DSL speed has dropped - any ideas?

[bnorman]

Hi,

Thanks in advance for taking a look at my problem. I have CenturyLink DSL in New Mexico. I'm paying for 7 Mbit/s downlink. Normally, it's close to that. In the past couple of weeks, though, my speed has dropped considerably. First to about 3 Mbit down, now to about 1Mbit down. Nothing has changed with hardware or wiring in my house. No phones or any other devices are connected other than my DSL modem. Looking at the stats on my TP-Link TD-8810, it doesn't even look like it's trying to connect at higher speeds:

Downstream / Upstream
SNR Margin (dB): 18.3 / 12.0
Attenuation (dB): 37.0 / 29.0
Output Power (dBm): 16.7 / 12.6
Attainable Rate (Kbps): 1280 / 1252
Rate (Kbps): 1120 / 896

I'm having trouble understanding those numbers. The attenuation seems "very good" based on [http://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-c ... ation-371]. Shouldn't I easily be able to get my 7 Mbit/s downlink? Or is the problem the "noise" component of the SNR? Based on [http://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-c ... n-snr-355], those are "good" SNR margins, but are those relative to the pathetic downstream speed I'm currently getting?

I emailed CenturyLink, and of course they insist the problem is on my end. What should my next steps be?

Thanks!
Ben

[Philip]

There is nothing bad that I see with the SNR Margin or Attenuation... but the "Attainable Rate" is low at 1280, I'm not sure why. Does that stay the same if you unplug the modem and let it resync ?
Does your speed vary, does the "Attainable Rate" vary ? It could be electrical noise on the line, wiring issues, etc.