high attenuation

Hi all, I currently pay �35 for my Broadband service to a terrific company - excellent customer service, fast speeds if line allows. . But unfortunately my line quality does not merit me paying such a premium. I am about 6km from my exchange, and its old aluminium cable laid from exchange to cabinet so I am stuffed.

I used to sync at 1.5MBps or so and I settled for that but my line degraded to around a 1.0Mbps sync ( they are building loads of new houses all around me and I wonder if somehow the line has "lengthened". Even that 1,0Mbps sync occasionally ( every couple of weeks or so ) collapses to 250kbps or so and takes a couple of days to recover.

BT have sent engineers out twice but are no longer playing ball..they insist the line is ok, its simply distance from the exchange and are now even claiming that my line can't sustain BB Max at all and I should go back to 512 fixed.

Given I can't justify �35 a month for such a slow speed, I am thinking about Sky ( �5 for Mid ) . What happens if my line won't even sustain that , will Sky allow me to end my 12 month contract ? Do they even offer a 512 fixed service if I have to revert to that , if so what download limit ( looking for 40Gb ) ? Can someone advise with my line attenuation of 63.5dB what speed I may expect on Sky LLU Sorry, so many questions :-)

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 1,056
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 14.73 / 280.73
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 15.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 63.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 14.0 / 12.0
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Looking at those line stats, I would suggest a half meg fixed rate connection be your only sensible option. Anything rate adaptive, as you rightly suggest, is going to flap like a pig and it would appear you have a choice of stable and slow or flakey and possibly slightly faster (assuming your BRAS profile doesn't get shoved down to 160k for a flakey line).

If you have many new properties being built, it is likely cross-talk from their (presumably shorter) lines would be the cause of your loss of margin, not that your line has lengthened, although it is possible I guess.

My experience has been that Sky has given better results on my line than any other provider. Don't forget that you have a 10 day period in which you can cancel and be no worse off. With Sky LLU you don't have line profiles, so if your line is continually up and down, you get the best of what's currently on offer.

Hi,
I've had problems with my line since moving to my current house 3 months ago. I live quite a distance from the exchange, and my speeds fluctuated between 2 and 3mbit for the first month.

Then Sky DLM'd me, and for 3 weeks I had a speed between 180k and 384k! After that finished, I rang up support and got the speed upped. After several calls to try different values, seems I am settled on 1440k.

Not quite the same as the 20mbit I used to have on Virgin, but is sustainable - tried downloading large files and watching the speed during transfer - constant 1.4Mbit.

My stats are
Attenuation: 60 / 31.5
Noise Margin: 15.8 / 13

Sky Support are very helpful, and will do what they can to help improve things. However I believe the first 10 days is when your line is on some stability testing (someone else here may be able to clarify / coorect this), so not sure if they will alter your connection speed during that time.

Not exactly an yes or no answer, but might help you make a decision.

Ok basically if you move on to the sky mid package if it is available in your area to check this go to www.samknows.com and go to availibility tracker and put in your phone number and it will tell you all the providers that are available in your area.

layout of sky packages:

sky connect:
(up to 8mbps can be fixed to 512kbps if needed and a 40 gig download cap a month. This package will cost �17 pound per month if sky equipment is not in the exchange but if sky equipment is in the exchange but full it will cost �5 per month)

There is no sky llu equipment in your exchange so you will have be connected to bt equipment and they will manage the connection and you will have a bras profile and a 10 day training period were the speeds will vary.

sky base:
(up to 2mbps can also be fixed to 512kbps if needed and a 2 gig download cap a month. This package is free if you have sky tv and you can also get free sky talk)

There is sky llu equipment in the exchange so you will be connected to sky equipment and sky will manage it and there is no bras profile or training period.

sky mid:
(up to 8mbps can also be fixed at 512kbps if needed and a 40 gig download cap a month. This package is �5 per month)

There is sky llu equipment in the exchange so you will be connected to sky equipment and sky will manage it and there is no bras profile or training period.

sky max:
(up to 16mbps can also be fixed at 512kbps if needed and unlimited download. This package is �10 per month)

There is sky llu equipment in the exchange so you will be connected to sky equipment and sky will manage it and there is no bras profile or training period.

I hope that helped you with the questions that you were asking.

Thanks all for the replies. I checked Samknows and Sky LLU is indeed available on my exchange. Given I now know I have the fall back of 512 fixed if I find ADSL max unusable then I will move to Sky mid at �5 per month. This gives me the download useage I require. I currently pay �35 p/m for this on fast.co.uk.

Given my high line attenuation , 63.5 db, aluminium line and distance from the exchange, I currently get a ( mildly flakey 750kbps down, on a sync speed of 1056 or thereabouts -sync collapses every couple of weeks but recovers in a day or two ).

Do you think I would get faster with Sky LLU given no BRAS ?

yeh i think you would be better on skys llu package it is cheaper,the line can be readjusted if it needs to be there and then none of this regrade [censored] and also the throughput would be better as what you sync at is what you get unlike the bras profile were the sync speed is different from the throughput.

Since there's no line profiles on Sky (BRAS), you get what you're currently sync'd at, so if you have a line with varying line noise, and you don't mind restarting your router occasionally, you could benefit.

So there is not ATM overhead on the Sky LLU service too?

Sky use interleaving and they can also reduce your max delays which would make the whole process quicker again.