In reply to a post by billford:

My Airport Extreme has got three

Great!

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by billford:

Whereas a router has rather more work to do... I know a few people have found increased speed on FTTC by switching from a router with a 10/100 WAN port to a gigabit one.

Would that be something to do with the port itself, or the likelihood that a gigabit router would have a faster processor?

Could be a bit of both. On busy servers the TCP/IP overhead is overloaded to the network card. Doubt that happens on home routers.

I think with speeds higher than FTTC, ie, the VM 50 and 100 services, we will see some interesting developments in home router performance - but probably at increased costs.

Shame none of these routers yet supply 4 internal GigE ports; makes copying files around LAN much quicker

plenty on the market that have 4xgigE and even VM's superhub has 4 gigE ports.

BT's HH3 seems a bizarre product to have gigE mixed with 3 100 ports.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

The 512Kb service to USB wasn't quite the "original" ADSL service. Before 512K became available, the service was at 2Mb with BT-supplied Alcatel router/modem boxes. This too was installed by BT techs, and was a similar closed box to today's VDSL2 boxes, with no ability to read any stats. IIRC they too ran pretty hot.

I recall you could get these Efficient Networks routers with 512k as well but it was only on business plans. This was over £80/month IIRC ?

I was on Demon's trial, so it was at standard price for the duration of that, followed by around £40pm after that. I recall some aggro because it wasn't physically possible to drop to the 512k service at the end of the trial, so we got left on the 2M service. No complaints from me there...

The problem was that BT (before OR) specified the USB plug was the network termination point, so legally you weren't allowed to change it. Draytek made a cool box that took the USB interface into what we'd expect today as a router - but performance was always low, only worked for 512k

I'd forgotten about both of those aspects! It goes without saying that, when my parents finally went for ADSL, the USB box was binned without ever being opened.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

I'd forgotten about both of those aspects! It goes without saying that, when my parents finally went for ADSL, the USB box was binned without ever being opened.

It was the main reason I went for (NTL) cable back then, and that NTL in my area offered it from August 1999, and I ordered in Sept 1999.

The legalities of not using the USB connection were discussed in the computer press a lot, and it was when BT appointed Ben Verwaayen as CEO he realised this was insane, and pushed his team to deliver the "wires only" service we are familiar with now - thus dropping the wholesale price, so the retail price dropped from £45/m to around £25.

I recall this forum (as ADSLguide) being quite overloaded during the Pipex overcommit problem in 2002

Ben Verwaayen as CEO he realised this was insane, and pushed his team to deliver the "wires only" service we are familiar with now

...and I recall spending the last 10ish years going round showing people that they have set it up wrong?

Prolonged chuckle.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

...and I recall spending the last 10ish years going round showing people that they have set it up wrong?

LOL, Touch� !

I believe BT plc's income in the last 10 years has been much higher (understatement) than it would have been. I suspect FTTC might still be a few years away if we were still forced to use £250/install and USB connections