Broadband Speeds

There are a number of factors that will affect the speed of connection delivered over ADSL, for this reason the speed of your Broadband service can never be guaranteed.

Manx Telecom Broadband services are priced differently based on a monthly through-put of data rather than the line speed, for example 10 Gigabytes of data per month. This is the amount of data used when browsing web sites, using email etc, rather than the speed of your connection/downloading.

Please note that no refunds or compensation will be given relating to the speed of your broadband connection over ADSL when it is within service specifications.

The speed at which you connect/download will vary significantly due to a range of factors, including:

  • The distance of your home/office from our local exchange or remote equipment – the longer the line, the slower the speed.
  • The number of other people online at anyone time – because the broadband network, and the Internet in general, is a shared service, speeds are slower at times of peak use. Customers who connect at higher speed will often find that their download speeds during busy periods will be comparable to customers who connect at lower speeds.
  • The specification of equipment and wiring in your home or office, including routers, PCs, laptops, etc. Poor wiring or older equipment can reduce the speed by over 50%.
  • Electrical interference ‘noise’ – eg, from fluorescent lights, microwaves and vacuum cleaners.

 

Correct Setup

While it's not always possible, it is best to not use any form of extension lead between the modem/router and the Phone socket. This includes hardwired extension sockets as these are still just extension leads. The further that your broadband signal has to run the more interference there will be and as such the slow the connection will run. A small increase in line noise can cause major problems, so it is always worth trying to run from the main Phone socket without any extension leads.

It also very important to ensure that all equipment attached to the phone line is connecting through an ADSL filter (see our Filter Troubleshooting page for further information). Unfiltered equipment (Such as telephones, fax machines, answermachines, cordless telephone base units, alarm systems, surge protectors, Sky Set-Top Boxes, dialler boxes, literally anything attached to the telephone line.) can interfere with the broadband reception of your router. If you are in doubt whether a piece of equipment attached to the telephone line is causing a problem, simply disconnect all devices (except the router) and try your Broadband connection again.

Bringing you the best possible service

ADSL is a 'Rate-Adaptive' service which means that each time you connect it will automatically connect at the fastest possible, stable connection speed based on all the factors previously mentioned.

If there are problems with your own equipment and/or wiring, one of our engineers can visit your home/office to resolve them, but there is a charge for this service.

If the ADSL service doesn’t meet your bandwidth expectations, we have a range of premium services that may better match your requirements – just call us on 624624 for details and prices.

Our most commonly reported ‘faults’ reported to our Service Centre can be prevented or resolved without you having to call us.

Test Your Broadband Speed

You can test the speed of your Broadand connection by using our Bandwidth Speedtest tool.

Notes

  1. SPY/ADWARE – Some webpages, particularly those that have ‘free’ or tempting offers on them, can download/install software without you necessarily knowing, this can then cause problems like system slow/shutdown, browser homepage change, breach of privacy and more sinister side effects like pornography pop-up windows.  Visit http://www.safer-networking.org/ for more information on this problem and, if you are interested, a FREE solution to download which will scan/remove spy/adware from your system.
  2. CRITICAL UPDATES – You must download ALL critical Windows updates otherwise your system is vulnerable to viruses and other problems, for more information visit Microsoft’s http://www.windowsupdate.com/ – also you should ensure that your anti-virus solution is automatically updated, preferably daily, or at the least weekly.
  3. ROUTER HOMEPAGE – Commonly after broadband is setup there are no issues for a while, so if after a few months a customer has a problem with connecting they often forget the ‘router connection in browser’ stage of configuration, or equally commonly they remember it but forget the address to access the router.  We recommend you bookmark your router homepage immediately (e.g. for a BT Voyager router it is usually http://192.168.1.1/, for a Netgear router it is usually http://192.168.0.1/. If you have any problems, access that homepage first to check whether or not your router is currently connected to Manx Telecom Broadband. If it isn’t it is usually a straight forward matter of verifying your broadband username and password and then clicking a button to connect.

Security

Now you have an always-on connection you should secure your PC or Mac from viruses, hackers and other problems. A software firewall which allows you to block access to your PC from outside sources (and can protect the rest of the internet if you get a virus), and an anti-virus scanning application would be a minimum.  Some operating systems (e.g. Windows XP and Vista) have firewall software built-in so ensure you have that option enabled. We would also recommend that you consider running an anti-spyware scanning application too.

Some useful links to examples of these applications are as follows:

 

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