Come back to BT my arse.......

[Smiffy]

I have FTTC but some people are on FTTP (Fibre to the premises) trials that promises speeds up to 100Mbits/sec

Coming from half a meg download to below I'm a happy bunny....for now.

That's nothing Geezer.
Stick this in yer pipe and smoke it....

 

[Smiffy]

And just to show it wasn't a "fluke"...

 

[RobCowan]

Smiffy you may as well stick with PlusNet they use BT infrastructure and Network boxes at the exchange and I think BT might even own PlusNet.

Yep, BT do indeed own PlusNet and AFAIK, PN are not involved in LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) in any exchanges.

I thought Bracknell has an exhange in the town centre. Funny enough I know a work colleague in Bracknell and he gets 20Mb with Sky with traditional ADSL not FTTC

Looking at the SamKnows exchange information for Bracknell, they are well supported for connectivity with ADSL, ADSL2+, SDSL, LLU covering ten providers, cable connectivity and also wireless broadband availability. They are also due to go live with FTTC at the end of 2012.

Am I right in thinking that even if you go with Sky, you are still renting the BT line?

That depends, Leftie. If Sky are participating in LLU in your exchange, then you can get line rental, calls and ADSL directly with Sky without having to pay BT anything. If they haven't put their kit in the exchange, you will still have to pay BT for your line rental, and will only get ADSL2+ (up to 24Mbit) if BT have already upgraded the exchange as part of their 21CN rollout.

LLU is a good thing as it means that other providers can supply ADSL2+ and also provide your line rental without having to wait for BT to upgrade the exchange. It also means that if BT have a major cock-up in one of their broadband central links (as happened in Scotland a few weeks ago!) then those on LLU aren't affected. It also means that up in the wilds of North Scotland we can actually get better broadband speeds without having wait for BT to remember that we do actually use the internet up here!

All these other technologies such as FTTC (up to 40Mbit) and FTTP (up to 100Mbit to start with) are great, but at the pace that BT is rolling it all out, by the time the majority of the country has it, it will again be too slow to keep pace with emerging internet technologies.

As it is, the likes of HD video streaming (such as BBC iPlayer and BT Vision) is struggling to keep up with the connectivity on offer and this will only get worse until BT pull their finger out and get it bloody sorted!

Oh, and if anyone wants a decent ISP and doesn't mind paying a little bit more, Zen Internet have been Best Broadband Provider in the PC Pro Awards (voted for by IT professionals) for seven years running! You can get broadband for under £20 depending on your usage and all of their staff are UK based.

Right, rant/sales pitch over...

 

[sawtooth]

And just to show it wasn't a "fluke"...

WTF! how can you have downloads of >100Mbps with uploads like that.......ah wait a second I know why.....

Hows that?

 

[bobmac]

I'm moving house to Asby de la Lunde

 

[rickg]

Havent got a clue what this means??? Is it good/bad/indifferent?



I have been having problems the last week with the connection dropping off repeatedly. I keep having to either switch off wait 10 secs then switch on again, or occasionally the "repair/diagnose" function restores it.

Any ideas?

 

[RobCowan]

Slightly below average Rick, but not a bad speed as such. With regards to your dropping off - is it your router that you are running repair/diagnose on or your wireless connection?

Also, as you are showing as BT, what router are you running - is it a white or black HomeHub, or something else?

 

[SammmeBee]

WTF?

 

[rickg]

Hi Rob,
Its the BT home hub black router.

Sometimes it doesn't see the BB Home hub (but I can see neighbours networks) so I keep trying the repair function. Sometimes it just comes back without me doing anything.

Other times, I'm connected to the Home Hub but then have to try and repair the wireless connection.
I'm finding that I'm having to keep plugging in the cable more to get a connection.

My work laptop struggles with it as well.

 

[RobCowan]

Sounds like you need to change your wireless channel using this guide. I would look at using either channel 2 or channel 11 (most older consumer routers tended to default to channel 6). Based on previous calls to BT, I would try channel 11 first and then 2 if that doesn't cure the problem.

Hope that helps.

 

[rickg]

Cheers Rob...will give it a go and let you know!!

 

[sawtooth]

Sounds like you need to change your wireless channel using this guide. I would look at using either channel 2 or channel 11 (most older consumer routers tended to default to channel 6). Based on previous calls to BT, I would try channel 11 first and then 2 if that doesn't cure the problem.

Hope that helps.

A word of advice, keep with 3 the non-overlapping channels 1,6 or 11. You wont necessarily know what other AP's in the area are using but most will be set to channels 1, 6 and 11. You will get adjacent channel interference if you select 2,3 7, 10, etc.

 

[bigslice]

Sounds like you need to change your wireless channel using this guide. I would look at using either channel 2 or channel 11 (most older consumer routers tended to default to channel 6). Based on previous calls to BT, I would try channel 11 first and then 2 if that doesn't cure the problem.

Hope that helps.

A word of advice, keep with 3 the non-overlapping channels 1,6 or 11. You wont necessarily know what other AP's in the area are using but most will be set to channels 1, 6 and 11. You will get adjacent channel interference if you select 2,3 7, 10, etc.

download insidder and see what other wireless are around and what channel they are on

 

[rickg]

OK Rob... I changed to channel 11, (it was previously set to 7, so maybe getting channel interference per sawtooths comment) and so far so good. I have unplugged the cable and the wireless hasn't dropped off for the last half hour, so fingers crossed.

Sawtooth & Bigslice, thanks for the tips......bigslice did you mean inSSIDer?

Thanks again guys...gotta love this forum!!

 

[Dodger]

I took my laptop in to get seen to for the trojan infection I had.It was a guy I went to school with and I keep in touch with and he has come out of the military and now has a thriving IT company.

He pops my laptop back to me at home tonight and talks me through the fact that I had 73 dodgy problems and he has installed AVG and told me never to go near Macafee or another company who's name I can't remember as they are shite. He also says that he has changed channel from 6 to 11 and my speed should whizz along now.

Now I had never ever heard of this before and my speeds were okay prior but now I have heard of it twice in 3 hours and they are indeed whizzing along now!!

Not a bad service for £25!!

 

[RobCowan]

Sawtooth - Yep, my bad. I don't know why I had channel 2 as ok in my head, but it is indeed channel 1 at the lower end to avoid overlaps.

Rick - glad we could have been of help. As I said, a lot of older routers seemed to default to channel 6 so that channel & its overlaps to either side tended to result in poor performance due to saturation.

Dodger - It's amazing what you learn on a golf forum...

 

[Smiffy]

How much will you be paying Sky in total for all the services you currently get/will be getting?

Gone for their unlimited broadband package together with line rental and free evening/weekend calls for a total of £21.00 per month.
I was paying slightly less with PlusNet but my internet usage was capped at 10GB per month which was usually exceeded what with the boys on their xbox's and ps3's etc. By the time I paid for the extra usage it actually worked out slightly more staying with PlusNet.
As I say, the only reason I ditched Sky a couple of years ago was because I got fed up with paying for a load of crap on the TV and they didn't offer just a broadband/telephone package at that time. I never had any problems with the service so am quite happy to go back to them.
The other nice thing is I get my "caller display" back on the telephone line, something I missed when I left BT and PlusNet couldn't offer it.
So overall I'm very happy with what I've got

 

[Smiffy]

WTF! how can you have downloads of >100Mbps with uploads like that.......ah wait a second I know why.....

Hows that?

I don't know what you did, but I didn't do anything!!
That's the usual stupid results I get when I try a speed test.
Silly thing is, when I try it from my wife's laptop is shows a steady 5-6 Mb/s!!