LLU

DorsetBoy · Jun 28, 2010, 12:16:46

LLU.... anyone here used it?

Benefits,drawbacks ?What are your experiences?

Gary · Jun 28, 2010, 12:24:11

Quote from: DorsetBoy on Jun 28, 2010, 12:16:46
LLU.... anyone here used it?

Benefits,drawbacks ?What are your experiences?

I used BE/O2 LLU it was fast, no profiles to worry about, generally very good, then I moved and I am at a BT only exchange, if LLU was here I would go for it now just for the speed increase, more stable than the ADSL 2+ BT product I would say after seeing the issues people had here, thing is I would miss IDNets service, sometimes the grass is never truly greener on the other side, but BE are good never the less.

zappaDPJ · Jun 28, 2010, 12:40:22

While I think it's fair to say that a lot of people are very satisfied with Be, I was one of those who was not. I was with them for 3 months and in the end I couldn't get away fast enough. During the day I had speeds of 14 MB/s plus and average latency (40-60ms). At peak however my speeds dropped to the point where video streaming was impossible and my latency increased dramatically, 350-1000ms+ to local destinations.

I felt that their overseas support were stringing me along and it turned they were. After 3 months they admitted via their forum that there was a major capacity issue for a large number of users but the planned rolling upgrades were many months away. I left and came here.

Gary · Jun 28, 2010, 13:10:22

Quote from: zappaDPJ on Jun 28, 2010, 12:40:22
While I think it's fair to say that a lot of people are very satisfied with Be, I was one of those who was not. I was with them for 3 months and in the end I couldn't get away fast enough. During the day I had speeds of 14 MB/s plus and average latency (40-60ms). At peak however my speeds dropped to the point where video streaming was impossible and my latency increased dramatically, 350-1000ms+ to local destinations.

I felt that their overseas support were stringing me along and it turned they were. After 3 months they admitted via their forum that there was a major capacity issue for a large number of users but the planned rolling upgrades were many months away. I left and came here.

I think that upgrade was done a while back want it? As with anything, 2 sides to every story, some have bad some have good, but I always think if its not broken, don't fix it. Thinking a bit more sensibly, I would stay with IDNet actually, it works and I know what to expect, that's good enough for me at this time. Level of service and good speeds are great, why possibly ruin that?

DorsetBoy · Jun 28, 2010, 14:27:50

BE* are definitely not part of the equation.

Given an exchange that has very limited choices,no BT ADSL2+ and no prospect of any form of upgrade with a BT supplied service for a good few years what would you do if you had the chance of an ADSL2+ connection with speeds at 16-18 mb via LLU at a price £10.00p/m lower than your present connection?

pctech · Jun 28, 2010, 19:41:22

As Be/O2 market their service on price and that the service is 'unlimited' they have won a lot of custom but a fair amount of that is going to be the heavy downloaders which degrades the service for everyone and particularly in areas where there's a large concentration due to exchange congestion.
I was a customer of O2 for about a month and was getting 2.5Meg but frequent drop outs due to line length.
I phoned and asked for a MAC because I had previously investigated whether BT could do anything with the line.

They wanted to call BT and I explained that it had already been done before and I just wanted my money back under their guarantee.

Was told 28 days and was give a Mac.

28 days passed and received £1.50 so rang them.

Was told the full 7.50 had been sent via DD, checked with my bank and it hadn't, rang back and was told to send in bank statements (which would have cost me £5)

Asked who to send to was given the name Mark and an address in Leeds, West Yorks.

Asked for surname and job title and bloke on the end of the phone refused, I gave up but did think about reporting them to ofcom.

Cheap? definitely, Good service? No

Shame really as I've been a customer of O2's mobile phone service for nearly 4 years and have always found their customer service to be excellent.

DorsetBoy · Jun 28, 2010, 19:46:05

Like I said BE* are of no interest, they are not available on the exchange......... it was LLU in general, any issues etc.......

pctech · Jun 28, 2010, 19:49:41

Yes, you're right Dorset.

I'd love to be able to cut BT right out of the equation.

Glenn · Jun 28, 2010, 19:51:37

BT are involved even with LLU providers, the are still called to fix 'last mile' cable problems.

pctech · Jun 28, 2010, 19:55:33

Yes shame that.

As I've said before if money was no object I'd set up a national fibre network and rent capacity out to the ISPs.

zappaDPJ · Jun 28, 2010, 23:34:11

Quote from: DorsetBoy on Jun 28, 2010, 19:46:05
Like I said BE* are of no interest, they are not available on the exchange......... it was LLU in general, any issues etc.......

I don't know how relevant this is but you've reminded me of something I'd completely forgotten about. I was with Pipex for many years. During that time I had a grand total of two router re-syncs that I was aware of, one of which was self-imposed. I had a sub 20ms ping 24/7 and a maximum sync rate. When Pipex fell under the Tiscali umbrella I was migrated without notice to Tiscali's LLU infrastructure.

On Tiscali's LLU service I had constant lose of service and continual re-syncs (although my sync rate did remain high) but the main thing was a huge increase in ping. In retrospect, given that an ISP has more control over an LLU'd service, this shouldn't have happened.

In short, I've had experience of two different LLU services and both were dire. While I don't think my experiences are typical, they do demonstrate that LLU is not always a positive experience.

D-Dan · Jun 29, 2010, 00:47:35

I was LLU with Orange -

I'll stick with what I have now since I escaped from their clutches, for as long as I stay in this country - thank you very much.

Steve

Bill · Jun 29, 2010, 10:41:36

Can't find the reference now, but I've seen a suggestion that as BT increase the coverage of FTTC that LLU will gradually disappear, simply because the current LLU operators won't want to repeat the expense of putting another lot of their own kit into all the exchanges.

Essentially BT will be doing what pctech referred to a few posts ago.

So the choice will be a BT reseller or cable... sounds plausible, it'll be interesting to see what actually happens.

Gary · Jun 29, 2010, 10:51:57

Quote from: D-Dan on Jun 29, 2010, 00:47:35
I was LLU with Orange -

I'll stick with what I have now since I escaped from their clutches, for as long as I stay in this country - thank you very much.

Steve

I suffered at the hands of Orange, they were the first mobile provider to have caller display, they used to courier new handsets out to yours failed, they were years ahead in the news ideas department, now they are awful at both ISP and mobile operator in my view.

Back to LLU it has the potential to be less troublesome than BT's ADSL 2+ system hanks to no bizarre profiles it all depends on the operator, the thing with adsl 2+ even on LLU is your attenuation goes up and on long lines I think that's a nightmare compared with adsl max for stability.

DorsetBoy · Jul 07, 2010, 16:57:37

Well, for better or worse I have moved to Xilo , migrated today to a 24MB LLU (shared) package on a monthly contract.

Throughput is double my Max figures,pings very slightly higher than on Max. Will have to see over the next few weeks how the line handles ADSL2+

One odd bonus is the phone is now louder and clearer since they made the physical change at the exchange today.

Gary · Jul 07, 2010, 16:59:52

Quote from: DorsetBoy on Jul 07, 2010, 16:57:37
Well, for better or worse I have moved to Xilo , migrated today to a 24MB LLU (shared) package on a monthly contract.

Throughput is double my Max figures,pings very slightly higher than on Max. Will have to see over the next few weeks how the line handles ADSL2+

One odd bonus is the phone is now louder and clearer since they made the physical change at the exchange today.

Good luck, hope it all goes well

Adam · Jul 19, 2010, 01:45:38

Quote from: DorsetBoy on Jul 07, 2010, 16:57:37
Well, for better or worse I have moved to Xilo , migrated today to a 24MB LLU (shared) package on a monthly contract.

Throughput is double my Max figures,pings very slightly higher than on Max. Will have to see over the next few weeks how the line handles ADSL2+

One odd bonus is the phone is now louder and clearer since they made the physical change at the exchange today.

Out of interest; what LLU network are you on with Xilo/Murphx? I have had very few problems being on the TalkTalk/Opal LLU network (via Murphx).

DorsetBoy · Jul 19, 2010, 07:07:26

Tiscali wholesale via Murphx was the only LLU choice at my exchange. It is shared LLU so my phone stays with BT and I can move easily if I want to.

My line suffers from noise at certain times of day which brings ADSL2+ to a halt when on max synch so some "tweaking" was done to reduce synch and increase SNR .We now have a very stable connection with speeds almost double those achieved of ADSL Max and there is no variation in throughput.