help understanding the up to 20Mb service

I am with BT Broadband and my exchange is South Clapham in London - I'm just under half a mile from it. I'm trying to discover if the service I now have is the service I'm going to get (or have got) under the up to 20Mb upgrade.

My current stats are:
Connection speed: 8128 (DS) and 448 (US)
Line attenuation is 26db (DS) and 14db (US)
Noise Margin: 6.5db and 23db (US)

My averaged (over a number of) speedtests actual DS speed is 6.4 Mbps and US, about 300kbps.

The BT SpeedTester shows my DS as 6254kbps, with 600-7150 as the acceptable range for my connection, and my IPProfile for my line as 7150.

I have been trying to find out when and with what effect, South Clapham will be brought up to the up to 20Mbps service. Until recently, the answer I got was Jan-March 2010 with a maximum probable new speed of about 9Mbps. Checking today I am told by BT (website and service person) that South Clapham has actually been ugraded and my max speed is 10Mbs.

If this is the case (ie that I now have a max speed of 10Mbps) why is my Netgear DG834 v4 router still showing a notional connection speed of 8128? I have been getting upper 6+Mbps actual connection speeds for some time and have not noticed any recent improvement in the speed (as a result of up to 20Mb implementation).

I'd be very grateful if someone could help me understand what is going on - and specifically, is my current DS speed (around 6+Mbps) the best I am going to get.

Thanks.

.

The exchange may have been made ready for the up to 20Mbits services , but AFAIK, the changes are customer lead, that is you have to either request the change or wait for the offer to be made from your ISP. This will likely involve agreeing to a new minimum term.
Your ISP may not be ready to upgrade you as yet, or just have not got round to asking you as yet.
You have the choice of several other providers that can provide potentially faster services like Be , O2, Sky, Cable Wireless resellers.

It looks as though you are still on the "up to 8Mbps service". I think you have to ask to be upgraded, and that would start a new 12 or 18 month contract.

I put your figures into this estimator, and as you will see you should get considerably higher than 10Mbps. The BT estimator is often very conservative, but this one seems pretty accurate.

However on that exchange you also have O2 LLU available. O2 Premium should give you roughly the 18Mbps connection estimated, and an actual download of about 15Mbps. (That estimator gets the actual throughput wrong). Perhaps the BT up to 20Mbps service could be a bit slower than O2.

You might think the BT offering will be just as good, but in practice it isn't. Also O2 Premium will cost you far less.

There may still be a 6 months free offer going by calling the number and quoting the "daily Mail offer", as per this post. (The article itself is no longer accessible).

Alternatively you can sign up online through TopCashBack or Quidco, and get £75 cash in a couple of months. There is also the possibility of a £5 per month discount if you have, or have easy access to, an O2 mobile phone. So first year costs between £105 and £45, depending on the mobile and Daily Mail offer statuses.

See MKD's O2/Be comparison and costs documents. I suggest in your case you ignore the Be part of it all.

Worth looking at I suggest? Also see this comparison.

I forgot to include this link to an explanation of BT 21CN WBC, and this one explaining LLU.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 20-Dec-09 17:42:13)

Post deleted by chucklesdad

I deleted my follow up reply because it looked confusing appearing after my first post.

Thanks for all the replies. It is ridiculous that BT have not made it clear whether I'm at the upto 20Mb party or not. From what you said, it looks to me that I'm not yet getting it. I would be happy to change ISP if it were not for the nightmare of having to change my email address.

I'm on BT Option 3 which is expensive and would like to be getting more for my money.

You should be able to keep your email address going. I have my old BT email going years after leaving them

In reply to a post by chucklesdad:

It is ridiculous that BT have not made it clear whether I'm at the upto 20Mb party or not.

It is quite clear. You are on your existing package and contract until you are told otherwise. Just because BT have upgraded your exchange doesn't imply that you automatically get upgraded too.

Why not just contact them and ask to be upgraded, taking a new minimum term contract?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Perhaps the BT up to 20Mbps service could be a bit slower than O2.

You might think the BT offering will be just as good, but in practice it isn't.

What evidence have you for these statements? Isn't BT 20 Meg too recent to have any experience and confirmation of your suppositions?

Why not consider a change to (say) Be or O2? According to Samknows you can get both:-

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/LSCLPM

Be is up to 24MB using ADSL2+ and with your attenuation you should get around 15MB.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php

Much better than you get now and cheaper too.

I switched fromn BT to Be some time ago and have never once regretted it.....