BT Broadband

Hi can anyone tell me how I can find out if BT are using there mainline or there backhaul at my telephone exchange the exchange is openreach and is the lark lane exchange.
Is there a way to find out for future reference, my contract just finished trying to get a mainline route to server's !!!?.

There is no such thing as "there [sic] mainline", so the question doesn't make any sense.

BT (retail) use BT (wholesale)'s backhaul network to get traffic from Openreach handover exchanges to their network.

Some other ISPs use BTW's backhaul network too; and some have their own backhaul networks (e.g. Talktalk) and/or wholesale their backhaul network to other ISPs.

That's it. Traffic *must* traverse somebody's backhaul network to get from the exchange to the ISP network.

Handover exchanges are the ones where the fibres from FTTC cabinets and from FTTP properties terminate. There are many fewer of those than there are local telephone exchanges. In other words, most local exchanges *don't* carry FTTC/FTTP at all (although they may have leased line fibres, that's a completely separate network). When the copper network is eventually retired, most local exchanges will close.

Hey Kieth77 - is that you…

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I'm trying to get a better gaming connection, after thorough tests from zen tech team engineers and openreach I have been told they cannot find why there's a delay in multiplayer games.
All high end PC etc ethernet connection zen have admitted a delay but ping times are normal fttp 900 great bqm monitoring.
There tech team have said in certain circumstances a change from Off net there backhaul to On net has improved other customers connections.
They are piggybacking from BT at my exchange.

You need to find out all the ISP's who you can order FTTP from at your local exchange area, then ask each one how they connect to that exchange. Alternatively go to a UK gaming site and ask who gives the best pings on FTTP at your exchange. Zen do have connection issues they cannot resolve so you will have to leave and find a better ISP.

Thank you Yea I've tried that most Isp's from my exchange say they are running BT's piggybacking A&A said they do 5ms on average but from Merseyside I'm doubting that to London with them also on BT.
The Exchange is due for stop sell next year so hopefully I can get better coverage then thanks for the responding 👍.

What !!?.

Stop sell won't help.
It will be the same providers just with less choice on the access network (Openreach's small part of the link).

The connection from exchange to your ISP (almost always London) is called the backhaul.
There are very few backhaul options compared to providers as most providers rent someone else's backhaul.
The main backhauls used on Openreach are BT Wholesale and Talktalk business. Most providers rent 1 (or both) of these backhauls.
Zen, Sky & Vodafone have their own backhauls, though Zen also use BT and Talktalk backhaul as they don't have full coverage or enough capacity to do it all on their own.

Zen are currently using BT Wholesale for your line. That's without a doubt the most direct backhaul with the lowest latency for the vast majority of the country. Though the different is usually 1-2ms between backhaul providers.

I strongly advise you don't let Zen move you to "on-net". That's their own backhaul called their Plexus network.
They have considerable, unresolved throughput issues on Ultrafast speeds on their own backhaul, just take a look at the Zen section of the forum (GEA migration thread).
You likely won't be given that option at some point as they migrate customers "on-net" without warning.
The 1st a customer notices is when throughput drops and a message appears on the Zen control panel saying GEA migration has taken place.

A&A use a mix of BT Wholesale and Talktalk business and will let you pick between the 2.

Really you need to work out where the issue with increased latency lies.
Is it actually on the backhaul? Is it after your connection hits Zen, between them and the gaming servers?

Zen are also unique in that not all connections route to London (like practically every single other provider).
Zen also have an LNS in Manchester. They have no way to force your line takes a direct route to London.
Some Zen users see their connection travel in the wrong direction to Manchester, then on to London, adding 8-10ms depending where in the country you are.
A traceroute will tell you where your connection with Zen terminates.
It will either show .lon or .man on the initial hops.

A traceroute will tell you where your connection with Zen terminates.
It will either show .lon or .man on the initial hops.

Isn’t this also a useful tool to spot which part of the network is causing the reported issue ?

I'm not really sure why Zen have the Manchester gateways, other than it being physically close to their offices and maybe wanting to support their local IXP. Networks have been peering in London more or less forever, England is physically quite small so the added latency of users in e.g. Newcastle going to London and back up to connect to their work VPN isn't enough to cause problems for real-time applications, and at least at the consumer ISP level there's not a huge amount of traffic going between subscribers on the same provider.

If Zen are going to run these gateways then they should at least be sending subscribers to gateways based on their physical location, it makes no sense that someone in Brighton could establish a PPPoE session and find themselves terminated on a Manchester gateway.