Just to provide an update:
Tech came yesterday and found that the line into the apartment complex was fine, but he couldn’t get in to the apartment to see if there was a wiring / modem problem. Second tech came today, looked at it, said, “Why is there a filter on there?”, removed filter, instantly fixed the problem.
“The tech support people I called told me to make sure there WAS a filter on it,” I said.
“Yeah, our help desk is pretty useless. And so are the instructions it came with,” he said.
So despite my crap-ass wiring, I’m getting 5 mbit down / 800 kbit up speeds now.
So remember: DSL + home phone service = filters. DSL without phone = NO FILTERS!
A hearty “Oh brother!” for whoever said you needed a filter. You’re actually lucky that the DSL worked at all through a filter that’s designed to block the DSL signals.
Congrats on thenew speed - you’re pretty close to the practical maximum speed. About the only way to get 6 megabits is to be next door to the central office and have a new line run with no splices, duplexers, bridge taps or any of the other things that are on the average phone line.
Damn, I was gonna warn you about only putting filters on phones but then figured, “a well informed chap like this surely knows about filters.”