For those that read my previous entry on increasing your broadband DSL upload and download speed, I've got an update.
A couple of friends loaned me an RJ12 crimper and a spool of white CAT6 cable (I've got a spool of CAT5, but its bright blue. Great for patch cables, not so great for discreetly running along baseboards). I took my own advise and replaced even more of the line between the DSL modem and the PacBell phone box, so instead of having non-twisted pair running under/through the house until it reaches the phone plug in the office, I threaded CAT6 directly from the DSL splitter to the DSL modem- about 30' in length.
As I reported earlier, I was seeing an average of 600kbps down/300kbps up after the splitter and router upgrade mods. After running the CAT6, I was seeing a consistant 640/320. An increase in 40kbps down isn't much, but at least its consistant now- who knows what sort of interferance was randomly slowing things down on the way to my router before... and it had an added benefit. It didn't occur to me that my line would be capped- but seeing such consistant numbers across multiple speed test locations pointed at a limitation on my end.
So I gave my service provider a call (who BTW wins a prize for being very reponsive every time I've called) and they suggested that PacBell may have capped my line when I was having network issues a while ago. PacBell, in their infinite wisdom, never bothered to check the line for improvement in the months that followed. So sonic.net filed a ticket with Pacbell to uncap the line, and about an hour later (to PacBell's credit), I had voicemail from them saying they were going to run line checks . Checking my like again, I'm now getting 1270/320- doubling my download speed!
So I've got a 4th bullet now to add to the list of things to do to increase your speed: call your provider and make sure your line isn't capped. It doesn't cost a thing.
