ADSL2+

Rik · Nov 10, 2009, 10:15:14

That looks fine, you're on the hostlink as far as I can see, so let support have that BT test to investigate.

B52 · Nov 27, 2009, 22:48:21

Well, an update.

Things just get worse. New Netgear and filter. Configured speed is now down to 1750 and d/l 1625k. Lower than with the Buffalo router and half what I had before 2+

Sent Tracert, router stats, etc to support. Seems my line is cr@p.

Think I might try putting the Buffalo router back. If no improvement, support suggested it might be possible to undo my move to ADSL2+.

If that gets it back to how it was pre-changeover, I'll be happy. Otherwise I'll be on the Virgin train.

Supanova · Nov 27, 2009, 23:26:36

If Be unlimited/O2 has unbundled your exchange i'd recommend them very highly as a very happy customer for 2 years. The customer service is free and great although there is a waiting time of about 5 minutes to get through and it's £9.79 a month for 20meg (!!!). Their ADSL2 service is great...just avoid the access packages like the plague. IDnet is great if nobody has done over your exchange, but it's certainly not worth the money if you have the opportunity to migrate to ADSL2 LLU in my humble opinion.

Virgin are so unbelievable it makes my angry. Utterly incompetent morons that don't give a damn about providing internet. I'm so furious right now thinking about them.

Just my 2 cents based on my past experience.

B52 · Nov 28, 2009, 13:21:30

So clue me up on LLU. How would that be any better on my line than ADSL2+. The signals still have to travel down the same line from the exchange, dont they?

Im in a Virgin cable area so I wouldnt suffer from the same line problems. Cables were installed about 20 years ago by Nynex to our gate. Virgin are now offering free installation and router with phone and internet for a lot less than Im paying for the same from IDNet.
I'll talk to some of my neighbours that I know are on cable and see what speeds they are getting and if there are any problems, before I think about jumping ship.

Sebby · Nov 28, 2009, 14:29:45

They do, but it seems that LLU equipment seems to handle lines better in some cases, somehow.

Supanova · Nov 28, 2009, 15:07:33

Quote from: B52 on Nov 28, 2009, 13:21:30
So clue me up on LLU. How would that be any better on my line than ADSL2+. The signals still have to travel down the same line from the exchange, dont they?

Im in a Virgin cable area so I wouldnt suffer from the same line problems. Cables were installed about 20 years ago by Nynex to our gate. Virgin are now offering free installation and router with phone and internet for a lot less than Im paying for the same from IDNet.
I'll talk to some of my neighbours that I know are on cable and see what speeds they are getting and if there are any problems, before I think about jumping ship.

If you are with IDnet then they rely on BT's exchange equipment to provide you with internet, hence the suckyness. Provides who can afford it fit their own equipment into the exchange to handle their customers and nobody elses. The equipment they put in is far better than anything BT have yet to come up with it seems.

I am also in a Virgin cable area, yet they have decided that 1000mbit/sec is sufficient for a large village/small town on the outskirts of Birmingham in an area with high population density and young people. Cable internet shares that lump of bandwidth with all the consumers, so if someone is taking a bigger share than they should - tough luck matey for everyone else.

At peak times the internet was almost completely unusable - I couldn't even communicate on skype because it would break up so much. The situation is now worse because Virgin are allowing people in the area to get 50mbit packages with massive download allowances which hog the bandwidth and ruin everyones experience. The problem with cable is that you share your bandwidth with your fellow neighbours, so your connection is much more sensitive to the downloading gits (and gitettes) down the road. With ADSL, your connection to the exchange is yours and yours alone right up to the LLU. It takes far more for downloaders to affect your connection, and ISP's are able to throttle them before they become a problem.

If you are in a nice quiet area full of old dear's that have no idea what the internet is for, Virgin cable will be just fine if you don't draw the sucker straw. If you are in an area where you think people are likely to be downloading a lot (young people area) then I would advise you to avoid cable.

B52 · Nov 28, 2009, 19:49:00

I live in a Close of 14 houses and I can see the street cabinet from my house about 50mtrs away. Does the split occur there or in some other place.

I'll have a look who is available LLUwise on my exchange.

B52 · Nov 28, 2009, 20:03:52

Just checked my number on the BE site. Offering speeds upto 2.4meg. Its hardly worth it.

Exchange also LLUed with Tiscali, AOL, Talktalk, Orange,Sky/Easynet.

I'll temporarily try disconnecting all the internal phone wiring apart from at the main socket over the weekend and see if that has any effect. I keep getting told to use the socket behind the BTsocket faceplate, but I dont have one. We just have a plain box type socket 2" square where the wire comes in from the outside. Its been there since before we moved into the house over 30 years ago. Taking off the front just exposes 6 terminals and nothing else.

Cheers

Ann · Nov 28, 2009, 20:13:36

The LLU split happens at the exchange so the line to the exchange is the same. I have a problem with that when it rains it cuts out but nothing I can do about that. From the exchange the choice is BT or LLU. If you choose LLU choose wisely. All LLUs are not the same. if you've got BE they're good, the rest I wouldn't use.

When I checked my speed on the BE site it said 3.5.. I actually get the full 8mb sync and a speed of 7mb.

B52 · Nov 28, 2009, 21:33:14

Sorry, didnt make it clear. The cabinet I can see is the cable cabinet, not BT. It was that I was refering to re the splitting. Ive no idea where the 'cable exchange' is located, or even if there is such a thing.

From searching the various suppliers sites, LLU would make very little difference to my speed.

Rik · Nov 29, 2009, 11:12:06

The LLU suppliers equipment is housed in the BT exchange.

B52 · Nov 29, 2009, 12:08:21

"The LLU suppliers equipment is housed in the BT exchange."

Yes, I realise that. I was responding to Supanovas post about CABLE. Where are the 'exchanges', if thats what they are, that distribute the cable signals and does the 'lump' as he describes it, travel to the street cabinet for splitting or is it already split when it gets there?
The answer to that would have a bearing on my decision whether to go for cable. If its split at the street cabinet I wouldnt be sharing with many people at all.

Rik · Nov 29, 2009, 12:13:05

Sorry, misread you.

TBH, I don't know whether that's where the segments are split, or whether it's just where the fibre changes to copper.

B52 · Nov 30, 2009, 10:21:46

These are 2sets of stats for my line before and after removing all extensions from the main line box.(sorry they're not in the same format)
I dont understand the significance of these and would be grateful of an explanation. Is it worthwhile leaving the extensions disconnected or will it make little difference to my speed etc? Thanks

Before
ADSL Link
Downstream
Upstream

Connection Speed
2268 kbps
440 kbps

Line Attenuation
52.0 db
27.7 db

Noise Margin
7.0 db
19.2 db

After
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 2268 kbps 440 kbps
Line Attenuation 48.5 db 27.4 db
Noise Margin 14.1 db 22.3 db

Rik · Nov 30, 2009, 10:26:10

It's removed 3.5db from you d/s attenuation but your noise margin has shot up. The two are conflicting, were there a lot of resyncs during the process?

B52 · Nov 30, 2009, 11:03:48

Not that Im aware of.
Connected immediately and has stayed there.
Through all this Ive never had any drop off of connections. The line has been very stable. When it was first changed over it had a config of 4000k and worked fine for me so I cant understand why it was downgraded in stages to what is now 1750.

Rik · Nov 30, 2009, 11:04:41

Check the error count in your router.

B52 · Nov 30, 2009, 11:18:44

Just changed the DSL Mode from Auto to ADSL2+ on the Netgear and its changed the stats to these below:-

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 2268 kbps 440 kbps
Line Attenuation 51.5 db 27.4 db
Noise Margin 6.4 db 21.9 db

Should I change it back to auto? This stuff does my head in.

Where will I find the error count?

Thanks

Rik · Nov 30, 2009, 11:21:49

Not sure where the error count is on Netgears, try the stats page.

There's something very odd going on with your connection, noise margin is down (or you have a lot of noise at present), attenuation is pretty much back to where it was, but you're still connecting at the same sync speed, with a very low u/stream rate. I think you need to talk to support.

B52 · Nov 30, 2009, 11:23:09

Off out now for a couple of hours. Will speak to the this pm.

Thanks

B52 · Dec 28, 2009, 11:09:31

An update after a month of disappointment then elation,

ADSL+ trial for me was very disappointing. Getting much lower speeds than before on ADSL. Some as low as dialup speeds. Eventually after discussions with support
I decided to ask to revert back to bog standard ADSL about 2 weeks ago.
Profile then went up to 3000k after 2 days dropped to 2500k and stayed like that for about a week which was still an improvement on ADSL+ for me. Then a couple of days before Christmas it went up to 4000k and yesterday increased to 5000k. On various speedtests including BT Im actually getting 5000k download speeds.
Brilliant. Ive never had anything likethose speeds even before the change to ADSL+. Since moving back to the 'ordinary' connection my speeds are double what I was getting a few months ago.
Im left wondering whether I should have queried my speeds earlier but I was happy that I had a reliable connection that never went down at 2000k.

Rik · Dec 28, 2009, 11:15:10

Possibly the move to an MSAN did something to improve your connection?

willgoat · Dec 28, 2009, 23:01:02

Woot! My speed is great tonite!

Rik · Dec 29, 2009, 08:45:39

Ah shaddup.

B52 · Dec 29, 2009, 16:15:59

Willgoat.

One small consolation to me is that my uploads are better than yours. 0.75Mb/sec