What do you think of your Broadband supplier?

Oh VP ! :rotfl: :lollol: :hehe:

 

We're with Virgin Media - which I thought was OK until the other day when I discovered I couldn't get online and that Virgin had sent me a piece of gobbledegook saying it was 'improving my service' by denying me access. It went on to describe some rigmarole or other I'd have to go through to get things working again. I followed the online instructions :snz: and they didn't work. So I called the O845 helpline number Virgin had provided and selected, as instructed, Option 3. There was no option 3. At this point I began to think I'd got scammed. So I e-mailed Virgin. (It had generously allowed me continued access to my e-mail account.) 'Was it a scam?' I asked. No one knew. Eventually I got an e-mail back saying that it was thought that the message was genuine. Shame it was nonsense.

In the end I took advantage of the fact that my OH works with a roomful of computer geeks. One of them jotted down a sequence of instructions which even I could follow and I managed to fix things immediately.

Still waiting for Virgin to come along and 'improve' my service again, though ....

 

here is my guide to a better/ faster internet

the best ISPs in UK are o2 / BeThere / SKY / UKonline but only if they are unbundled (LLu) into your local telephone exchange as your on their own networks and NOT BT's backbone which you share with BT and all other ISPs - TALK TALK have picked up recently too with switching to ADSL2+ but still throttle bit-torrent traffic

if o2/BE* is in your local exchange then go with either of them (o2 is cheaper) - we pay £9.75 month (£5 reduced from £15 as I have o2 mobile on PAYG) for 20Mb service, I have a fair line length (not long or short) and I sync at 19,200k (with tweak) and get 16.4Mb day and night which is the more than the correct speed for my line @ 26.5db Line Attenuation (as I tweak the router)

you can find out what your line attenuation is and work out what speed you will/should get and you can also find out which ISPs are unbundled into your exchange - if NONE of the above are unbundled you can go with IPstream ISPs (IPstream = on BT's backbone) that are good but have restrictions (usage limits) and cost slightly more - these smaller ISPs get fast speed due to using the extra money to actually pay for capacity which is managed well through tight usage limits... when it comes to IPstream YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!

LLU (upto 24Mb)= o2 / BeThere (BE*) / SKY / UKonline (do not go with SKY or o2 if they are not unbundled as they are **** on IPstream and cost more as explained earlier)

IPstream (upto 8Mb)= FAST / NewNet / IDnet (some of these ISPs may be able to offer 20Mb service through BT 21CN WBC - in otherwords upto 20Mb, if your exchange is BT 21CN WBC enabled which is even better)

HOW TO GET YOUR ROUTER STATS TO FIND 'LINE ATTENUATION'
(use the chart below to determine if your line is affected and what speeds you can expect with new ISPs ive mentioned)

HOW TO CHECK YOUR LOCAL EXCHANGE
(check for 'LLu operator presence and 21CN WBC Status under BT Wholesale)


Line Attenuation represents the length/quality of your line and determines the max speed you can get, use the chart below to determine speed

for VIRGIN MEDIA - please read!!!
dont be fooled by VM with their "fibre" and "doesnt lose speed" sales pitches as they are not true - for one its not FIBRE from the head end to premises but CO-AX copper cable - so just like BT you get 'copper' from exchange/head end to the home, just they use shielded copper co-ax cable which is protected better from interference and crosstalk and thus doesnt lose speed as much as twisted pair unshielded (BT cable) - also, VM oversubscribe in a LOT of areas - going with VM is a big gamble, a friend of mine on 50Mb was getting very slow speeds and high latency, web pages taking forever to load and forget about downloading, after many discussions with them on phone an engineer on visit admitted this is what they do - too many users on the capacity and they dont install extra capacity - so virgin can in some cases be good but its a gamble, they are also heavily traffic shaped for those looking to download whereas the above upto 24Mb services are NOT and very fast day and night - just go over to DSL-zone-UK to speak to all the VM customers there... and Virgin ADSL broadband through a BT line is the worst thing ever!

THE DREADED RINGWIRE and FILTERED FACEPLATE
The ringwire is an old wire still in BT cable today that was used to ring the old 'ringer' type phones (bells) - phones dont use this anymore but sometimes the cable is still connected - its no longer needed but acts as an antennae for interference and slows connections right down in some cases, like my sister who was getting 1Mb , when i got rid of it she got 3Mb..
if you search the internet you will find how to remove this ringwire (if its connected) you can also buy a filtered faceplate which will offer better srvice as it will filter the ringwire but also terminate the ADSL at the Main Socket (not allow the broadband to travel to BT extensions in other rooms which does the same thing) and a good faceplate will offer double/better filtering of the ADSL and Phone signal, you can buy these for around £15
Filtered Faceplate
How to remove ringwire

CABLING
Dont use any extensions from the BT socket as these pick up interference which affects the speed - always use the short cable supplied and keep the router at the BT master socket and run Ethernet cables from it instead, dont run them along any power cables if possible.

CHECKING CAPABILITY OF MY LINE vs ACTUAL THROUGHPUT
As ive explained you can check what your line is capable of doing by retrieving the Line Attenuation figure from your router and comparing it to chart below, note also your SYNC RATE / CONNECTION SPEED and SNR MARGIN / NOISE MARGIN - you can run speedtests at www.speedtest.net to see what your actually physically getting, it should be a little bit lower than your sync rate but not by huge amounts - it depends on what type of connection your on and connection speed - e.g. 4,000k should yield about 3500k (3.5Mbps) on speedtests but if your 4,000k sync rate only yields 1,000K (1Mbps) on regular or constant basis then your suffering speed loss most probably over the network due to either your exchange capacity is full or (more likely) the ISP capacity is full - in otherwords time for a change! - SNR MARGIN is the figure set to stop disconnections from interference, regularly 6db or 7db - if this figure is high (9db-12db and above) and/or you have also been suffering disconnections then you definitely have some form of interference or fault causing a 'flappy' line (disconnects regular) and should check the ringwire (as above), change filters (or buy a faceplate) and check wiring - even try a friends router/modem - the higher this number is the lower your sync rate is (speed) - it should be about 6/7db (maybe 9db on very long lines with high attenuation figures over 55db or so) - certain routers can be tweaked to hold a lower SNR margin and thus yield more speed but this is a whole other subject - this subject is for the connection itself.

MORE INFO/HELP
check out KITZ website for more help and info, also use DSL-zone-UK or KITZ forums to get 1-to-1 help with bband connection issues


SPEED CHART
ADSL1 = upto 8Mb (IPstream ISPs)
ADSL2+ = upto 20/24Mb (LLu and BT 21CN WBC)
NOTE: Most routers display 63db as the 'highest' number, 99% of the time a figure of 63db means its probably higher than 63db but by how much is anyones guess - some routers can display a figure higher than 63db

 

I am with Virgin - I have expressed my opinion about them in previous posts and I am not going any further because I don't want to spoil my morning coffee time.

 

Have been with AOL for years - no problems at all. Anytime free phone calls - broadband connection etc etc £9.99 a month - can't beat it anywhere.

 

I've been with AOL for 10 years, unlimited downloads, never had any problems with them.
can't understand why people slag them off, they've been good for me.

Pete

 

I am with XLN who provide a reasonable service here (anyone who is NOT BT is welcome). They are not the quickest but to be honest it doesn't cause too much problem. Downside is there tech support who have a script to go through which never seems to actually find a problem and means its better if you technically aware yourself.

 

I have now changed from TalkTalk to PlusNet, the last few days with TalkTalk the service has been appalling. Speed was down to 200Kbps at one stage but is now back up to around 4 - 4.5Mbps. Another advantage is that I can have VOIP phone for free to UK and some International destinations. I'll probably try it out by calling my cousin in Washington State (Camano Island).

 

I've been looking at the VOIP Tarrif. It seems that I was mistaken, there is a UK free service but also a Nat. fixed line service which is charged for, Mobiles get more confusing. I shall have to look seriously at it, it could be that the Swiss company I use is cheaper, UK calls 5p connection and 0p per minute.