Michael

Easier said than done when you have 3 kids running around and a cable stretching through 3 rooms between the modem and the computer

[photohiker]

Haven't you got an electric drill?

For the wire, not the kids...

Michael

[!~DeViNe~DaRkNeSs~!]

Optus Cable..$70 a month 20g d/l peak with another 40g off peak never missed a beat in 2 years