IPsream - Back haul connetions

At an exchange which just has 20cn and no LLU operators:

If you have a broadband ISP that uses Datastream and the back haul is under configured and badly suffers from contention in the evening might moving to a different ISP avoid this problem?

i.e. is there just one Datastream back haul from the exchange shared by all ISPs, or might another ISP use a different back haul connection?

I'd suspect they'd all use the same one as they'd all be using the BT Wholesale backhaul network.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

If you have a broadband ISP that uses Datastream and the back haul is under configured and badly suffers from contention in the evening might moving to a different ISP avoid this problem?

Potentially yes. It's down to each ISP to decide how much bandwidth to buy from BT Wholesale.

Yes but it depends on how much bandwidth an ISP has purchased. I was with TT and at certain times of the day it was so slow I struggled to runa speed test. Switched to BT and all of a sudden the problem went away.

On the plus side my 20CN exchange is fibre enabled, on the downside the cabinet area of which I am part of isn't fibre enabled yet, but that's only because it's getting FTTP. Superfast Lancashire are now 2 months behind schedule for enabling 97% coverage by end of 2015. And their signs first appeared around my cabinet in 2014 (for a couple of days) so it's a reasoable assumption that I should be in that 97%


And whilst you can say it's great they only missed by 2% if you are in that 2% that's not much comfort as you've already seen the faster areas get even faster whilst you haven't seen any speed upgrade in almost a decade.

Whoa.

IPStream and Datastream are not the same thing, and it is highly likely you are now on IPStream Connect which is a different thing again.

There are a few possible sources of exchange contention, then BT Wholesale Cloud can have occasional hiccups, then there is the handover at the IPSC nodes that can be under-configured, possibly by either of BT Wholesale or the ISP.

Next up is the ISP's own network and peering arrangements.

It would help if you tell us the ISP and your exchange. Plus is it just the throughput that drops, or does latency go through the roof as well?

Yes, in the evenings I have sometimes found it impossible to run this sites speed tests!

The exchanges is Trearddur Bay, WNTRB and I wondering whether to move from the Post Office who I think use Talk Talk to Plusnet? From what you say this might work.

The Post Office have said that because of the poor performance they will not hold me to the 18 month contract, but I need to sort out the details of the finances.

TalkTalk non-LLU has always been dreadful both for its own customers and for white label ones like the Post Office.

Almost any other ISP would be better, except Sky and probably Vodafone (ex C & W) who would be as bad. EE may be dodgy or may be better now than it would have been pre-sellout to BT.

Stick to BT or plusnet, I have tried many other ISP's on my 20C (No LLU) exchange and only these 2 in my experience can give full single stream downloads near the IP profile speed.

My exchange is 20CN too and miles away, most of the folk in the very small village who have an internet connection mainly use BT, I use Plusnet, someone uses Scottish Hydro/SSE and there is a holliday homer whose ISP is Eclipse.

I'm happy with the overall service I get from my ISP and have renewed my contract for another year.

Michael

Each Datastream is individually configured for the ISP so they do not share bandwidth. They all use the same transmission carrier but there is no contention between them.

I would have expected individual Datastreams on your exchange to have been deloaded by the move of people to FTTC. However none of the FTTC speed tests appear to be Talktalk. Moving to any BTW supplied ISP should cure the issue. I assume you still cannot get an FTTC service where you are.

To avoid any doubt, the BT Datastream product has been gone for some time...

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4712-bt-to-withdr...

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Yes, in the evenings I have sometimes found it impossible to run this sites speed tests!

The exchanges is Trearddur Bay, WNTRB and I wondering whether to move from the Post Office who I think use Talk Talk to Plusnet? From what you say this might work.

The Post Office have said that because of the poor performance they will not hold me to the 18 month contract, but I need to sort out the details of the finances.

My suggestion would be to go with BT, like I said earlier I was with TT but eventually the speeds at times became dire, switched to BT and the problem wnet away. Sure I called their unhelp desk regarding my speed, but if I could get almost the maximum speed the BT dsl chcker site I could in the early hours of the morning, I should be able to get a decent amount of it in the evening. But like you I could barely run a speed test at times. If I had a line fault I would have expected the poor speeds all of the time. But because you are on a 20CN non-LLU exchange you are treated to 2nd class status with overpriced broadband for a service which at times was barely useable. And I had been with them for something like 8-9 years (as I was with tiscali).