BT Infinity

My local BT engineer and the BT engineer in charge of my area has confirmed that my exchange and local cabinet has been upgraded to provide BT Infinity. They have even told me the new speeds I can expect.

However, despite my wish to purchace it (my current connection is sub 350 mbps) I am told that it will not be offered to my street and I can get no reqson ather than "the computer says 'No' ".

Their stance is utterly illogical. I am totally at a loss now as to how to progress matters and wonder if others find themselves in the same position.

Are you sub 15Mbps for Infinity?

If so, like me, BT will not accept the order.

Crazy !

Other ISP's though can get orders through

BT appears to be better priced for FTTC, so I'm hanging on to see if and when BT lowers the threshold (I think I read that you were trying to get confirmation of if and when this may happen).

Anything better than my 1.5Mbps would be welcomed. Curently the BTW checker says I would get 14.6Mbps, but BT still refuses an order.

Same here. I live in Dartford and across the M25, the houses can get BT infinity. The Block of Flats I live in have the cabinet installed but I can't order infinity. Shame on you BT for not offering the service despite putting the infrastructure in place.

It may be a local cabinet, but is it the one that feeds your property?

Close to here there is a cabinet outside a group of houses but they are fed from a cabinet aound 500m away. The new cabinet was installed to provide services to a new estate of around 200 houses.

My apologies.

My original post said "(my current connection is sub 350 mbps) "

I should have said 0.35 MBPS.

Massive difference and explains why I am desperate to get Infinity.

Thermal

Definately "My" cabinet and details confirmed by engineer when cheching why me speed was so slow

My apologies G3UZF

My speed is well below 15mbps at less than 0.35 mbps (incorrectly stated in my original e-mail) BUT Chief engineer said I would get 5.3 mbps with infinity. A massive increase in speed and well worth the extra money.

Agreed Crazy !!!

Very Interesting My Saffron.

Any suggestions who I should approach.

Thermal

At 5.3Mbps is that what the FTTC checker states for your line, or a personal estimate?

Generally if its above 10Mbps then a couple of the ISP's have posted of some success in our fibre section, but if the estimate is only 5Meg, then to me that suggests may 1.5 to 2miles from the cabinet.

In reply to a post by Thermal:

My apologies.

My original post said "(my current connection is sub 350 mbps) "

I should have said 0.35 MBPS.

Massive difference and explains why I am desperate to get Infinity.

Thermal

.35MBps is 2.8Mbps which may not be te fastest but a lost better than some.

MHC has picked up on something there, as it is possible you are using the same units for two different things.

Are you talking about connection speeds, in kilo or mega bits and download speeds the same, or connection speeds the same and download speeds in kilo/mega bytes per second?

I'm surprised if you mean your broadband is connecting at 350 kilobits per second.

Thanks for the prompt reply MrSaffron.

Figures are direct from engineer in charge of "infinity" installation in this area. He was astonished as I that BT would not give it to me ... but was eventually "intructed" (his words not mine) to tell me they would not provide infinity to me.

Thermal

Distance to cabinet 0.44 miles per Google earth.

Existing Speed per Thinkbroadband's speed test

Latest Thinkbroadband Speed test shows
Speed Down 333.56 Kbps ( 0.3 Mbps )
Speed Up 375.40 Kbps ( 0.4 Mbps )

Thermal

Please can you see if you can find and post the line stats from your router ? See here for help.

Hi Thermal,

We can certainly help. We've been successful in getting an number of sub <15Mb lines installed without problem If you want any more info you can PM me, otherwise, all the best anyway!

In reply to a post by Thermal:

Distance to cabinet 0.44 miles per Google earth.

Is that straight line or estimated cable route. At less than half a mile I would have still expected to get near the full 40 Mbps. You seem to be getting some wildly inaccurate information.

HI RobertoS.

Data requested is

ADSL line status
Connection information
Line state Connected
Connection time 2 days, 22:43:48
Downstream 544 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

And comes as a shock to me as it is much better than I thought. BUT ... why is it so different from the Thinkbroadband speed test. ?

Estimated cable length certainly no more than 0.6 of a mile ... BUT accross a motorway and with old cable. I am told it need replacing but as it serves only 4 houses the chances are slim.

old or not if it passes the quality benchmark it will be perfect..its usually the joints that cuase issues not the cable itself

In reply to a post by Thermal:

HI RobertoS.

Data requested is

ADSL line status
Connection information
Line state Connected
Connection time 2 days, 22:43:48
Downstream 544 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps

And comes as a shock to me as it is much better than I thought. BUT ... why is it so different from the Thinkbroadband speed test. ?

Unfortunately you have selected what you think I need to know. Basic stats include the attenuation and noise margin in both directions, and fuller stats include a host of error stats and other details.

If you can include those it is possible to get some idea of the state of your line. All we know so far is that it connects at a low speed. From the full stats we can see what speed is to be expected, which may be the same or it may be much higher.

As to why the connection speed and the tbb speed test are so much different, the speed reported by tbb is good for the connection speed. BT Wholesale has an IP Profile system, and if you look at the table on that page you will see your top throughput speed has to be below 350kbps.

They aren't really taking that big a chunk out of you though. On ADSLx there are overheads of 13%-18% from the packaging of the data, and a large part of those overheads is accounted for in the difference between the connection speed and the IP Profile.

Full details are:-

ADSL line status
Connection information
Line state Connected
Connection time 3 days, 13:18:15
Downstream 544 Kbps
Upstream 448 Kbps


ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.1
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 6.3 dB / 9.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 63.5 dB / 31.5 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 13.4 dBm / 11.9 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local) 0
Loss of Signal (Local) 1
Loss of Power (Local) 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 782656 / 391
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 762 / 2147480000
HEC Errors (Down/Up) nil / 221
Error Seconds (Local) 392


Hope this makes more sense to you than me.

Thanks again in anticipation.

Thermal

Line attenuation (Down/Up) 63.5 dB / 31.5 dB

means you're a long way from any where.

Sorry thermal, this one slipped through my radar today.

As orly says, you are a long way from the exchange as you already know. The attenuation figures show that, but it's also a sad fact that the true attenuation is almost certainly much higher as those are the highest numbers many routers can display.

There is a possibility that you connection speed could be improved in two ways.

First you seem to have connected at night which always results in a lower connection speed than if you connect during daylight. Try reconnecting fairly close to mid-day at this time of year, but don't do more than two or three tries in an hour. The probable trigger point for the BT system to think your line is unstable is 10 in an hour, but given where you are starting from we don't want to go anywhere near that, in case something else on your line makes it more sensitive. The system could slow you down even more if this happens.

If you connect at 576kbps which is only a fraction more than now, then a few days later your BT IP Profile will rise to 500kbps, and you will get a bit more actual speed as a result. If you strike really lucky and get 864kbps or more (it goes in 32kbps steps) your profile would become 750kbps, more than double what you have now.

The second way is to make sure your connections and phone wiring are optimised. Do you have a split-face master socket where the bottom half will come off after undoing two screws? If so, is your router connected to it using just a short ADSL cable and a filter?

If not, please can you describe what you have connected to the phone where .

Thanks to both Orly and RobertoS and very interesting.

I would agree that I am some way from the exchange ... about 6/7 kilometers away to be precise ... but only circa 600 meters from the cabinet but that would affect "Infinity" only.

I was so keen to get the best result I could that I have had a new dedicated line installed with split face master socket and the router is the only thing connected to it ... so I doubt if that can be improved.

I am very intrigued about "resetting" the router at the best time as I used to get 864 when I first started. I had no idea that I could "encourage" BT to increase my profile. This I will try and report back.

Thanks again for all your help.

Thermal