Limited Broadband provider choice - what to do for non LLU?

[FluffyChicken]

I'd love 8gb/s sadly living in the centre of London and being on cable I can only get 100mb/s. ( I think you may have your giga and mega mixed up!)

100 millibits is not very fast though is it, I'd start to complain. I get about 7Mb/s average Even get over 1MB/s on a good say

 

[Easy_Rider]

This just ads insult to injury 300Mbps won't be in my town
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16870464

UK average is 7.6Mbps

Note the correct abbreviations

 

[suburbanreuben]

BT Option 3. You should be able to get unlimited (real no limit unlim,ited ) broadband forabout £17 a month if you haggle half heartedly.
Speed? We're living in the stone age!
5 years ago, BT technicians spent a whole 9 months camped at the bottom of the drive laying fibre optic cable for the new fangled information superhighway. Can we get it yet? pff!
Where do these cables go? It's just fields and woods beyond us...

 

[swos]

With Virgin and get 20mb. Going to be upgraded to 60mb free of charge in November

 

[drcarlos]

One thing I will say is the house wiring makes a massive difference. What sort of speed do BT say you will get? The told me 2mbps and to start with i couldn't even get that.
What I did do was install the correct master socket, remove all the crappy extensions that were connected (even unconnected to a phone they can drop the speed) and get a decent ADSL micro filter. My speed went from 1.2mbps to at least 2.4 and sometime I saw 2.7.
2.4 is enough to stream youtube and iplayer at 480p happily.
Got infinity now and because the wiring is so good in the house I got nearly 38mbps instead of the 30.8 BT quoted.

Carl.

 

[Easy_Rider]

I'm connected directly to the master socket. I'm quoted to get 0.5-1.5Mbps

I was talking to my dad last night, he lives even further from his exchange at 2.9miles, has only 450 people on the exchange which is rated to 8Mbps like mine but he gets 2-6Mbps. The reason he said was because he complained about the lie speed so BT engineer changed the noise threshold on his line...

 

[drcarlos]

I'm connected directly to the master socket. I'm quoted to get 0.5-1.5Mbps

I was talking to my dad last night, he lives even further from his exchange at 2.9miles, has only 450 people on the exchange which is rated to 8Mbps like mine but he gets 2-6Mbps. The reason he said was because he complained about the lie speed so BT engineer changed the noise threshold on his line...

Any extensions connected at all, used or unused?
Use an ADSL line and a set of multi DECT handsets off the master socket instead of having wired extensions for multiple phones.

Microfilter, standard or a decent brand? These were the best when I last looked http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=3306

Once you have done all this time to call BT and complain (they will blame the wiring and microfilters first), Sky initially set my speed at a noise threshold that I could have got 2.5mbps at and after they put adaptive filtering on it dropped to 1mbps. I complained and they removed it (replaced it after 2 weeks and I complained again) and it stayed at 2.7mbps until we left a couple of weeks ago.

Carl.

 

[Easy_Rider]

No extensions at, just one filter on the master socket which is BT openreach. I am getting my quoted maximum so I'm not sure what benefit decent gear will give me? The BT engineer at my dads fiddled with the noise threshold in the exchange, that was how he was able to get the faster speeds, he did say that it may be a little more unreliable but the standard noise thresholds are set way to conservatory so there is room to play... anybody heard of this before?

 

[drcarlos]

No extensions at, just one filter on the master socket which is BT openreach. I am getting my quoted maximum so I'm not sure what benefit decent gear will give me? The BT engineer at my dads fiddled with the noise threshold in the exchange, that was how he was able to get the faster speeds, he did say that it may be a little more unreliable but the standard noise thresholds are set way to conservatory so there is room to play... anybody heard of this before?

Yes, I have heard of it before as that's what the Sky tech told me too. The decent gear (I started with the bundled microfilter then changed to a decent D-Link branded one) helped me achieve more than the quoted maximums (over 1mbps at times) and keep a stable service for over 6 years.
I do have a fair idea on these things as I am Cisco trained and have worked on design and testing projects for some demanding customers in my IT career and a lot of the time decent equipment is the key, so i'm not just a keyboard warrior using google I've have a fair bit of practical experience too.
Also check that only 2 wires are connected to the master socket incoming as anymore means that the old and now unused ring wires are connected and these can generate noise.

Carl.

 

[rosstheboss]

Re: Limited Broadband provider choice - what to do for non L

I'm currently with BT and I'm constantly going over my limit mainly because I stream radio and tv. Currently pay £19/month have 10gb limit and connect at 1 to 1.5 gb/s and pay an extra £5 for going over limit for each 5gb

Looked at several options, sky looked good and orange. I want to keep my landline as it is so looked at orange simply broadband, 8gb/s unlimited download with no fair usage policy and £12.75 a month plus £5 for non orange customers. I work my way through the sign up process and discover it will actually be £27.50/month!

I called to find out why and they tell me my exchange is part of the 15% of exchanges that have yet to be opened up by BT to competitors, and on top of this my best speed is 1.5gb/s from a theoretical 8gb/s

What a rip off, I have to pay more for a slower connection.

How can I find out when my exchange will open up? It's mickle trafford exchange and I'm 2.5 miles from it.

When I started getting charged the £5 a month I phoned BT and found out I was out of contract and went from 10gb to 40gb for an extra 20p a month, worth finding out...