Advice to Newbie please

HowardC · Jul 10, 2006, 12:08:04

Hi,

I have not joined IDNet yet but by the vast amounts of positives comments I have read on these forums - it is only a matter of time.

I am looking for a bit of advice though and there would appear to be plenty of knowledgable members who could point me in the right direction.........

I am or was with E7 - terrible CS etc and glad to have the opportunity to change ISP's. I am also in the process of moving house from an exchange where the maximum BB speed was 512Kbps to a new exchange that "states" 2Mbps or up to 8Mbps via ADSLMax.

I have been given advice NOT to connect to a ADSLMax connection and to go with a standard 2Mbps BB connection - I think this is due to the reduced reliability and bandwidth problems of ADSLMax but with the standard 2Mbps line the contention ratio is better??

The way I am looking at it is that going from 0.5Mbps to 2Mbps is a leap forward anyway but maybe these lines will be withdrawn in the future........

Can anyone give me advice on which was to go conventional or Max?

Many thanks

HowardC

aavid60 · Jul 10, 2006, 14:36:51

I would take the 2 megs, I have been on MAX for some 9 weeks now, had no problems till last week. Was getting at least 2 megs now only 1 meg. All my problem started when we had the storms last week. Have been told that it might take weeks before my data rate returns

thetrevone · Jul 10, 2006, 14:59:47

My own experience is as follow; ADSL MAX with old ISP, 8M sync speed. Max actual speed 6M, average more in the region of 4M. Rock solid connection. Migration to IDnet in the last three days also rock solid connection at 8M sync speed, average actual speed 5.5M. But I am on the 10 day BT line retraining again due to the migration, so it may go pear shaped yet. approx. 850 yards from exchange as crow flies.

Great customer support by the way.

Scott · Jul 10, 2006, 15:00:27

Firstly Howard, welcome !

Secondly, have you checked likely speeds available from your property to exchange on the BT site ?

Max is very much a trade-off of speed against a number of factors including exchange contention, line length, line quality, end-user hardware etc etc. I am approximately 1.4km from the exchange and synch at full 8Mb speeds regularly pulling down at between 5 & 6mbps. Your difficult choice is..."do I go for a good solid 2Mbps connection (hopefully without problems) or trust to get a much faster (2x ideally!) by going the Max route. At this point we'll all probably say that it's very much down to your own usage patterns and activity...aaVid's experience is no uncommon - having been discussed on AG here and there...there's a good chance that once whatever spiked his connection is ironed out he'll be back at top speed.

I'd call his problems the exception rather than the rule.

GL & HTH

mrapoc · Jul 10, 2006, 16:29:27

i'd go with the max, chances are ull get a faster speed than 2mbps and rarely drop below it. it also adds to your bragging rights until u try ur luck against some1 in a adsl2 area

jayemcee · Jul 10, 2006, 18:51:30

Remember you are going to be dealing with an ISP with real customer service here!
Have a chat with them and describe your useage. You'll be well advised

AvengerUK · Jul 11, 2006, 10:53:41

Personally id go with ADSL Max. I also had problems after a storm last week, however after a day or so my speeds started to return to normal. - Had i rememberd to turn my router off, i doubt id of noticed any effects of the storm

.
Support is great, so if you ever did have a problem with your MAX, it would *hopefully* be easy to sort out.

Then again...if your excahnge is heavily congested, MAX may not be the best option.

HowardC · Jul 11, 2006, 10:58:53

Thanks all for the information so far...............mixed views I see. This may be a silly question AvengerUK but is there any way of knowing how congested an exchange is before hand?

AvengerUK · Jul 11, 2006, 12:12:53

Erm, Im not really sure!

Someone else here proberbly knows however

Scott · Jul 11, 2006, 12:56:28

Quote from: HowardC on Jul 11, 2006, 10:58:53
Thanks all for the information so far...............mixed views I see. This may be a silly question AvengerUK but is there any way of knowing how congested an exchange is before hand?

Howard,
Plug your postcode in here and all will become clear.

Red = Bad
Amber = OK
Green = Cool !

HowardC · Jul 12, 2006, 07:42:03

Scott,

Thanks for the link - this was much better than some of the BT information that has been provided. Based on my phone no. everything is Green on my exchange.............so the 50 Million dollar question is ADSL 2Mb or ADSLMax?

Cheers

AvengerUK · Jul 12, 2006, 09:11:39

Depends if you like taking a risk i suppose. Theres always a degree of risk when ADSL Max is involved, but, 99 times out of 100, it works!

My experience was cirtianally worth it, my previos max speed was 512kb down, with MAX i now get around ~1.7mb on average! - without interleaving.

Scott · Jul 12, 2006, 09:54:20

I think a move to Max is a no-brainer...upgrades are free and should things not pan out as expected (and I can tell you IDNet CS will move heaven & earth to make your connection work !!) then a downgrade costs £15. I'd say go for it !

mrapoc · Jul 12, 2006, 16:30:39

w0o0o take a risk - mine is green and i get 4-6 mbps