BT's new ADSL policy as of 6th Sept 2003

[Lee H]

BT are scrapping the 60 dB limit on the line tests as of the 6th of September, meaning all you folks on long lines and lines with high noise SNR should be able to get 512k ADSL. For 1 Mb lines the noise levels been upgraded to 1 Mb so you all should be able to get 1Mb if you have 512k lines now

For more information BT have released the following press statement ;

http://www.btplc.com/News/Pressrelea...004/nr0475.htm

[shamus21]

Its about time , Now which ISP should i put my order with any body would like to offer up some names please.

[The Hand]

lol just when i go on campus for my last year at uni! Been living off 56k for a year now!

[Flash]

great news my dB has been at 50 for ages now so Im off to go and get 1Mb on the 6th yippee

[GreenPiggy]

Its about time , Now which ISP should i put my order with any body would like to offer up some names please.

Had no problems with Eclipse so far

[Flash]

yup eclipse is the speed leader at the mo and offer static ips as part of the pricing

[mr_anderson187]

maybe this sounds stupid, but bt arent upgrading all 512lines to 1mb for free are they? i thought i read this with other isp's, ive been a bt bb customer for just over a year now, do i qualify for anything? ive read that link but im still sorta in the dark

[Stoo]

Nope, they've just changed the limits, 1Mbit is now where the old 512k limit was (60dB), and for 512k there is no longer any limit on line dB, so in theory anyone with a BB enabled exchange should be able to get it.

That's it, no freebies (come on, it's BT after all!).

[Flash]

IIRC the limit used to be 41dB by increasing it to 60dB it will take out of the equation all borderline fails and those with slight line problems, obviously if your dB levels are above 60dB then I suggest calling out a line fault because that quite a bit of line noise not extreme amounts but enough to make me thing there could be a copper pair issue.

[Stoo]

Well, the 60dB is just a "for now" cut-off, I know that in the trials they were getting up to 1.5Mbit on lines with 80+ dB, but that's probably dependent on the type of noise and the general line quality..

[Flash]

80dB I would class as a line fault or a wetting current on the pairs, Im guessing they got to 1.5Mb but didnt pass any major amounts of traffic over it

[Stoo]

Nope, it's just the distance from the exchange, there were doing some testing where near I live, and they were testing how far out they could get a reliable broadband service.

But just because around where I am you you get good sevice at 8km+ doesn't mean that it would apply to the whole country, hence the 60dB limit in place at the moment.

[philly]

anybody got info on a good ADSL modem for long lines and easy to setup now it looks like BB coming my way.

[Lee H]

Most ADSL modems/Routers should work fine in all aspects. I personally would stay away from USB powered devices and go for a mains powered router instead as these, in my opinion, are more stable than the USB modems and also the "way" you connect to the internet totally changes ( you don't need to activate a dial-up connection with a router as its always connected 24/7 )

Routers also give you access to a wider range of information such as the following taken from my Origo 8400 DSL router :

ADSL STATUS Showtime
Firmware Version: 3.21
Line State: SHOWTIME
Modulation: G.dmt
Annex Mode: ANNEX_A
Startup Attempts: 1
Max Tx Power: -38 dBm/Hz
CO Vendor: ALCATEL_NETWORK
Elaspsed Time: 0 days 22 hours 12 minutes 45 seconds

Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin 30.8 31.0 dB
Line Attenuation 34.3 23.0 dB
Errored Seconds 0 0
Loss of Signal 0 0
Loss of Frame 0 0
CRC Errors 0 0
Data Rate 2272 288 kbps
Latency FAST FAST

So there you have it, as long as your lines fine and the ADSL will get installed you can pretty much use whatever equipment you desire

Hope this helps,

[spazman]

Finally! I can get 1mb ive been waiting on this for years. Shame BT work at a snails pace.

[Nemeliza]

Here is some DSL providers i recommend:

http://www.ndo.com
http://www.plus.net
http://www.nildram.com/homebroadband.php
http://www.freedom2surf.net/adsl/
http://www.zenbroadband.com/ (zen are renouned for their speeds, arguably the fastest dsl provider)
http://www.freedom2surf.net/adsl/
http://www.eclipsebroadband.com/

Those should get you going, They are all good providers and are respected for their services.

Nem.