Broadband speed

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 17:46

Thanks Mike

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 13:03

That's local Loop Unbundling which means your provider can put their own equipment in the exchange. It was introduced to increase competition which has worked to the extent that most providers buy their connections from BT wholesale and don't choose to unbundle in places like Charlbury.

Thanks all for solving the mystery. TT needs marketing people as well as customer service (doubt it can be as bad as AOL though). Now all I need to do is hope everybody doesn't pile on to TT / AOL :-)

MikeW

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 11:34

We have two providers into our house and we are getting different speeds from them. TT providing 1M more tham Plusnet. Is that just the difference in wireless router?

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 10:44

That's local Loop Unbundling which means your provider can put their own equipment in the exchange. It was introduced to increase competition which has worked to the extent that most providers buy their connections from BT wholesale and don't choose to unbundle in places like Charlbury.

Thanks all for solving the mystery. TT needs marketing people as well as customer service (doubt it can be as bad as AOL though). Now all I need to do is hope everybody doesn't pile on to TT / AOL :-)

MikeW

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 10:10

Sorry to be dense - what's LLU? and SamKnows? I'm only getting about 7000 on BT and would definitely change if I can get those sorts of speeds - I thought it was limited by the exchange?

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 09:03

BT are upgrading exchanges slowly from a max of 8Mb to 20Mb.....maybe that's taken place at CHarlbury?

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 03:08

Just checked again and have 13.6M/0.8M still. Can't understand why any ISP would upgrade without making a song and dance. AOL have one of the worst records of all ISPs for service and support. I think I'm still going to change because they can't tell me what's going on and over 15+ years I have zero faith in them. I'd rather have a reliable 2-4M than something nobody can explain.

Thanks for comments. Any other insights before I quit?

Thu 24 Mar 2011, 01:17

www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/ refuses to work with Linux claiming no Java installed (it lies) but mybroadbandspeed confirms I am maxing out at this time of night (01.15gmt) with about 6mbits/sec via the Phonecoop. School escape time that drops significantly much to my annoyance due to the contention ratios! Has someone upgraded the hardware at the exchange without telling us? How can we find out? Technologically you shouldn't be able to physically reach that speed... Keep schtumm is my advice...

Wed 23 Mar 2011, 23:23

Well, all I can say is that your results are about double what I can get!

Wed 23 Mar 2011, 23:16

Hi Mike and John,

I've used a number of speed testers and they all agree I get 11-15M download, even during previously busy times. Here are some results from www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

Date/Time Up Down
23rd March 2011 15:55:50 825 Kbps 13941 Kbps
20th March 2011 19:54:48 853 Kbps 14742 Kbps
19th March 2011 15:27:54 720 Kbps 10861 Kbps
18th March 2011 21:11:15 262 Kbps 835 Kbps
17th March 2011 16:43:30 167 Kbps 525 Kbps
16th March 2011 12:23:48 778 Kbps 1653 Kbps

These should all be relatively busy times. I have complete records dating back 4 years (nearly 2000 records and, no, I'm not really sad, the tester saves the results automatically). I can?t run the BT test at the moment to look at profile but can confirm that everything is going blistering fast. Still no idea how this can be. Anyone ?

Mike W

Wed 23 Mar 2011, 19:30

Or try this link:-
www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk

Tue 22 Mar 2011, 13:35

That's what puzzles me. I'm still getting rocket speeds and I'd be interested in what you find. Although TalkTalk has unbundled the exchange is only equipped for ADSL Max. I can't see how I can get 14M without 21CN, which as far as I know, is not even planned for Charlbury yet.

My enquiry is real though. I was in the middle of migrating from AOL but if they keep this up I may not need to. I was typically getting speeds of a couple of hundred kbps when the kids get back home from school. I can no longer live with that since I'm working from home for a while. Is it time for another round of "Which ISP is best in Charlbury" ?

I suppose I shouldn't tell everybody or they might pile on to AOL and wreck the contention ratio. Perhaps this is why people are reluctant to advertise which ISP they're with. Actually, I wouldn't recommend AOL to my worst enemy, I'm with them for historical reasons only !

Cheers

Sun 20 Mar 2011, 21:43

Sorry to bore everybody with this subject yet again but I've been away for a few days and now find I'm getting BB speeds of 14mbps down and 0.8m up. I've checked with a number of speed testers. Current download speed is more than 4 times as fast as it has ever been before.

I'm on AOL and it's been so bad for so long that I'm always on the verge of changing. But if these speeds are likely to remain, I may not have to. I can't believe AOL has unbundled in Charlbury. Does anybody know what's going on?

Thanks