Over time broadband connections can slow down, typically this is caused by fragments of data stuck on the line. Over the last couple of weeks our connection slowed down to a crawl and was suffering periods of not working all together. After a call to BT I spoke to a very helpful chap in Lancashire who ran a series of checks, confirmed there was no issue on the line and seemingly sped up the connection by doing some resets.
Below is what a BT engineer told me to do that can help clear these data fragments and speed up your connection.
- Disconnect your router (ethernet cable) from the BT master socket and wait 60 seconds
- Unplug the power lead from the back of your router and wait 60 seconds
- Plug the router back into the BT master socket and wait 60 seconds
- Reconnect your routers power lead
He told me this is likely to speed up the connection for a few weeks, possibly months depending on usage. When speaking to him he performed a series of line checks that did a similar thing.
He also mentioned that the reset button on the back of our home hub can be used as a last resort to do an even deeper reset back to the exchange. However he warned that doing this regularly can result in the exchange throttling the speed on your line so not to do this more than 2 or 3 times a year.