What to do with ADSL modems

Now that I am on FTTP I have an abundance of ADSL modems that just need factory resets to be used again. I see some Zyxels going for £10-15 on Ebay so not going to get my money back, I paid around £30. Any other suggestions before I list them?

How many people are going to buy anything to do with ADSL? There can't be that many still on ADSL. I still have the original stingray modem, I am thinking of mounting it in a frame for my computer room.

I have a load of routers and modems, not really much cope now, I suppose i could use the Zyxel as an extension.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

How many people are going to buy anything to do with ADSL? There can't be that many still on ADSL. I still have the original stingray modem, I am thinking of mounting it in a frame for my computer room.

I have a load of routers and modems, not really much cope now, I suppose i could use the Zyxel as an extension.

A company I worked for in the early 2000's used one of them for their new ADSL service and it had a network switch connected to it, but you had to keep it connected via a dial up style interface or it disconnected

E-waste, or see if the guy who runs The Uplink Port YouTube channel and for some reason is building an ISP from 2005 in his shed wants them for the cost of shipping.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I see some Zyxels going for £10-15 on Ebay so not going to get my money back, I paid around £30.

If you can get £15 then you're doing well - it's better than zero. Presumably you used it for a while - consider the loss as rental.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Now that I am on FTTP I have an abundance of ADSL modems that just need factory resets to be used again. I see some Zyxels going for £10-15 on Ebay so not going to get my money back, I paid around £30. Any other suggestions before I list them?

VDSL surely?

Crikey yes better change listing was thinking of the Speedtouch which need to recycle.

In reply to a post by CJT:

A company I worked for in the early 2000's used one of them for their new ADSL service and it had a network switch connected to it, but you had to keep it connected via a dial up style interface or it disconnected

I had a lodger here when I changed from dial up to ADSL. I had a computer in my bedroom connected via modem to the net and then her computer and my computer that was downstairs connected to that via Internet connection sharing. I used a 10BASE2 network to connect them all together. When we went to ADSL, just stuck the ADSL modem in the dial modems place.

It worked fine until she got her own place and I had no need for network. Then routers started to become a thing

Last year I managed to sell my old TalkTalk Hub for £27 on Ebay. But actually, it was more or a less brand new. Even though TalkTalk had asked me to return the router, I had a replacement router for, which TalkTalk had only requested to return the latter.

However, I have no success selling my Sky Q Hub router that has only 2 LAN ports. I reduced the price of it to £11 from £17 but only have 1 watcher.

What I find weird is that people are buying Sky Master Microfilter RJ11 for around the same price as my router that also includes the very same Sky Master Microfilter as part of it! No idea why people are not buying the router when they will have it included for free. But anyway, I just have to wait and hope.

I've also got additional separate micro filters that are brand new. These are also now completely useless with FTTP. Even with FTTC you don't need separate micro filters as you have one inbuilt with the master socket pre-fitted.

I switched to Community Fibre last month and this service is far superior. No Openreach FTTP yet, only FTTC. I also, don't see myself going back to FTTC never mind ADSL.

Actually, as far as I am aware once your area gets upgraded to FTTC, you can't even order an ADSL service. The same is true if Openreach FTTP arrives. You won't be able to switch to FTTC even if you want to as packages will only show FTTP options.

This is why it's very difficult to sell ADSL modems as most people don't use ADSL even in rural areas now. I guess if they were put on sale a few years back we would've had better success!

Most people in our street are still on adsl.

Bit like yourself a while back. No need for fast speed and are happy with the price they are paying.

For those who get 8 to 14 Mbps I can quite see why, but I think they will be moved to cabinet VDSL ( FTTC ) in the next 5 years without a choice.

If it isn't done as a standard then chances on that prices of ADSL will increase to the point where it is far more cost effective to move to other, newer, technologies.

It will be part of the exchange closure programme, FTTC/VDSL from cabinet is supplied by fibre from the regional centre; when analogue voice (WLR) closes in January, I suspect the plans will start to move people off exchange based ADSL.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Most people in our street are still on adsl.

Bit like yourself a while back. No need for fast speed and are happy with the price they are paying.

I was happy on FTTC, I don't think I could cope with ADSL, certainly not the speed I was getting at just over 3Mb/s, certainly not now.
I can understand that some people may be fine with ADSL, the fastest speed of ADSL if you are lucky is around 10Mb/s. But most people would not get that unless they were virtually next door to the exchange.

Not possible to get ADSL here now, even FTTC is difficult.

i changed from FTTC to full fibre because of price, my main problem with the broadband market now apart from the price rises in contract is the 24 month contracts that most providers have, bad enough with 18

Well, not quite true. The fastest ADSL speed is 24Mb/s. When I was under EO Line until October 2019 I was getting all these years on ADSL between 14-16Mbps on average with the max at one point connected at 18Mbps.

I am in Central London, Aldgate East area but my Exchange is connected to Bishopsgate, which according to SamKnows (now no longer exists) was showing location as Jerome Street that is 0.3 Miles ~ 482 meters to my property.

My problem was never on attaining those speeds but the constant drop-outs! I would always get 16Mbps in both router stats and speed tests but under a 3dB to 6dB noise margin profile!! The problem is that each time my connection would drop the dB going to 0 would make my speed drop a few megs before jumping back.

It was a vicious cycle yo-yoing between 3dB and 6dB meaning the maximum historical connection uptime for me under a 3 and 6dB profile was no more than 3 days in the 16 years of using ADSL!
So, there was a solution, that BE Unlimited ISP told me at that time where they can manually cap the noise margin profile to 9dB and that finally solved the connection problem but at the expense of reduced speeds at 11-12Mbps. The max uptime for me was 60 days with Sky Broadband but on average it was 20 days uptime after raising the cap to 9dB.

ADSL was never reliable for me regardless of whether I used Tiscali, Sky, BE Unlimited or Plusnet. These were the only 4 ISPs I ever had experience of using under ADSL from around 2004 to 2020.

Before that of-course I used Dial-Up with Barclays and Tiscali from 1999 to 2004. FTTC resolved much of these problems as noise margin issues have more or a less been ironed out achieving 80Mbps download and 20Mbps Upload with both TalkTalk and BT since joining in Feb 2020. The problem is that in the last 2 years that speed due to cross-talk had dropped to 74Mbps download and 17Mbps upload.

I finally joined Community Fibre 1Gbps last month for a 12 month contract with first 6 months free promotional offer and after that £32 a month with £130 Uswitch voucher! Not sure if I will get the voucher, may have to wait 90 days and see. But it will still be cheap at roughly £16 a month even without the voucher.

Now I am getting about 950Mbps in speed test but on average 936Mbps. Both upload and download symmetrical with 0ms ping to their server.

I don't see myself ever returning back to FTTC even though I am under CGNAT! But I still think CGNAT with Full Fibre is better than no CGNAT but FTTC. I could pay £4 a month and get CGNAT removed but haven't thought of this yet. I also have the option of joining Vodafone FTTP after 12 months, which uses Community Fibre network and they offer free Static IP.

Because of my historical problems with ADSL that's one of the reasons I also had extra ADSL routers lying around! I had requested my ISP to send me new router, which never solved my problems. Now I have an old Sky Q Hub Wireless Router ER110UK that is pretty much brand new but no one is interested to buy it last 2 years since putting it up on eBay.

I did not know ADSL could go up that high, I did hear sometimes over 10Mb/s, but never 24. I used to get 3, maybe 3.5 if i was lucky, who ever I was with. Using the old Bulldog network gave me better results, I think it was mercury I was using.
I mucked around with SNR margin to get better speeds. Reliability was okay, unless I mucked about with the SNR margin too much.

I changed providers a fair bit on ADSL, BT was the first one and then different ones, AOL, ADSL24, mercury, Entranet, Eclipse, Metronet, but not in that order apart from BT. Maybe a few more as well. I changed to a Wireless network called Allpay, I jumped to around 2013, they promised 30Mb/s I never got that, around 10 at the most, but still better than ADSL and then after 18 months it got to the stage where the speeds reduced to not far from what I had with ADSL.
They leased their line from Zen and I don't think they had the equipment to cope, Allpay, not Zen. In the end it got almost down speeds worse than ADSL, and in 2015, I jumped to plusnet FTTC as that was up and running by then. I was only going to stay at Plusnet for 18 months, turned out to be 9 years.
Allpay gave up supplying broadband not long after I jumped. It was a shame really as it was a great idea. A mast on churches to send broadband to people in the sticks and in the city the mast was on the Cathedral. The equipment is still on my roof.
Allpay is still going, but doing what they started out doing, handling payments. At least they tried, so it failed.

I think that was one of the reason why I was not wanting to move to FTTP, I moved off a network once and it failed and it took a bit of work to find a provider, being plusnet to take me back so quickly. The other thing was that 36Mb/s on FTTC was fine for me. It was only because Plusnet wanted put the price up, wanted to stick me on a 24 month contract and kept pushing for FTTP that I decided to take a chance again and goo for Zzoomm.
It was a good choice I think.


What happens in there future, who knows.

I do have a load of routers and modems here.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I did not know ADSL could go up that high

ADSL was upto 8 Mbps
ADSL2+ was upto 24 Mbps

Openreach didn't offer 2+ for a long time, so other ISPs did "LLU" and put their own kit in the exchange. I was with Bulldog and managed 16 Mbps on ADSL2+ in the early days. The line length, line quality, interference from businesses or AM radio, and crosstalk, all hit together to reduce the actual sync rate and then overheads for the data rate you achieve.

VDSL is very similar but because most people are within 500metres of the box, the rates can go higher; at 450 metres my line managed 40 Mbps at best, and after the pandemic as everyone in my area signed up, I dropped to 30. I switched to cable as no FTTP in my area as I needed upload for home working.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 08-Apr-26 08:51:53)

I went back onto ADSL2+ when I first moved back to Farnborough (new build not appearing on various systems.
I was a lot closer than you were …. And could sync at 24mbps in Church Road West.

It was sort of OK , until my stepdaughter came home from uni and FaceTimed her b/f all the time. This saturated the upload, and no one else could then even open a webpage.

Oh yeah,. I forgot about ADSL2+, I remember going from 512Kb/s to 1Mb/s and then was able to get 3Mb/s, not sure how they did that.
LLU, local loop unbundling or something like that, means they just put their own equipment in the exchange.

Yes, I know FTTC was more or less just moving the ADSl equipment from the Exchange to the cabinet, but still had the distance problem of ADSL.

Just a shame it have taken this long to get to FTTP, I would have loved to think what my mate would of made of it. Sad that he passed before all of this.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the ADSL2+. Indeed ADSL cannot typically go above 10Mbps. In simple terms I probably meant ADSL2+ forgetting about the difference between that and the older version. Most people who had ADSL did get upgraded to ADSL2+ in 2005.

I also remember around 2004 when I first upgraded from Dial-up to ADSL and it was with Tiscali! We had 512Kbps and then it was 1Mbps. And then around 2006 we got upgraded and started receiving 14-16Mbps. Actually it was a free upgrade, which I remember my dad was notified by Tiscali themselves. The price packages did not increase by much.

However, I was really young and inexperienced at that time and never knew the difference between ADSL VS ADSL2+!

I was 15 years old in 2004 busy with school. Those days I never remembered or had any interest in finding out why ISPs were able to offer this jump from 1Mbps to 16Mbps. In simple layman terms I only knew we were being upgraded to broadband from dial-up!

But I never knew at that time that this broadband technology was called ADSL or ADSL2+! Like most ordinary users, we care mostly about the broadband speed but never show a technical interest to differentiate between copper services, hybrid fibre and full fibre.

I think it is only now that most of us care to know the difference between ADSL, FTTC and FTTP! Unfortunately, till this day many people still don't know the differences between FTTC and FTTP especially those who only care about basic web browsing. But the people who have had flaky/unreliable internet connections like in the case of myself, that was the only time when I tried to push my housing estate to sign a wayleave agreement for FTTP. Of-course FTTC came at a much later date and if I did have that in the first place 10-15 years ago I probably wouldn't have been demanding FTTP.

To be genuinely honest, in normal web browsing I do not seem to spot a massive performance difference between the 70-80Mbps I was receiving under FTTC vs the 900+Mbps that I am now receiving with Community Fibre. However, there is no buffering issues or pauses in 4K youtube videos! I'm able to watch 4K HDR streaming in BBC iPlayer on some specific shows on my TV and Youtube HDR without buffer issues!

I'm also noticing an improvement in FLAC radio stations no longer stopping randomly since upgrading to Community Fibre. But in normal web browsing there isn't really much difference, maybe a very tiny noticeable difference!

However, the upgrade from ADSL2+ to FTTC is massive! That difference is extremely noticeable like going from 60Hz refresh rate to 165Hz. The same goes with Dial-up 56Kbps vs 1Mbps is very noticeable. Dial-up was snail pace when loading web pages but remember no discerning difference when playing online chess/checkers on MSN Gaming Zone on dial-up. For me disconnection issues were my biggest complaints and the DLM triggers, which were more or a less resolved with FTTC and now with FTTP it is even better.

Anyone on this forum already knows more than the general public on broadband. For the majority its complete confusion, but that will resolve as the DSL forms gradually disappear in favour of FTTP. Given a lot of the country can now get FTTP, I suspect in 10 years DSL (including FTTC) will have gone in 99%.

As you've seen web browsing only needs sufficient speed. The bigger effect on the web browser is a much faster CPU in your device, as processing web pages to show them to you is really limited by the speed of your computer, not the network.

Downloading anything (files, software, video) is where you often see the benefit of speed, and this includes the big patches for laptops, desktops, tablets, phones etc.

I remember now, it went from half a Mbit/s and then to 1 and then for me around 3.5 if I was lucky. No way could i cope on ADSL now, that is why I changed to the wireless network even then, so now would be impossible. but I did stream HD on ADSL on Netflix.

Dial up brings up memories, I used it to dial up a couple of bulletin board systems on my Amiga, still in contact with a couple of people from them. That sound when my supra modem dialed out and hand shook. I remember being told i was not supposed to use the Supra as it was not certified to work on BT lines. I got a Amiga 4000/04 second hand and got a US robotics courier with that, did use it with the PC for a while, but I then went for a internal one. I still have the courier one here and a load of internal ones.

I was a fair bit older than 15, when I was 15, we did not have computers, the first computer I saw was a Acorn BBC, just a couple of months before I left school

It is crazy, in not that many years how technology have changed, my phone is more powerful than my first PC which was a 166 cyrix.
My Mac has a chip that is based on the chip that was in Acorn Archimedes and so have every smartphone phone or the majority of them anyway.
Broadband, is way faster now than most of us need.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I remember now, it went from half a Mbit/s and then to 1 and then for me around 3.5 if I was lucky. No way could i cope on ADSL now, that is why I changed to the wireless network even then, so now would be impossible. but I did stream HD on ADSL on Netflix.

That was before Openreach became an entity, but the 0.5 Mbps was a BT restriction, there was 0.5 Mbps, 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps services, the higher two were insanely fast. Then we had "rate adaptive" ADSL up to a theoretical 8Mbps. Some of these delays is why the government created LLU and companies such as C&W and TalkTalk rented space in a local exchange, and offered ADSL2+ years before what became Openreach.

Most of that is why this site was founded, I remember getting 0.5 Mbps with Pipex and it was revolutionary, as it was half the price of BT's Openworld service that came with the frog/stingray USB thing that was unreliable. Of course this site started as ADSLguide.org.uk and switched to thinkbroadband.com later.

Dial up brings up memories, I used it to dial up a couple of bulletin board systems on my Amiga, still in contact with a couple of people from them. That sound when my supra modem dialed out and hand shook. I remember being told i was not supposed to use the Supra as it was not certified to work on BT lines. I got a Amiga 4000/04 second hand and got a US robotics courier with that, did use it with the PC for a while, but I then went for a internal one. I still have the courier one here and a load of internal ones.

I've used more modems... 2400 bps dialling up bulletin boards, and the microsoft BBS was very useful for patches even in the Windows 3.0/3.1 days. Then moved upto 9600, then 14400 then 28800 and eventually a "56k" which most of the time ran at 33600bps.

I was a fair bit older than 15, when I was 15, we did not have computers, the first computer I saw was a Acorn BBC, just a couple of months before I left school

We had 6 BBC micros when I got to the upper 6th, the school was given a single Archimedes, and then had to buy a room full of Windows 3.0 computers from RM to teach the National Curriculum computing to the coming year. Completely confused all the teachers. The upper 6th taught the teachers how to use a mouse!

It is crazy, in not that many years how technology have changed, my phone is more powerful than my first PC which was a 166 cyrix. My Mac has a chip that is based on the chip that was in Acorn Archimedes and so have every smartphone phone or the majority of them anyway.

The chip in the Mac might use similar instructions from ARM (first = Acorn RISC machines, then and now Advanced RISC machines) but the instructions have moved on a long way. Apple's internal design house have done some incredible things with their design licence.

Broadband, is way faster now than most of us need.

One of your sweeping statements. Do you know what I need, or what I do? No, you don't. I work with people that move hundreds of gigabyte files around, and they want to work from home. Some have moved house to get to an Alt Net with faster upload than Openreach will offer.

That might seem obscure, but in 70 million people in the UK there is a lot of room for the obscure!

Edited by jchamier (Fri 10-Apr-26 17:30:22)

RM ? Research Machines ? I remember them … met them investigating a weird intermittent REIN fault a private school.
(The caretaker only plugged in the faulty video player on the weekends, only had a three way electric lead … the REIN was feeding back through the tizzy, weekdays he needed the spare power for another device)

frog/stingray USB thing that was unreliable.

Really ? That wasn’t my experience ….

Research Machines (RM) now that's a name I've not heard of for 30 years or so. I remember using the RM Nimbus at secondary School in the 90's! They are still going but are a shadow of their former selves.

"One of your sweeping statements. Do you know what I need, or what I do? No, you don't. I work with people that move hundreds of gigabyte files around, and they want to work from home. Some have moved house to get to an Alt Net with faster upload than Openreach will offer."

I think Adrian was referring to home users not work users from home.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

RM ? Research Machines ? I remember them … met them investigating a weird intermittent REIN fault a private school.

Yes, the Oxford area manufacturer. They made some x86 non standard hardware, and then started making standard 386sx machines that ran Win3.0 and 3.1 really well.

frog/stingray USB thing that was unreliable.

Really ? That wasn’t my experience ….

The problem was USB 1.1 on many motherboards wasn't well tested, and this was in the days of the pentium 75 and similar, with chipsets from Intel, VIA and elsewhere. Many many driver updates required for some boards to even get the thing to work. Depending on line length it needed the full 500 mA and some mobos just couldn't provide. USB is an awful networking interface. Not a great decision for a demarcation. Token Ring would have been better.

The Draytek 2200USB was a great product that solved the problem, took the USB attached Alcatel and gave you a NAT router and standard ethernet connection.

Wires-Only from OR solved it finally.

In reply to a post by CJT:

Research Machines (RM) now that's a name I've not heard of for 30 years or so. I remember using the RM Nimbus at secondary School in the 90's! They are still going but are a shadow of their former selves.

The Nimbus name started with the propiatory x86 hardware that wasn't PC compatible but ran DOS; and then they reused Nimus for the later hardware that was standard memory map and run Windows 3 in 386 Enhanced mode.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

I think Adrian was referring to home users not work users from home.

Plenty of home users who are self employed in the UK in the last 20 years; I gather from various news sources more than in most of Europe. Perhaps something to do with our tax laws.

My experience was that when called out on faults, the Alcatel Stingray was never the cause of the problem. Since they were all engineer installed, internal wiring issues were rare, incorrect exchange jumpering, not an issue, you did it yourself on the install. 45db attenuation or less ….

We got some juicy faults occasionally though … a rectified split pair over 300m long, you could get fixed 1meg sync with one CBUK ID (the correct one) then it would drop, and you’d get a fixed 2meg sync with a different CBUK ID showing … web pages from both as they were both BT Openworld circuits.

Testing for sync out in the network meant gaining sync with a USB modem plugged into your work laptop 😀

As a separate team, we got the time to make a proper job of these strange faults.

…. self install put the kibosh on that … internal wiring issues, incorrect set ups, (we gained the nickname ’socket jockeys’ from the copper engineers even though we did both).

Over a quarter of a century ago <sigh>

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

My experience was that when called out on faults, the Alcatel Stingray was never the cause of the problem. Since they were all engineer installed, internal wiring issues were rare, incorrect exchange jumpering, not an issue, you did it yourself on the install. 45db attenuation or less ….

No the alcatel thing worked, but some of the computers customers connected them to would crash, freeze, reboot, some of that was the early version of Windows supporting USB, and others was just the USB spec was a bit early, and 500mA didn't provide much current to run the device. Very few networking tools today use USB.

Testing for sync out in the network meant gaining sync with a USB modem plugged into your work laptop 😀

I hope you had a decent spec laptop that had no USB issues

…. self install put the kibosh on that … internal wiring issues, incorrect set ups, (we gained the nickname ’socket jockeys’ from the copper engineers even though we did both).

Engineer install of an NTE is always the best option, but an NTE that had an industry standard connection that didn't need bespoke software is always better. I know home users that paid for 2mbps ADSL as it came with a router!

Over a quarter of a century ago <sigh>

Yep... I was doing desktop support (10mbps ethernet, 16mbps token ring) at the time, mostly NT 3.51 !!

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

My experience was that when called out on faults, the Alcatel Stingray was never the cause of the problem. Since they were all engineer installed, internal wiring issues were rare, incorrect exchange jumpering, not an issue, you did it yourself on the install. 45db attenuation or less ….

No the alcatel thing worked, but some of the computers customers connected them to would crash, freeze, reboot, some of that was the early version of Windows supporting USB, and others was just the USB spec was a bit early, and 500mA didn't provide much current to run the device. Very few networking tools today use USB.

Testing for sync out in the network meant gaining sync with a USB modem plugged into your work laptop 😀

I hope you had a decent spec laptop that had no USB issues

…. self install put the kibosh on that … internal wiring issues, incorrect set ups, (we gained the nickname ’socket jockeys’ from the copper engineers even though we did both).

Engineer install of an NTE is always the best option, but an NTE that had an industry standard connection that didn't need bespoke software is always better. I know home users that paid for 2mbps ADSL as it came with a router!

Over a quarter of a century ago <sigh>

Yep... I was doing desktop support (10mbps ethernet, 16mbps token ring) at the time, mostly NT 3.51 !!

A Panasonic Tough Book. Quite the thing …

Yep, we were installing those Speedtouch routers … had one myself for my 1 meg connection.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The Nimbus name started with the propiatory x86 hardware that wasn't PC compatible but ran DOS; and then they reused Nimus for the later hardware that was standard memory map and run Windows 3 in 386 Enhanced mode.

Oh wow I had no idea, I just remember having them at secondary school. I also remember playing a game called Barrels (I think) which was a 2d game where you ran across and up/down the screen avoiding barrels to progress to the next level (I maybe oversimplified the game). We also played Doom as a network game but that got us into trouble with the IT Teacher!

The stingray was hiddious looking. I avoided it like the plauge. That said I did get a 1 port westel 8100 for my 2003 adsl connection. Then I migrated to a tg585, which i had for donkey years .. Adsl for 10 years and vdsl for 9 years.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

A Panasonic Tough Book. Quite the thing …

Yes, they are still quite amazing!

Yep, we were installing those Speedtouch routers … had one myself for my 1 meg connection.

I was lucky to be on NTL cable and had their cable modem in 2000, my parents looked at Openworld and didn't sign up stayed on dialup until the wires only and with Pipex who were half the price. ADSLguide was the place to be back then!

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

A Panasonic Tough Book. Quite the thing …

Yes, they are still quite amazing!

Yep, we were installing those Speedtouch routers … had one myself for my 1 meg connection.

I was lucky to be on NTL cable and had their cable modem in 2000, my parents looked at Openworld and didn't sign up stayed on dialup until the wires only and with Pipex who were half the price. ADSLguide was the place to be back then!

did you ever go on the adslguide irc chat with seb, john and Mr S 😁?

In reply to a post by Taras:

did you ever go on the adslguide irc chat with seb, john and Mr S 😁?

I don't recall... I did use mIRC back in the Win98/98SE days, for about 18 months. DALnet I think it was called, I browsed through some channels, never really posted.

In reply to a post by Taras:

The stingray was hiddious looking. I avoided it like the plauge. That said I did get a 1 port westel 8100 for my 2003 adsl connection. Then I migrated to a tg585, which i had for donkey years .. Adsl for 10 years and vdsl for 9 years.

I felt otherwise … I thought they looked ‘spacey’.

I stripped the guts out of one, and my kids used to use it as a bath toy.

ADSLguide was the place to be back then!

I was there … called summat else, but I was there. Learned a lot.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

ADSLguide was the place to be back then!

I was there … called summat else, but I was there. Learned a lot.

hehe,

mine was like

"I was there … with the same name, but I was there. Learned a lot."

A self employed person can work from home, but Adrian is comparing a person using their home connection for home use things.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

That was before Openreach became an entity, but the 0.5 Mbps was a BT restriction, there was 0.5 Mbps, 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps services, the higher two were insanely fast. Then we had "rate adaptive" ADSL up to a theoretical 8Mbps. Some of these delays is why the government created LLU and companies such as C&W and TalkTalk rented space in a local exchange, and offered ADSL2+ years before what became Openreach.

Most of that is why this site was founded, I remember getting 0.5 Mbps with Pipex and it was revolutionary, as it was half the price of BT's Openworld service that came with the frog/stingray USB thing that was unreliable. Of course this site started as ADSLguide.org.uk and switched to thinkbroadband.com later.

I remember the day we had ADSL installed and seeing the speed of a photo appear on the screeen of the installer laptop.
I remember this site being ADSLguide.

I've used more modems... 2400 bps dialling up bulletin boards, and the microsoft BBS was very useful for patches even in the Windows 3.0/3.1 days. Then moved upto 9600, then 14400 then 28800 and eventually a "56k" which most of the time ran at 33600bps.

I was on the internet just about when i changed to a PC from the Amiga, I was using Demon if i remember correctly.

We had 6 BBC micros when I got to the upper 6th, the school was given a single Archimedes, and then had to buy a room full of Windows 3.0 computers from RM to teach the National Curriculum computing to the coming year. Completely confused all the teachers. The upper 6th taught the teachers how to use a mouse!

The first coimputer I used was a torch at college, if i remember correctly they had something to do with the BBC micro producing peripherals.

The chip in the Mac might use similar instructions from ARM (first = Acorn RISC machines, then and now Advanced RISC machines) but the instructions have moved on a long way. Apple's internal design house have done some incredible things with their design licence.

No doubt, but still crazy to think that it was originally a British company it all came from.

One of your sweeping statements. Do you know what I need, or what I do? No, you don't. I work with people that move hundreds of gigabyte files around, and they want to work from home. Some have moved house to get to an Alt Net with faster upload than Openreach will offer.

That might seem obscure, but in 70 million people in the UK there is a lot of room for the obscure!

That is why i said most and not all.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

"
I think Adrian was referring to home users not work users from home.

Yes, the majority of people i know would not notice the difference between 100Mb/s or 1Gb/s, in fact some could go to 70Mb/s and they would not notice.
I do know some people who makes use of faster speed, even I find it useful now and yet I was never bothered about it . I doubt I would ever need to go above 500Mb/s

What I am bothered about is people being sold speeds for high prices they don't need and then they keep paying for these speeds they are not using. Like the days when people got sold super-fast computers and yet all they needed one for was to do a bit of browsing and maybe some office type work. so they ended up with a machine that cost a bomb with high spec video cars, lots of memory and superfast CPU that they would never take advantage off.

You could say it was future proof, but technology used to move fast, so even their super duper fast machine would be out of date pretty quick,


One of my brothers got himself a cheap machine a couple of years ago with a N100 CPU in, only need it for word, a bit of browsing and that is it. Does the job.
Got a second machine for producing music, which is a bit more powerful

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

What I am bothered about is people being sold speeds for high prices they don't need and then they keep paying for these speeds they are not using. Like the days when people got sold super-fast computers and yet all they needed one for was to do a bit of browsing and maybe some office type work. so they ended up with a machine that cost a bomb with high spec video cars, lots of memory and superfast CPU that they would never take

Yes, there is something wrong in our society, but this isn't a broadband only problem.

Most people need a "good enough" connection, which both coax cable or fibre optics provide. Some people need high speed for various reasons (my friends are PC based gamers).

The ISPs just upsell all the time, no different to shops.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Yes, there is something wrong in our society, but this isn't a broadband only problem.

Most people need a "good enough" connection, which both coax cable or fibre optics provide. Some people need high speed for various reasons (my friends are PC based gamers).

The ISPs just upsell all the time, no different to shops.

For gamers it is ping more than speed, but speed will download games quicker. I had to redo my PC a few weeks ago and reinstalled the games I have, I should have backed them up to be honest. On my 500Mb/s, it took a few hours, with my FTTC 36Mb/s, I think it would have taken a few days

Take one of my brothers, he doesn't really stream, but i keep trying to get him to. He browse the web, maybe listen to some online music and that is about it. His old FTTC was fine, he has now got 200Mb/s FTTP via Zzoomm, never ever, going to get anywhere near using that. But it was cheaper than Talk Talk at £24 a month for 24 months.
The one thing I know about Zzoomm is that they leave you alone, they don't try to up sell, well they have not to me anyway.
A mate is with Sky, broadband only and the amount of emails he get trying to get him to get Sky TV or go faster with his broadband. They phone him as well and yet he has put on his communications preferences, not to contact him. He is moving to zzoomm when his contract is over.

You are right, up selling is a thing everywhere.

I would also move to another ISP if they kept marketing at me, agreed. I don't have that issue with Virgin Media thankfully as I don't have any other choice for a high speed ISP.

My friends kids play PC games which are hundreds of gigabytes and get patches all the time of hundreds of gigabytes, this is one of the use cases driving high speed download.