My parents live in Easton Park Parade, in Glenfield, where (according to the Chorus map) they can only get ADSL despite being less than 100m from the nearest UFB zone. There is no VDSL available in that area, with UFB due in about a year. While they don't really need full UFB speeds, they are only getting 4Mbps down and around 0.7 up on a good day (wired speed), which is quite limiting, especially when my son and I are visiting and he wants to download a game or something. Plus my Dad still works from home. They have a Technicolour TG582n modem which was issued by Spark. Is that the speed their Spark ADSL plan is supposed to give them? I recall getting around 12Mbps on my old ADSL2 connection before I went to VDSL. Are they able to change their plan to something that will give them better speeds, or is the "up to 10Mbps" advertised on Spark as good as it gets? I seem to remember there once an option to be on ADSL1 or ADSL2 and the speed improved accordingly.

My sister has offered them a much more powerful modem (the brand escapes me right now) but I'm not sure if that's going to help with anything other than the wireless signal reach within the house. Is it likely to be the Technicolour that's holding them back, speed-wise? Their house was built in the early 70's, and the extension where the modem is currently plugged in was added in the early 80's. Is it most likely that their wiring is to blame, and is there an easy way I can find this out?

I'd like to help them out given they are in their mid-70's and not very technically minded, but rather frustrated when they want to download something and it takes 5 hours. I suspect they probably need a professional to diagnose their connection but I'd like to try and get them up to a better speed without them having to shell out too much money for an interim solution while they wait for UFB to arrive in around 12 months.