Broadband speed

[SootySport]

Disconnect the extension cable and plug your router directly into the main socket.  Even with nothing plugged in the extension socket the cable can still slow your speed down if it still connected to the line. You can use Ethernet extenders that go through the ring main to extend your internet usage elsewhere in the house.  

Any broadband line will work better when there is only one socket in the house. 

[Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO]

II just did the BT wholesale test, followed all the instructions (not like me at all) 

Anyway I know it doesn't help you but i got:-

Download 75.3 meg

Upload 16.66 meg

Ping 25 .63

That's with BT fibre. sounds ok to me.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

43 minutes ago, Paul Hurdsfield said:

II just did the BT wholesale test, followed all the instructions (not like me at all) 

Anyway I know it doesn't help you but i got:-

Download 75.3 meg

Upload 16.66 meg

Ping 25 .63

That's with BT fibre. sounds ok to me.

You can go off people.

[Nemesis]

Am I right in saying that SKY will be running their service from a leased line unit at the exchange??

In my experience any ISP that's not on the primary Open-\Reach/BT plant is at a disadvantage from the outset, just think built in bottle neck ! They also have a nasty habit of installing the cheapest carp they can get away with, then when the end user complains they just ping pong the blame to BT/Open-Reach.

With regard to variations in speed at certain times of day yes it happens, massively with Sky, they prioritise streaming so that they support all of the catch up TV for their customers.

With regard to turning your router on and off, try to avoid this. A nice BT engineer told me that there's something at the exchange called a DSLAM server, this gizmo keeps tabs on connection / SYNC times, if you log a few disconnects it gets all grumpy, it assumes that it was a signal to noise ratio problem that caused the SYNC drop out and turns your speed down, it keeps doing this each day that it detects a drop out, the only way to get it turned back up in short order is to request some sort of reset (that I can't remember the name of).

Anyway enough of my ramblings...... I personally wouldn't touch SKY with a barge pole, call center India for tech support just saps my will to live, I hate BT for the same reason but do like their subsidiary called Plusnet.... a BT company using BT plant plus Open-Reach to sort the issues out, and they use UK call centers !! A win win !!

Selfish sales plug over...... If you do bin SKY and go to Plusnet could you say my son referred you..... he's skint and could use the referral discount !! 

Nem...........  

 

[Blatman]

On 10/17/2017 at 14:42, Nemesis said:

n my experience any ISP that's not on the primary Open-\Reach/BT plant is at a disadvantage from the outset, just think built in bottle neck ! They also have a nasty habit of installing the cheapest carp they can get away with, then when the end user complains they just ping pong the blame to BT/Open-Reach.

With regard to variations in speed at certain times of day yes it happens, massively with Sky, they prioritise streaming so that they support all of the catch up TV for their customers.

Got any direct evidence of either of these points? I'd be interested to have a look at any evidence of this sort of thing. I'll declare an interest here. If I can find good evidence that an ISP is using inherently sub-standard gear or colluding with wholesalers to obfuscate contention ratios and whatever, I can better advise my customers which ISP's to use and which to avoid.

As far as the DSLAM is concerned, it may retrain the line if it sees a few disconnects and may set a lower (worse) noise profile for the line which will affect speed. It may be something the ISP could look at.

And if you think you have a noisy line, test it. https://support.zen.co.uk/kb/Knowledgebase/Performing-a-Quiet-Line-Test

[Nemesis]

I can give you accounts of personal angst dealing with Sky and Demon (Thus - Formerly known as Scottish Telecom) and it's all based on appalling customer service.

My issues started when ADSL II was launched, my line kept dropping out of sync on a random basis, the DSLAM dropped my speed from the target 8Mbps to 0.2Mbps. The first line any of the scripts read to me were to blame BT, and BT in return blamed my ISP, several resets at the exchange later and with no resolution Openreach were sent, but not before I got the obligatory warning that "if it's your equipment at fault you'll have to pay a fee"  The Engineer did a barrage of test with some very expensive looking kit, he gave me all the reports on a printout, absolutely nothing wrong with the BT plant and nothing wrong with my kit, so whilst the engineer was there and I was getting a bill I got him to renew the master socket, that made no difference, so after months of having dialogue with BT and My ISP that included another expensive Openreach visit it was discovered that the LLU was at fault, I asked for my costs to be covered and got refused, there ended the relationship with Demon, I went with SKY and in the first 3 months had nothing but  aggro with speed, day/night variation, then to add insult to injury the modem died, and because they are MAC addressed you can't just replace them with your off the shelf spare, I waited 10 days for a replacement, same issues with speed variations and then some SYNC drop outs, more visits from Openreach and the rest is a repeat of history with the only difference being that SKY said there was nothing wrong at the LLU despite the Openreach engineer telling me flatly that he'd traced the fault to the LLU but is not allowed to touch it, he also commented that the kit just wasn't fit for purpose. SKY were dropped by me citing breach of contract, they eventually admitted that they could have done better, I went with BT and had no further issues with dropped SYNC, but still suffered a minor variation in day night speeds, the only reason I left BT was at the end of the contract the price hiked stupidly, so I went to Plusnet, BT plant and UK customer services, win win, no issue with service then Fiber to cabinet got invented (Plusnet's version of Infinity)and I've not looked back, once again BT plant and UK customer services.

Nem............   

[DonPeffers]

A good while back I was with Talktalk who promised a much higher speed on a new 18 month contract so agreed; however I was then offline 27 days IIRC as after sending an engineer to test at my house they discovered the exchange had NOT been upgraded---disaster.

Only got monies back re. telephone calls and no compo. I saw out the contract then moved to Plusnet and it has been (fingers crossed) trouble free, good service since.

[Blatman]

10 hours ago, Nemesis said:

and because they are MAC addressed you can't just replace them with your off the shelf spare,

Rather depends on the shelf. I regularly spoof MAC addresses but then again I don't use 50 quid routers. I'm sure the 50 quid routers can have their MAC addresses spoofed as well, I just don't know how to do it.

You've had some poor service there no question.

From my experience (I've been "doing" internet connectivity for customers for 6 years) BT engineers and plenty of Openreach engineers don't know one end of a DSLAM from the other. The few I've met that do have been very good indeed. All of them have a propensity to slag off the competition so I don't buy it unless they have good supporting evidence. I haven't seen any yet.

I have not personally heard anyone before claim that Sky or any other ISP are installing sub-standard equipment in the exchange and I can't help but wonder that Openreach might well have a minimum specification to protect themselves from a to me/to you battle with the providers. I'm going to try to find out.