BT broadband - realistic speeds - opinions please!

I have been contacted by BT tonight to offer me their Broadband package at a 'reduced' rate. They've done a speed check and suggest that I would be able to get 3.5mbits on my existing line. However, I currently get around 2mbits with F2S, when i questioned why there should be a difference BT said that the difference is because I would be using their equipment in the exchange - is this correct (I'm skeptical why there should be such a difference). My line stats and recent speed checks are below:

Speed checks:

http://www.kbps.co.uk/SpeedCheck_report.php?session_...

http://www.kbps.co.uk/SpeedCheck_report.php?session_...

http://www.kbps.co.uk/SpeedCheck_report.php?session_...


The speed checkers indicate that i should be able to achieve speeds of around 3 mbits. However, I am currently not getting this speed. My speed varies between 1 and 2 mbits. My router gives the following stats:

noise margin upstream: 12 db
output power downstream: 16 db
attenuation upstream: 31 db
tone 0- 31: 00 00 00 22 46 78 88 99 99 99 99 98 87 76 55 32
tone 32- 63: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 64- 95: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 96-127: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 128-159: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 160-191: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 192-223: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 224-255: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 256-287: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 288-319: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 320-351: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 352-383: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 384-415: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 416-447: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 448-479: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 480-511: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

noise margin downstream: 5 db
output power upstream: 12 db
attenuation downstream: 61 db
tone 0- 31: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 32- 63: 24 56 77 77 77 88 89 89 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
tone 64- 95: 08 99 99 99 99 99 98 99 87 89 99 88 87 77 77 77
tone 96-127: 78 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 76 66 65 55 50 40 40
tone 128-159: 42 44 42 22 02 02 02 02 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 160-191: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 192-223: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 224-255: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 256-287: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 288-319: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 320-351: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 352-383: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 384-415: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 416-447: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 448-479: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
tone 480-511: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

I know i'm on a long line so wonder whether BT's claims are correct? I've looked at BT's profile on here and can't work out whether to consider it or not. The following ISP's are available at my exchange:

BT Wholesale ADSL
BT Wholesale ADSL Max
BT Wholesale WBC (21CN)
BT Wholesale SDSL
AOL LLU
O2 / Be LLU
Bulldog LLU
TalkTalk (CPW) LLU
Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU
Tiscali LLU
Tiscali TV (via Tiscali LLU)
Orange LLU (Formerly Wanadoo)


Regards,

Kevin

Their claims are false.

In reply to a post by Shoit:

O2 / Be LLU

Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU

^^Pick of the bunch. Way better than BT would offer.

Put your phone number into the O2 site and see if it offers you O2 Standard 8Mbps, not O2 Access 8Mbps.

O2 Standard would give you at least as good speeds as BT and far cheaper. Also the profiling system which is a pain on long lines isn't used. O2 Access uses the BT equipment and is severely over-subscribed at the moment.

O2 Standard at the moment is on a free month, and if you sign up through Quidco a possible £70 cashback. At an ongoing cost of £7.34 per month it's a fairly obvious choice if you can get it.

I think the statement about using BT equipment in the exchange could be suspect as I think you are probably already connected to it. If you run a BT speed test that will confirm it, and also give us some other useful info if you post the full results.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Put your phone number into the O2 site and see if it offers you O2 Standard 8Mbps, not O2 Access 8Mbps.

O2 Standard would give you at least as good speeds as BT and far cheaper. Also the profiling system which is a pain on long lines isn't used. O2 Access uses the BT equipment and is severely over-subscribed at the moment.

O2 Standard at the moment is on a free month, and if you sign up through Quidco a possible £70 cashback. At an ongoing cost of £7.34 per month it's a fairly obvious choice if you can get it.

Unfortunately O2 is coming up with the access package only - I'll try and post some test results later when the speedchecker isn't too busy!

Kev

Your tones start to fall off a bit sooner than mine (understandable, given your 61dB line attenuation, compared to my 56dB).
If you can get an ADSL2+ provider to give you a service (doubtful, considering the length of your line), you may be able to expect up to around 3Mbps.
However, I'm extremely sceptical of BT's claim you'll be able to get 3.5Mbps (no way, basically).

Have you tried all the usual stuff (removing ring-wire, connecting into 'test' socket behind master face-plate, moving your router to the master socket) to see if you can get your connection speed up?

Sky would probably be your best bet (but there's a high possibility of them only provisioning ADSL1).
If O2 say "Access only"; check the BEthere website (if they tell you to sling your hook, I guess your line is too long - and this is why O2 have suggested their ever_so_slightly_rubbish Access product).

If you can get on LLU (even if it's with Sky, and turns out to be upto 8Mbps ADSL1), you'll still get faster speeds, as you'll be free of the stupid BT IP profiling system and their high target noise margins (which eventually happen for most long lines).

If O2 say "Access only" and BE say "get lost"; I'd suggest hooking up with Sky.

You have ignored (or forgotten about )one of the best long line LLU providers there is , that also runs on Easynet LLU equipment .

UKonline rock when it comes to long lines , for a start they don't use DLM as Sky do and have a very good record of achieving outstanding results on long lines whilst using Easynets LLU equipment .

Current connection speed from the router is:

Upstream Speed: 512 kbps
Downstream Speed: 2304 kbps

This is with the BT I-plate installed which actually seems to have slowed down the actual speedtest with the following results:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/1...

This is almost half the speed of the tests without the I-plate in place!

Any ideas?

Kev

You need to use the BT speed tester as that gives a figure called the IP Profile. That actually determines your maximum download speed, not your actual connection/sync speed. Though sync speed and profile are related. See this table and the explanations above and below it.

Course, if all the decent LLU options fail, you might try WBC.