BeThere.co.uk - Wow

[shaithis]

For a year I have been with Bulldog LLU, I basically went with them due to Pipex imposing restrictions....

For that entire year I wanted to leave them yet could not wriggle out of my contract, I would get 3-20 disconnects per day, randomly, at any time. Each disco lasted 5-10 seconds but would potentially be very disruptive. Calling their support line normally meant a long wait followed by someone saying "Well, if the problem isn't there NOW, we can't do anything about it", they also refused to place a trace on my line so that they could capture the issue and when asked to regrade the line they wanted me to sign up for another 12 months......

Laughable.

So, my contract finally ended and after a dilemma of deciding between ISPs, I went with BeThere, my line went active on Friday (20th July).

Now, my first evening with it was a complete and utter nightmare. I wanted to use my BT Voyager and the settings for BeThere are vastly different to any other ISP, even though they wanted me to use their free "SpeedTouch" router, the tech guy still gave me all the necessary settings - sorted, now I can get online.

Next issue: Disconnects. Wow, lots of them..... ~10 in the first 5 hours of use.

So, just before going to bed (1am) I decide to call to listen to the answer message to see what time support is open Saturdays......and I get a real person! Yeah, it seems their support is 24x7! Not only that but after describing my issue the very nice lady on the phone re-profiled me to a "less aggressive" profile (i.e. throttled my bandwidth back 1Mb/s) and remotely rebooted my router......and asked me to call back if I got disconnected again.


5 Days later and not a single disconnect

At last, I finally found an ISP which understands what support is!

[grizzla]

When u called them were u using your own router or the supplied BeBox. Its just that i got activated today and get disconnected quite regularly using my own router. I might ring em up and ask what they can do

[frazered]

the bebox is actually quite good

have you tweaked with the dmt tool?

what routers are you using?

[grizzla]

dg834GT with the uber firmware, the lease time on my connection appears to be 40 mins, didn't try the bebox atall

[IntaCepta]

what is the dmt tool all about?
What can it do for your connection?

[sp3n]

yes be* are awesome, have been with them for just over a month now - such a change from pipex

[Lee H]

Mine's due to go active next week with Be after moving from Bulldog as well.

Fingers crossed I'll get near the theoretical maximum speeds as I'm less than 400m to the exchange and that it all goes smoothly.

[Sinizter]

400m ... Nice. that means you should get the full 24mb.

I checked my new post code at Sam Knows and it seems that I will only be able to get a max of around 14-16mbps .... So I am going to go with Sky as for £4 more I can get both Sky and broadband.

[shaithis]

When u called them were u using your own router or the supplied BeBox. Its just that i got activated today and get disconnected quite regularly using my own router. I might ring em up and ask what they can do

Yes, the BeBox hasn't come out of its box. Using a BT Voyager 2110

[grizzla]

Mine's due to go active next week with Be after moving from Bulldog as well.

Fingers crossed I'll get near the theoretical maximum speeds as I'm less than 400m to the exchange and that it all goes smoothly.

I am about 300m from exchange and my line max is 18Mb probably due to the line quality, its not always distance that determines your max speed as i found out from looking at the forum

[Lee H]

I know Grizzla

My SNR ratio is very good already on my line and it's never been down since we moved into the premises.

18 Mb will do me fine anyway. It's not as if I'll be constantly downloading 24/7 but the stuff I'll be grabbing will surely download quicker than ever.

[grizzla]

yeah im happy with my speed but i disconnect too often so gonna give be a bell see what they can do... it worked for shaithis

[notsobig]

I'm also using bebox(for connection) plus DG834G(for wireless) combo. Works like a charm. No more overheating and I get more reliable connection. Happy Be user

[master811]

I am about 300m from exchange and my line max is 18Mb probably due to the line quality, its not always distance that determines your max speed as i found out from looking at the forum

You are also assuming that 300m is the length of the line as well (assuming a straight line) which might not necessarily be the case.

[grizzla]

Well i now have 24MB after asking them to switch me onto fastpath, they did which bumped me up to 21MB and then i changed the SNR and get 24MB stable.

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 2:03:25
Modulation: G.992.5 Annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,347 / 24,539
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 1.13 / 4.37
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 16.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 11.0 / 23.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 7.5 / 1.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / µ
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 1,258 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 3,875
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 15 / 378

[notsobig]

That's a great speed. BTW recently I started hearing people saying "changing SNR" on various forums but how do you do that? I believe SNR stands for "signal to noise ratio" right? Isn't this determined by your line quality? therefore can not be altered? I'm bit confused.