For anyone who hears the "It could be the wires in your home" and doubts it, you should have an option to prove that wrong (or right).
You can plug a phone cord with a normal rj11 connector into the test jack on your NID (the phone box outside your house, often near your electric meter).
Run the shortest phone cord you can (of known non-shitty qaulity, preferably new) to your modem (and plug in to electricity of course) and let it retrain. If it's faster, you have something wrong with your wiring, or even something simple like a smooshed jumper going from the jack to your modem. If not, you have evidence you can use to get them to come out and fix their stuff.
Plugging into the test jack bypasses all of your home wiring, which is the ultimate trouble shooting step. Phone wires are an electrical circuit, and in some shoddily run wiring situations (non home run aka Daisy chained wiring) a small problem in one place in your house can cause issues on the entire circuit.
Most big ISP don't even bother telling customers they can do this. Probably because most of their customers couldn't figure it out or just wouldn't bother. But anything on or past the customer part of the demarcation point is legally accessable to the customer. The locked side of their box is off limits to you though.
FWIW many people who call in don't have the slightest idea how technology works, and honestly there is a shocking amount of bad house wiring out there.
Source: I work for a non shitty small independent ISP. We give every customer we possibly can gigabit fiber and are pro net neutrality. We compete directly with ATT, Comcast, and others. We don't like them either...
Disclaimer 2: My LPT may not be applicable outside the US.
Disclaimer 3: Some older houses that haven't been visited by a technician for a long time may not have a proper NID.
Disclaimer 4: You may not realistically or even legally be able to do this if you live in an apartment building or some other type of multi tenant dwelling unit.
Disclaimer 5: I'm assuming your modem and possibly router and device used for speed testing aren't shit. In the real world of working with customers, this often is not a safe assumption.
Scozzar on October 7th, 2017 at 20:37 UTC »
AT&T DSL is shiiiiit
Morkai on October 7th, 2017 at 21:36 UTC »
Have you tried power cycling your modem?
Urban_bear on October 7th, 2017 at 23:04 UTC »
DSL LPT from a former ISP support worker.
For anyone who hears the "It could be the wires in your home" and doubts it, you should have an option to prove that wrong (or right).
You can plug a phone cord with a normal rj11 connector into the test jack on your NID (the phone box outside your house, often near your electric meter).
Run the shortest phone cord you can (of known non-shitty qaulity, preferably new) to your modem (and plug in to electricity of course) and let it retrain. If it's faster, you have something wrong with your wiring, or even something simple like a smooshed jumper going from the jack to your modem. If not, you have evidence you can use to get them to come out and fix their stuff.
Plugging into the test jack bypasses all of your home wiring, which is the ultimate trouble shooting step. Phone wires are an electrical circuit, and in some shoddily run wiring situations (non home run aka Daisy chained wiring) a small problem in one place in your house can cause issues on the entire circuit.
Most big ISP don't even bother telling customers they can do this. Probably because most of their customers couldn't figure it out or just wouldn't bother. But anything on or past the customer part of the demarcation point is legally accessable to the customer. The locked side of their box is off limits to you though.
More info about test jacks and such: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/How-to-test-at-the-nidsnigray-test-jack-81693
FWIW many people who call in don't have the slightest idea how technology works, and honestly there is a shocking amount of bad house wiring out there.
Source: I work for a non shitty small independent ISP. We give every customer we possibly can gigabit fiber and are pro net neutrality. We compete directly with ATT, Comcast, and others. We don't like them either...
Disclaimer 2: My LPT may not be applicable outside the US.
Disclaimer 3: Some older houses that haven't been visited by a technician for a long time may not have a proper NID.
Disclaimer 4: You may not realistically or even legally be able to do this if you live in an apartment building or some other type of multi tenant dwelling unit.
Disclaimer 5: I'm assuming your modem and possibly router and device used for speed testing aren't shit. In the real world of working with customers, this often is not a safe assumption.