Considering migaration - few questions

[thompson]

Currently I'm with Plusnet and to be honest the service is terrible. I've had 2000+ pings on ventrilo servers and 500+ ingame in online games, on servers where I'd previously only have 20 - 50 pings. I've also been having problems with connection drops and other things.

Therefore I'm considering migrating to idnet. However I have a few questions that need to be asked before I do.

a. I've read that pings in games/voip can be slightly higher with the max package as opposed to the normal 'home 2000'. Is this true? And is the ping increase likely to be significant. If anyone has switched to max and can tell me how much their pings increased it would be greatly appreciated.

b. I currently an Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem which is about 4 years old. Is it worth getting a new ethernet one and/or is it required for dsl max?

c. On the price list page (http://idnet.net/broadband/pricing.jsp) it says the contention for Home 2000 is 50:1 but the contention for Home max is N/A. Could someone explain why and how the whole contention thing for max works?

d. I remember hearing that your speed is dependant on your distance from the exchange. I'm not sure what this means, I'd be grateful if someone could explain and tell me where the 'exchange' is etc.

e. On Plusnet's website they recommended using 'Broadband-specific phone extension leads'. Are they generally recommended? Do they make much difference? And if so where can I buy them.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me

[Nerval]

Hi thompson
You could have asked this on the plusnet forum before you left...

Answers are:
a) pings should be no different.
b) get a router; they are more secure as you can get a built in firewall, and the USB modem uses some of your computer power to drive it (though modem will work on Max)
c)contention should be the same for both products; depending on the time of day, you're fighting with other people on your ISP, other people on your local exchange, and other people on the BT network and international networks for bandwidth.  It is said that there should be less contention via idnet than via Plusnet.
d)never heard of that.  You need a broadband filter of decent quality for each phone socket in use, but you should have these already.

and finally, if your line is unstable on plusnet, it may well be unstable on idnet as well.  All you will be changing is ISP, not the miles of copper wire and connections betweeen you and the exchange.

[thompson]

c. Well thats what I thought, that the contention should be the same, just the pricelist says the max package is N/A.

And as far as I can tell, half of the problem with my pings with Plusnet is the fact that they block/limit a load of different ports (ports that my gameservers/ventrilo servers use) and on the idnet.net website it says "no port blocking". So hopefully that would solve the problems.

[Nerval]

Yes, I see. Just that I thought I'd seen something about your line dropping a lot.  Must have been somebody else.

[thompson]

Yes, I see. Just that I thought I'd seen something about your line dropping a lot.  Must have been somebody else.

Yeah it's true I have had some problems with my connection dropping but not recently. it was a few months back and it was a problem with the gateway or something that I'm on. You probably remember it as loads of people were complaining on the plusnet forums.

[TimJ]

a. I've read that pings in games/voip can be slightly higher with the max package as opposed to the normal 'home 2000'. Is this true? And is the ping increase likely to be significant. If anyone has switched to max and can tell me how much their pings increased it would be greatly appreciated.

Usually true that pings on MaxADSl are the same as the fixed speed products. However if you have a long/poor line or are picking up interference BT will turn interleaving on that makes your line far more stable but adds 20-30mS to your ping time.

d. I remember hearing that your speed is dependant on your distance from the exchange. I'm not sure what this means, I'd be grateful if someone could explain and tell me where the 'exchange' is etc.

I don't think the previous annswer gave the full story.

MAX will run your line at the maximum sync rate that the line will support. This depends on the attenuation and noise level on your line, which in turn depends on your line length and other factors.

If you are close to the exchange from memory something like 2.5km (someone will correct this figure) you should sync at 8128kbps, but if you are further out then you will get a lower sync rate. I am at about 5km and get a modem sync of about 4000kbps and maximum throughput setting of 3500kbps.

On a long line consideration of which router you have also makes a big difference.

What is the attenuation, noise margin and speed of your current service? This will give a good indication of how well Max will work.

To be fair I will say that I have been suffering for a couple of months from terrible pings during the working day from 9-5. Some days it is OK some days it is poor (150-180mS). From the recent quietness on this forum it is clearly now only effecting very few lines. For me Monday was bad but it has been OK sonce then. Connecting to the BT speedtest site then back to IDNET seems to fix it for a while.

CS are very pro-active - I posted on here about poor ping over one weekend and I had a call from CS on Monday, thay really are good.

Tim.

[Lance]

Usually true that pings on MaxADSl are the same as the fixed speed products. However if you have a long/poor line or are picking up interference BT will turn interleaving on that makes your line far more stable but adds 20-30mS to your ping time.

This is very true. I've just requested that interleaving be turned off on my line and saw my ping drop from 60-65 to 25-30. The best bit is that my connection is as stable as ever.