Be Broadband Questions

[htid]

I'm thinking of getting Be, but was planning on using the provided Be box. How come so many people are suggesting getting another router, does theirs not do the job? If so, in what way? Lower speeds, connection drops? Can't really afford a router so would I still be fine with the Be Box?

Cheers

[LuckyNV]

@Tidus

Good to hear so many people praising Be, ask the majority of people about their service provider and they'll have plenty to tell about how crap they are.

Oh Be* is far from perfect, there is plenty of moaning on Be*'s own forums, but seriously what company is perfect? None, my own personal experience with Be* so far is excellent though

@htid
Most people prefer to have better manual control over their line, with SNR tweaking etc...
I'm using the supplied Be* box though, I have an additional wired and wireless computer connected, works great, it has port forwarding and many other options, sure it doesn't have every option known to man, but for majority of people its more than fine.
No issues with line stability or speeds (I'm syncing 19Mbps currently)
Be* package is pretty normal, 2 filters, ADSL modem cable and ethernet cable, router is wireless capable, non-removable aerial though.

[htid]

@Tidus
Oh Be* is far from perfect, there is plenty of moaning on Be*'s own forums, but seriously what company is perfect? None, my own personal experience with Be* so far is excellent though

@htid
Most people prefer to have better manual control over their line, with SNR tweaking etc...
I'm using the supplied Be* box though, I have an additional wired and wireless computer connected, works great, it has port forwarding and many other options, sure it doesn't have every option known to man, but for majority of people its more than fine.
No issues with line stability or speeds (I'm syncing 19Mbps currently)
Be* package is pretty normal, 2 filters, ADSL modem cable and ethernet cable, router is wireless capable, non-removable aerial though.

Good to hear! We don't need any fancy settings, just the ability to connect a laptop and a desktop wirelessly will do fine

[Tidus]

It can depend so much on how good the wiring is in the house. In my last place I had the BeBox connected off 2 extensions from the master socket and still got 19mb But now if I don't use the master socket my speed drops from 14mb down to 7mb!

Thats a big drop, Daisy-Chain wiring is supposed to be a more recent style of wiring so the quality shouldn't be too bad but it's not ideal as it has a long wire length and joins to multiple sockets, it'll be interesting too see how much difference I get on my line.

I'm thinking of getting Be, but was planning on using the provided Be box. How come so many people are suggesting getting another router, does theirs not do the job? If so, in what way? Lower speeds, connection drops? Can't really afford a router so would I still be fine with the Be Box?

Cheers

I was only interested in using my own router because I only bought it 2 months ago for £70 and don't like the idea of having wasted money on it.

[pjuk]

The Be router is certainly capable of providing a reasonable wifi service with a decent selection of network tools, however like Tidus said, I already had a router that I've been using and have a decent and reliable set-up so why change.

Regarding the daisy-chaining. I probably blame the telephone wiring in the house. I haven't checked it properly but it looks the previous owners must have gone through a number of different telephone providers as I have 2 BT master sockets and a virgin media socket which all go back to one master socket which is a real mess! I'm happy with 14mb as it's about the max I can get with respect to the distance I'm from the exchange.

[Pyrii]

I've been looking into Be, I even phoned up their sales service but that wasn't encouraging as the guy on the other end was either stoned or dead asleep, could barely understand him, let alone try to get any useful information. Be's site provides ZERO information about some of the rather major points, doesn't even tell you that migrations are free, which I just about wrangled out of the sales guy.

I have a few questions/concerns for the helpful =)

1. What is their control panel like? Can I see radius logins, usage stats etc? What is configurable from the web-page?
2. What is the contention ratio like? The sales guy quoted me a 1 to 1 ratio which I just don't believe. Does the service fluctuate during peak times?
3. Be want 3 MONTHS cancellation time. Or they charge you £40 for 10 days cancellation. This is a serious concern for me.
4. According to the sales guy, ALL incoming and outgoing traffic on port 25 is blocked unless you have a static IP? Is this true? Doesn't this appear to be traffic-shaping?
5. Customer service, has anybody had any experience with them? My experience with thier salesperson was not encouraging.

-thanks

[moogle]

I have a few questions/concerns for the helpful =)

1. What is their control panel like? Can I see radius logins, usage stats etc? What is configurable from the web-page?
2. What is the contention ratio like? The sales guy quoted me a 1 to 1 ratio which I just don't believe. Does the service fluctuate during peak times?
3. Be want 3 MONTHS cancellation time. Or they charge you £40 for 10 days cancellation. This is a serious concern for me.
4. According to the sales guy, ALL incoming and outgoing traffic on port 25 is blocked unless you have a static IP? Is this true? Doesn't this appear to be traffic-shaping?
5. Customer service, has anybody had any experience with them? My experience with thier salesperson was not encouraging.

1) No idea, I assume you're talking about the router. I've been using a netgear so long I can't remember what it's like.

2) The ratio is however many people are on your exchange. The service has never fluctuated for me, even after lots of downloading.

3) I was with them after 1 year so I cancelled straight away by using a MAC key, that 3 months thing is during your contract I think.

4) That port 25 thing is to stop you abusing SMTP or spamming. Not shaping in any form I'd say.

5) CS has always been fine for me. I only phone up for urgent stuff like changing package or putting fastpath on. They are in foreign call centres but luckily it ain't India. More european people I'd say.

[LuckyNV]

1. Not sure what a radius login is.
Usage stats nope, even though Be* does have a FUP, they have never warned or disconnected anyone for downloading too much.
You can adjust SNR and Be* are working on getting interleaving options working, however you can raise a ticket to adjust either, they answered mine within 1hr.
Not sure what else you are needing.
2. No idea, I've never had problems with slow peak speeds, a bit hard to max out 19Mbps though ;p
3. Why? Many ISPs have a 1 year contract, very few offer 1month. 1 Year is on the Value/8Mbps package, 3months is on the other two, and its not a contract as such its 3 months notice to leave at any time.
4. No idea on this, but static IP is free on Unlimited/Pro package, zero traffic shaping.
5. Their forums and ticketing service seems efficient, not had any need to phone up.

[Pyrii]

Leave at any time != 3 months notice

And the port 25 thing, let me put it like this, if you use POP for your mail, can you still download and send out mail using outlook/thunderbird/other e-mail client(not web)?

[moogle]

Leave at any time != 3 months notice

And the port 25 thing, let me put it like this, if you use POP for your mail, can you still download and send out mail using outlook/thunderbird/other e-mail client(not web)?

Well the 3 months thing is still better than being tied into a yearly contract.

As for the email, as long as your POP isn't on port 25 (which it shouldn't be) and your SMTP server isn't then it should be fine. I could access my Uni email while I had a dynamic ip.

[geraintl]

ill be leaving my current isp for eclipse, going to get my mac code on monday!

[Pyrii]

ill be leaving my current isp for eclipse, going to get my mac code on monday!

Eclipse did you say? *washes out ears* Did I hear you right?

[Blastuk]

BE did have problems a while ago with overcrowded exchanges but that's all gone afaik

their dns servers are pretty much useless (i'm running my own) you can use opendns

i'm using a d-link router set to "1483 bridged ip llc" to connect to their service
vpi = 0
vci = 101

i'm on the up to 8mb service connected at 4-5mb and i think i've downloaded over 600gb from my own computer(3 other comps not counted) in a month with no problems, in fact i'm feeling guilty for downloading so much..

pings are very good, cs servers hosted in london i get pings around 7-15

they have members forums which you can use when you sign up, it's a very useful resource where you can get lots of help with your connection etc from other members.
oh and the staff do read the forums and respond

also on their website control panel is a ticketing system where you can raise an issue with them.

[Tidus]

I've just had my service activated (been on for an hour now) but my speeds are way below my estimisation (est-20mb), router stats below: -

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 0:01:04

DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,014 / 7,133

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 11.5 / 23.0

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.5

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 23 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 2 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 2 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 350 / 7

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 350 / 0

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 35,474 / 0

Hopefully it is slow because it's just been activated, I just tried downloading a driver from Nvidia's site to test my speed and was getting 98-103KB/s which is many times slower than my Pipex. Anyone else have slow speeds when they first connected / migrated?

[moogle]

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 11.5 / 23.0

Well somethings wrong because at that attenuation you should be reaching those 20-18mb/s speeds and even more with fastpath. Best to post on the Be forums or submit a ticket in your member area.

[Tidus]

Well somethings wrong because at that attenuation you should be reaching those 20-18mb/s speeds and even more with fastpath. Best to post on the Be forums or submit a ticket in your member area.

I left it overnight and reset in the morning and there was no difference so I just submitted a ticket, my exchange was only enabled 3 days before I registered with Be so there might be a few teething problems.