The maximum possible speed of an Extreme® ADSL2+ service will depend on a number of factors. These include the length and quality of the phone line that links your premises to your local telephone exchange, the type of ADSL modem or router that you are using, and the 'line profile' you are currently using.
The ADSL modem or router that you use on a Home Extreme® ADSL2+ service will affect the maximum possible speed as follows:
- ADSL2+ Modem/Router - 24000/1000 kbps
- ADSL1 Modem/Router - 8000/1000 kbps (many older ADSL modems are ADSL1 only)
All ADSL broadband routers sold by Internode are ADSL2+ capable.
How fast can it be?
On the graph, the blue and green shaded areas show the theoretical maximum speeds you can obtain on Internode Extreme ADSL2+ services, at various distances from your local telephone exchange using either an ADSL1 or ADSL2+ broadband modem.
Factors that may affect performance
While the speeds indicated on this graph show the theoretical maximum speed of the various ADSL protocols on good copper lines - with no bad joints, faulty insulation, or high speed 'interferers' (such as bridge taps or loading coils). Your actual achieved speed may vary substantially from these theoretical results, based on:
- the 'line profile' that is operative on your service.
Internode places new Extreme customers on a conservative initial profile that constrains maximum download speeds in order to achieve the highest possible connection stability. Customers may then change (online) to any other line profile, at any time, and at no cost, to explore the tradeoff between speed and connection stability that applies for their individual situation. - the length of copper wire from your premises to the exchange - this is always higher than the distance 'as the crow flies'.
- the number and type of other digital services being used by other customers over copper pairs within the same cable sheath.
- the configuration and line quality of the copper wire between the exchange and your premises.
- electrical interference from outside sources (such as electric motors).
- the configuration of the copper wiring within your premises (i.e. use a central splitter for optimal performance).
- the software configuration and application on your computer (in particular how it uses the uplink back to the exchange).
- your ADSL hardware.
- the capacity of, load on, and access data rate of the destination host computer which you are accessing.
The most effective way to improve your Extreme® ADSL2+ performance is to have a licensed cabler install a good quality central splitter (available from Internode) in your premises to use with your ADSL2+ router.
So how does ADSL2+ perform in the real world?
You don't live in a laboratory, so it's quite true that the various factors listed above will reduce your performance from the 'ideal' shown in the above graph.
Hence, in December 2006 we took a random sample 7,305 Internode Extreme® ADSL2+ broadband services. Each service was connected to an Internode DSLAM and using the ADSL2+ protocol (G992.5 Annex A ADSL2+ over POTS). We found the following distribution:
- 13.4% achieve a download synch speed of higher than 20 Mbps
- 27.7% achieve a download synch speed of between 15 Mbps and 20 Mbps
- 22.1% achieve a download synch speed of between 10 Mbps and 15 Mbps
- 23.0% achieve a download synch speed of between 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps
- 13.8% achieve a download synch speed of less than 5 Mbps
So over 63% of these customers are achieving 10 Mbps download synch speed or better ...... and that's why we call it Extreme®!
