Your broadband speed - post here

[sammorris]

You don't have to use BT to get FTTC, ADSL24 sell it as well. Though it is a wholesale network, there is a minimum speed guarantee of 8Mbps during busy periods for the ADSL24 Home service.

What's your current attenuation? To only get 0.5Mbps it should really be 75-80dB, otherwise you could do better, even without fibre.

[watercooled]

If we're doing education networks, here's another. Done at a time the network was probably pretty busy and limited by Fast Ethernet on the PC.

[sammorris]

My Kimsufi. Down is a bit low because there are a few torrents running.

[Terbinator]

Oh you

[colin_e]

You don't have to use BT to get FTTC, ADSL24 sell it as well. Though it is a wholesale network, there is a minimum speed guarantee of 8Mbps during busy periods for the ADSL24 Home service.

What's your current attenuation? To only get 0.5Mbps it should really be 75-80dB, otherwise you could do better, even without fibre.

Looking at it tonight My router is showing Loop Attenuation 62dB and Signal/Noise Ratio of 14.5.

My current router is ADSL1, but I was led to believe by my ISP that with those stats I may not be much better off with ADSL Max (or plus, or 2, i'm not clear on what the hierarchy of newer/better is in ADSL).

Most online availability checkers from other ISPs give an estimated speed of 1Mbps given our line length, so that seems to tally.

Regards: colin_e

[sammorris]

There's your problem, your ISP - 14.5dB SNR is huge.
When we had 65dB attenuation we got 1.7Mbps, because we only had 6Mbps. Are there any LLU providers in your area like BeUnlimited? You'd probably get 2 meg with them. Its not much but it's a start.

[colin_e]

There's your problem, your ISP - 14.5dB SNR is huge.
When we had 65dB attenuation we got 1.7Mbps, because we only had 6Mbps. Are there any LLU providers in your area like BeUnlimited? You'd probably get 2 meg with them. Its not much but it's a start.

According to SamKnows (not a relative I assume? ;-) ) LLU operators in Twyford are O2/Be, TalkTalk, Tiscali and Tiscali TV (whatever the difference between those last two is).

TalkTalk are selling aggressively in the area, but their sales material is light on technical detail, I get the impression they are a "cheap and vanilla" type supplier.

I just had a look at the Be site and did an availability check, but it came back with a statement that "your current line is not compatible with our service". As far as I know our line is a bog-standard BT one, so i'm not entirely sure what this means. I would consider having a new line put in if it got us a better service, depending on cost of course.

Regards: colin_e

[sammorris]

Postcode? I can make some enquiries for you if you like.

[colin_e]

postcode? I can make some enquiries for you if you like.

rg10 0th

[sammorris]

Automated system says Be won't work because the line length is too great (4185m) but I believe if the attenuation is <65dB you should be able to get setup. Am asking them now.

[colin_e]

BTW a few years ago I had a second landline here to support ISDN2 (now that was expensive...). I guess there's a chance the physical cable is still in place even though the line rental was dropped some years ago.

In the interim I had point-to-point wireless Internet (from a company that was subsequently bought out by Pipex). As you can tell, Internet access is a long-running saga here ;-)

Regards: colin_e

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

At least the pub is nearby:

http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs...y_Farmer/Hurst

[sammorris]

Heard back, as long as your attenuation is actually 62, you should be fine to sign up with Be. I'd say give their sales team a call.

[colin_e]

Heard back, as long as your attenuation is actually 62, you should be fine to sign up with Be. I'd say give their sales team a call.

What can I say, you are a gentleman sir ;-)

Seriously, thanks for all your help, much appreciated. I'll give them a call tomorrow!

[sammorris]

No probs, best of luck

[colin_e]

Heard back, as long as your attenuation is actually 62, you should be fine to sign up with Be. I'd say give their sales team a call.

Well I tried.

BE looked up my line details (from data provided by BT) and said that because my line length from the exchange was shown as 6.4km they wouldn't even consider supplying a service

I went through to their technical department, and tried arguing that-

1. Samknows says the distance (in a straight line, to be fair) is 4.2km
2. I have had a working (albeit dog slow) ADSL connection here for years
3. I have Loop attenuation and Signal/Noise stats (they weren't interested)

But got nowhere. They told me to phone up BT and "tell them to correct their database record of my line length".

Have they ever TRIED phoning BT about anything??, let alone some database whose name I don't actually know...

I have a feeling this is going to be long, and possibly fruitless exercise. If TalkTalk (the other LLU provider here) look at the same BT data, both of them will end up telling me it's impossible to get an Internet connection, on a line that's already running one!