In reply to a post by MHC:

Good to hear your experience ... Yet again the superiority of the 2700 is demonstrated.

Pity Pace don't sell a version of the 2700 on the open market - they'd be killed in the rush

I'll pass that very useful information on, then. However, I doubt whether either my brother or his wife will bother to try to get one. They're not very savvy about these things and aren't technically inclined. They may also take fright at the thought of their Hub being surplanted, thinking that perhaps BT would throw the book at them if they ever found out.

I could try to get one myself, then see if they'll agree to it being connected when I next visit them. I'd have the same reluctance problem with any other router I offered them, except that I wouldn't stand to have wasted time and money.

768 - 896K bps seems a very reasonable sync for a 6km line, though I'm not sure that dismissing those other routers you've mentioned is necessarily fair, as the speed will depend on the Target SNR, negotiated between the router and the DSLAM in the exchange. So, if the Target SNR were 6dB, you'd get a higher speed than if it were, say, 12dB. On the other hand, a lower SNR would mean lower line stability! (With the Netgear routers mentioned, SNR could be controlled using the utility DMT). I suppose only experimenting will show whether a greater speed will, in practise, be possible.

Postscript: I've looked at that kitz link, where it was explained that changing the login on the 2700 router was possible only by using details found at a certain URL. I tried that URL and it never responded. I guess it's been blocked by BT. One of the risks involved in using any different modem is that BT apparently automatically updates Hub firmware over the Web. Havoc could result if, say, the 2700 got an update, when the BT account assumed they were using a Type2 Hub.

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-May-11 19:06:22)

Your best bet is to ring Bt and ask for an openreach engineer to come out and check the line. They should raise a broadband boost task (these tasks do not have a time limit) the engineer can check the line loss using a tool called SEAM and find the best possible line pair back to the Exchange, if there is a spare.The engineer will also look at the wiring in the property and will make sure the main socket is correctly located, ideally where the Hub is and they should fit an SSFP or nte2000 faceplate. This is a filtered frontplate and can improve the sync speed. The visit will be free of charge and is worth asking for as improvements can be made!! Regards Jon

The target SNR is 6dB which is set by the Router. FT do not impose their own target SNR as far as I'm aware. For example the DG834G v3 will sync at 608kb at 3dB because that's the best it can get. Presumably the Broadcom chip set Routers, mention previously, can not even get that.

All I know is the 2700 HG-V works better than all other routers on my particular long rural line.

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-May-11 20:40:42)

The target SNR is 6dB which is set by the Router. FT do not impose their own target SNR as far as I'm aware...

Not quite correct. The target SNR margin is set by the service supplier (BT, or LLU ISP for instance). Some makes of router/modems can ignore the target by a plus or minus amount.

In reply to a post by FrenchUser:

The target SNR is 6dB which is set by the Router. FT do not impose their own target SNR as far as I'm aware. For example the DG834G v3 will sync at 608kb at 3dB because that's the best it can get. Presumably the Broadcom chip set Routers, mention previously, can not even get that.

I can't avoid being rude, sorry, but that is tripe.

The sync-time margin is set at the DSLAM/MSAN unless over-ridden by the tweaking of routers where that is possible. Many are not tweakable. I don't know about BT Hubs tweakability.

I assume FT means BT. They use BT Wholesale connections which default to 6dB, which can then be automatically changed by the DLM. There are recent reports that the WBC DLM can lower the target margin to 3dB on very stable lines when accessed by a Home Hub. I haven't heard of it doing so with anything else, but that isn't to say it can't. I've also seen reports of the stability on the 3dB setting being acceptable to the DLM but not to the user.

All I know is the 2700 HG-V works better than all other routers on my particular long rural line.

There I believe you . Seemingly on most very long lines.

I agree with Roberto. And my own, long experience with tweaking my own Target SNR to suit different routers bears out what he states.

Having just done a bit of googling on the 2700, I think I've now twigged what's going on with my brother's Hub. I think he must be using the Home Hub v2. The 2700HG-V seems to be the Business Hub.

From my brother's usage of it, it looks like the Home Hub 2, which has a feature for allowing several phones and similar devices to be connected into it, is not at all suited to his long line.

Maybe a straight swap of the existing Hub to a 2700 will be admissible? But I see that, in using the 2700 on any account, let alone a BT Broadband account, will require resolution of a login issue. There may also be problems with the fact that BT downloads firmware updates to these two different Hubs automatically.

At a guess the FT refers to France Telecom given the posters nic.

I'm pretty sure he's already done that, more than a year ago. The BT engineer told him that no further improvement was possible. I somehow doubt that using a different pair in the cable would make any difference, even if available, since attenuation, and therefore the resultant speed, is almost wholly a function of distance.

Actually, I wouldn't necessarily take a BT engineer's comment as being the last word, particularly as I've understood that the massive star-configured telephone wiring my brother's got in the house - just about the worst scenario you could envisage - still had the Ring wire attached throughout, until I recently told him to detach it.

In reply to a post by meditator:

There may also be problems with the fact that BT downloads firmware updates to these two different Hubs automatically.

Hi,

Not sure why you keep going on about the updates, I don't believe its possible (automatic or otherwise) for any router to get an update by accident intended for another model of router, there are checksums involved.

Just because a customer is supplied a particular model of homehub the ISP doesn't pump down firmware updates randomly and its tough luck if your router can't handle it, there's more logic/checking done than that.

For auto updates is usually the end device (the router) that sends periodic checks back to the ISP to see if an update is available not blindly buckshotting updates to everyone.