Adventures of ADSL2+ in the UK

[Flintstone]

Guys,

Just want to share my experiences of being regraded to ADSL2+

My ISP upgraded me via BT to ADSL2+ and initially all was well.  13Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream.  Then my Cisco 857 would disconnect intermittently, so contacted my ISP who correctly informed me that there is an issue with the Cisco 857 and BT's DSLAM using ADSL2+.  They did point me in the direction that an ADSL firmware upgrade might help I.e. 4.0.18, but alas it did not.  To resolve the Cisco 857 disconnect issue I started to use ADSL2 instead, which gave me 8Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream.  I then tried different ADSL firmware but got the same results 

I then decided to use a BT Hub (2Wire 2700) instead of the Cisco 857, but unfortunately BT have something called DLM (Dynamic Line Management) which monitors your line so that if there are lots of disconnects the DSLAM increases the 'noise margin' until the line is stable.  In my case my line was deemed stable at 5Mbps downstream and 400Kbps upstream 

I then contacted my ISP who informed me that I had been capped at that rate due to the frequent disconnects.  My ISP then had to contact BT to remove the cap.  I now get 13Mbps downstream and 900Kbps upstream 

If I hadn't cottoned on to the fact that BT use DLM I would still be on 5Mbps downstream and 400Kbps upstream with my Cisco 857 or BT Hub using ADSL2+, which is worse than when I was using plain old ADSL.

CheerZ

[Michael McNamara]

That's wild... I've heard lots of horror stories over here state side of consumers trying to deal with the big phone/cable companies and getting no where fast. That's great that you were able to finally figure things out and get a positive outcome.

Is there any company over in the UK doing FTTP (Fiber to the Premises)?

[Flintstone]

Michael,

BT has recently finished their trials and are rolling out FTTP.  I think it will be a few years yet before there is significant coverage for the UK?

CheerZ

[Dominik]

Flinstone,

can your BT Router measure the DSL capacity ?
The bloody ISPs could give you more bandwith but they doesnīt do it for what ever reason.

I use at home a fritzbox router from AVM. They have a very good measurment function build in.
I have a VDSL2 connection wich is limit by my provider to 50Mbps downstream and 10Mbps of upstream.
The provider says we can not provide more bandwith.
So I started a measurment of my VDSL connection:

max. possible bandwith   kbit/s    126512    29520
your bandwith              kbit/s    51384    10048
        
So the ISP provides less than half of the possible bandwith.
In your case the ADSL2+ is faster over the same physical connection, but at the DSLAM of your provider doesnīt have the right profile configured.
Make a measurment of your connection and you will see it.

Cheers

[Flintstone]

Dominik,

Here are my DSL statistics:

Downstream Rate Cap:   24384 kbps

About 2Km from the Dslam gives me sync rate of:

DSL                      Down              Up
Current Rate:      16041 kbs      960 kbs
Max Rate:              16041 kbs      960 kbs

Actual measured by broadband speed checker:

Down - 12.84 Mbps  Up - 788 Kbps

I presume overhead is the culprit?

CheerZ

[Michael McNamara]

In the US the most we get our of our DSL lines is 1.5Mbps down and 384Kbps up so those numbers are really impressive. In my testlab at work we still have a Verizon DSL line which is terribly slow compared to the dual 1Gbps Internet pipes the production network has.

Now I have Verizon FiOS (FTTP) and I get 50Mbps down and 20 Mbps up so I'm sitting high and happy.

[TankII]

I have a site in Hartford, CT I get 10 to 12MB down on a Cisco 877.  The upstream is capped at 768K though, and the users still complained as most of their work was posting to sites.  I brought in a 10MBit fiber circuit (Fibertech) and the complaints went away.

TankII

[Michael McNamara]

I was almost going to use a DC in Wilmington, DE and was looking at Fibertech to help bring connectivity from Philadelphia, PA.

I've been using Sunesys in the Philadelphia, PA market for the past 7 years and we've only had 2 outages with all the miles we have.