ADSL2 questions
Discussion
Help would be appreciated before I sign up with the wrong ISP!
Currently with BT and due to a very long line I'm on a fixed 512K rate (ie NOT ADSL max).
My next door neighbour is with Sky and gets 2mb on their LLU service.
I'm tempted to sign up with Be to get LLU (Be rather than Sky as they don't need a 12m contract)
Will this get me a faster rate than signing up with someone like Zen?
Cost isn't really an issue - I would happily pay £40pm for 2mb!
HELP!
Currently with BT and due to a very long line I'm on a fixed 512K rate (ie NOT ADSL max).
My next door neighbour is with Sky and gets 2mb on their LLU service.
I'm tempted to sign up with Be to get LLU (Be rather than Sky as they don't need a 12m contract)
Will this get me a faster rate than signing up with someone like Zen?
Cost isn't really an issue - I would happily pay £40pm for 2mb!
HELP!
smartie said:
My next door neighbour is with Sky and gets 2mb on their LLU service.
What service have they paid for? Not all options from Sky use ADSL2.If you can hold off a few days get the latest copy of PCPro when it comes out (I get it early on subscription). There is an article on BT's 21CN and improving the speed of your broadband. Apparently ADSL2 can actually be slower than ADSL(1) at extreme distances from the exchange.
There is one enlightened ISP that will actually tell you what speeds you could probably obtain from ADSLmax. Unfortunately I can't remember who. Have a trawl through thinkbroadband who may have the answer to that, or maybe another PHer knows the answer.
smartie said:
Had a BT engineer here for 2 whole days last year!! It's as good as they can get it, though the engineer did think I could go faster than 512K but couldn't gurantee the reliability so I left it. It's been really annoying me of late though.
Well, unless your wiring has changing it'll still be the same, so that's your lot I'd say. ADSL2 probably won't be any better either. Your neighbour has better wiring than you most likely. It happens. Sorry.ThatPhilBrettGuy said:
smartie said:
Had a BT engineer here for 2 whole days last year!! It's as good as they can get it, though the engineer did think I could go faster than 512K but couldn't gurantee the reliability so I left it. It's been really annoying me of late though.
Well, unless your wiring has changing it'll still be the same, so that's your lot I'd say. ADSL2 probably won't be any better either. Your neighbour has better wiring than you most likely. It happens. Sorry.
We had this issue as we were miles and miles from the xchange.
Every provider said that we couldn't get broadband. BT offered 512k which we took.
I phoned BT last year and asked whether they can increase my speed, they said no problem but would not promise anything above 512k
It worked out a few quid cheaper and we get between 1.2 and 1.5mb no problem.
Every provider said that we couldn't get broadband. BT offered 512k which we took.
I phoned BT last year and asked whether they can increase my speed, they said no problem but would not promise anything above 512k
It worked out a few quid cheaper and we get between 1.2 and 1.5mb no problem.
Ash 996 GT2 said:
Makes no difference.
you can order MAX, you will not get any faster.
It is all about distance, I have the sme problem at home.
Unless there is an exchange closer, forget it.
I may be proven wrong by someone else.
The point is though that it was a fixed 512KB line so couldn't go any faster regardless.you can order MAX, you will not get any faster.
It is all about distance, I have the sme problem at home.
Unless there is an exchange closer, forget it.
I may be proven wrong by someone else.
Worth a try anyway, and should be easy enough to cancel zen if no better.
wiggy001 said:
Have you considered mobile broadband from someone like carphonewarehouse?
Just a thought.
It's not a bad idea and I've just had a look, but..............Just a thought.
I don't want to sign up to a 12m contract if the coverage is patchy
and most only allow 7gb d/l a month.
Could be worth a serious look though.
WHERE IS THAT WIMAX I WAS PROMISED!!With your attenuation, you should get 10-12Mbit or so on ADSL+(difficult to say exactly). The important thing isn't so much the line length, it is the data backhaul from the exchange to the ISP. Most (all?) non-LLU ISPs use BT's modems at the exchange, and share BT's data pipes. This results in your throughput being reduced at busy times. I know for certain that Be are very responsive to bandwidth bottlenecks, and have even gone to the extent of closing exchanges to new users until they can get more bandwidth in place.
From what I am hearing from some of my customers, ADSL2 is starting to have an impact for business customers. They are seeing reasonable costs with good throughput and are generally impressed. However, the feedback isnt totally positive though. Reliability isnt quite as good as normal ADSL and some of the ADSL2 suppliers have not been very efficient in getting it installed. The future is looking pretty good, but at the moment its not brilliant. This is feedback I am getting, its not bad by any means, just not glowing. Oh, and this is in metropolitan areas and not necessarily the 'burbs. Lets see how the technology holds up as it starts to roll-out full scale.
As for speeds and feeds, its worth checking and testing. I am on a BT 8Mbps contract and its been pretty darn good. No issues to complain about and I get extremely good throughput (almost as advertised). A neighbour chops and changes to get the best deal and probably spends 6-8 weeks a year without broadband as a result. Because they go on price, they buy the 2Mbps service but pretty much never get close to this. Yeah, they probably save £100 a year, but its not worth it for me. If a neighbour is getting 2Mbps though, time to get on the blower to get yours sorted then.
Finally, on the question of providers such as Zen. From the feedback that I have had from business and private customers of them, they cannot fault their service. They have been pro-active to resolve problems, very aware of issues and keen to talk to people. Pretty much the polar opposite to every other provider. A friend of mine has been on Zen for over 8 years now, and he's a tightwad! He sees the benefit of spending the money for the service as they are slightly more than other alternatives. I am sure that someone has had a bad experience of Zen, but from what I hear they are excellent.
As for speeds and feeds, its worth checking and testing. I am on a BT 8Mbps contract and its been pretty darn good. No issues to complain about and I get extremely good throughput (almost as advertised). A neighbour chops and changes to get the best deal and probably spends 6-8 weeks a year without broadband as a result. Because they go on price, they buy the 2Mbps service but pretty much never get close to this. Yeah, they probably save £100 a year, but its not worth it for me. If a neighbour is getting 2Mbps though, time to get on the blower to get yours sorted then.
Finally, on the question of providers such as Zen. From the feedback that I have had from business and private customers of them, they cannot fault their service. They have been pro-active to resolve problems, very aware of issues and keen to talk to people. Pretty much the polar opposite to every other provider. A friend of mine has been on Zen for over 8 years now, and he's a tightwad! He sees the benefit of spending the money for the service as they are slightly more than other alternatives. I am sure that someone has had a bad experience of Zen, but from what I hear they are excellent.
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