guys
ive been a bt enginer for nearly ten years my job is to fix broadband conections and help people with slow conections you will find that the main reason your conection slows down is down to contention this is changed around month on month so some are good months some are bad.
next main issue is peoples computers we all tend to have loads of anti virus software working when it sees a problem and snarls up the conection most spyware and the like is web based and needs the connection to do its thing.
next main issue to speed is firewalls there rubbish when they go wrong i hate them and they do go wrong more than they should
also so guys most of the above mentioned service providers use the same adsl equitment in the exchanges and all are as bad as each other there is some bandwidth fixing with some service providers but generally this is because the eu asks for a cheaper service.
i would say avoid using the conection 3pm to around 5pm contention will be high also 9am till 10am the same
i hope this helps but please dont slag the bt off we do our best for quite a cheap conection fee if you think 5/7 years ago we were paying 60quid a month for isdn 128k conections how rubbish is that now we can get broadband for free from some sp`s we should all thank our lucky stars.
laters Andy