Anyone with O2 Broadband?

[Lowe]

Currently I'm with Plus, and to be honest the service has been pretty good. However, O2 as far as I'm aware have bought out Be Internet, and are now offering their services to O2 mobile users for cheap. Up to 8mb for £7.50 a month with unlimited useage... Seems too good to be true, and they also offer a 20mb service.

I thought 8mb was the limit for lines these days - I'm a bit out of it where broadband is concerned tbh, so can anyone bring me up to speed - and is O2 really as good as it looks?

[Funkstar]

You have to be linked to an exchange that has Be/O2 hardware, this is done through LLU (Local Loop Unbundling).

Anything over 8mb is using ADSL2+ which can go up to 20 or 24mbit i think.

You can check with O2 to see if you can get that deal or not. Or you can also check Samknows to find out just about everything there is to know about your exchange.

[Bluecube]

I switched to O2 Broadband. I'm on the £7.50 a month deal for upto 8mbits as I'm quite a bit from the exchange. Had a nice smooth transfer from Orange (after finally getting a MAC out of them!) and was delighted to find out that I got another 100kb/s out of my line! I've been very pleased with O2 so far but I haven't had any cause to call their customer support so I don't know how good/ bad they are. Still, the fact I haven't needed to call them is good!

BTW if you want to get the most out of your line, disconnect your bell wire from your main phone socket. I got another 100kb/s by doing this! There's a thread on the forums somewhere that I can't track down at the mo.

[MadduckUK]

There's a thread on the forums somewhere that I can't track down at the mo.

http://forums.hexus.net/networking-b...oadband-3.html

at the bottom

[Lowe]

Samknows - CMWL exchange

Looks like Be LLU is enabled and I live 2 miles from the exchange as the crow flies, so does this mean I could theoretically get a good link? I get about 4500 ish at the moment on an 'up to 8meg' link.

[Lowe]

BTW if you want to get the most out of your line, disconnect your bell wire from your main phone socket. I got another 100kb/s by doing this! There's a thread on the forums somewhere that I can't track down at the mo.

Err, in english?

[MadduckUK]

Err, in english?

http://forums.hexus.net/networking-b...oadband-3.html

at the bottom

[Lee H]

Samknows - CMWL exchange

Looks like Be LLU is enabled and I live 2 miles from the exchange as the crow flies, so does this mean I could theoretically get a good link? I get about 4500 ish at the moment on an 'up to 8meg' link.

I'd guestimate to say about 7-12 Mb depending obviously on total line length and SNR ratio

[peterb]

Err, in english?

In (mildly technical) english...

The incoming cable from the exchange is two wire. One of the functions of the master socket is to provide the third wire, or bell wire which on older phones is used to... operate the bell! In fact it is a simple capacitor that filters out the DC bias on the phone line but allows the AC ring tone through to the bell. These three signal cables are usually wrapped up in a 4 core cable pair, so there is bell, signal, and a common earth return.

On modern phones this bell signal isn't needed - the phone detects the ring tone on the two wire pair and operates the ringer that way. However, if the wiring is of poor quality, the bell wire can pick up noise (particularly as it is a single signal wire that shares a common return with the wanted signal cable) which can degrade the S/N ratio and lead to lower broadband speads. In situations where S/N ratio is marginal, disconnecting the bell wire at the user side of the master socket can lead to an improvement in ADSL performance.

[Bluecube]

Err, in english?

It is in English. You're not American are you?

[Lowe]

I'll be getting the screwdrivers out in a bit then

[Lowe]

Well, I've just signed up - gone for the standard package for now, but will see how we get on with line speeds.

[Zadock]

Lowe, I have O2 broadband and am VERY happy with them. I had Tiscali before they told me I couldn't have more than 1mb so I left it for a while, then I got an offer saying I could have faster so I took it, they applied it and it totally screwed up my connection. I had awful trouble with them and they wouldn't fix the problem, had some idiot on the phone talking to me like I was stupid (and I had to pay for the privilige!!!!!).... I'm an O2 mobile customer so I switched and now as if by some form of magic that is beyond tiscali (namely ADSL2+), I get around 400kb/s! can't have more than 1mb connection eh? hmmmm... and if I need to ring O2 its an free call. The O2 box isn't bad either, its a doddle to setup port forwarding and has loads of pre-configured options for games and apps.

Let us know how you get on with O2.

[MadduckUK]

The O2 box isn't bad either,

just out of curiosity, what is the 02 box? a speedtouch?

[Bluecube]

I don't know if it's a Speedtouch but it's very light, very plasticky and screaming out to be replaced...

[Lee H]

Is it like this one Here that Be there give to you ?

If so turn it over, put a fan under it and keep it cool as they do overheat a little especially with the wireless on and more than 3 people connected.