In reply to a post by ian72:

I've had my samknows box since May 2010. No signs of them wanting it back - in fact I've just changed ISPs and when I let them know they thanked me for continuing to support.

Likewise I have the original "black-box" rather than the current "whitebox" models - I've got the modified Linksys thing.

It has never caused me any issues and is great for telling me what my line is really doing - on FTTC most of the speedtests I do don't get to the connection speed yet the samknows one is pretty consistent (within a meg or 2).

Mine is reporting the same speeds as most speed testers (except for TBB's new green graph, the yellow is fine) on my FTTC, which is only 45meg so doesn't stress the black-box's 100meg ports.

My only issue is the 100Mb ports on the box because I now have gigabit through most of my network - so now I don't actually plug the rest of the devices into the samknows box - it still seems to do it's job though and I haven't seen any performance issues.

Likewise!

In reply to a post by ian72:

My only issue is the 100Mb ports on the box because I now have gigabit through most of my network - so now I don't actually plug the rest of the devices into the samknows box - it still seems to do it's job though and I haven't seen any performance issues.

Won't that ruin the validity of the tests on your line though. AIUI the whole point of plugging the LAN into the white box is that it knows when your network is otherwise engaged and doesn't perform it's tests.

If it doesn't know you are, for example, streaming a video and runs it's download test then I would have thought it would result in a lower performance figure.

Or am I missing something?

That is the theory but my tests so far have been pretty consistent. If it gets to the point they aren't then I'll let them know and they can either have the box back or send me a gigabit one. If I decide to go FTTP at some point then they will have to upgrade it anyway or it won't be able to max the line.

In reply to a post by scopio:

Recieved email from SamKnows confirming my Whitebox is connected and running performance tests, and my login details to the online reporting system to view my test results.

Plugged mine at 4pm. Now just waiting for the email.

I had the original Samknows box from about May 2010, more recently changing over to the White Box.

I am not aware of either causing any problems, acknowledging that I rarely download massive files such as videos.

Once a month, I have received e-mails from Samknows, about the latest full calendar month's statistics; the e-mail containg a summary and with a link to the detailed results.

I also frequently use the TBB Speed Testers; and there is general agreement.

I am on Orange/EE "up to 17 Mbps" service, generally downloading at 15 Mbps and uploading about 1 Mbps.

Unfortunately, nobody else in the area uses TBB Speed Tester on a frequent basis, so difficult to assess that performance.

However, as far as it goes, my results are the only ones showing those levels; compared with two known recent SKY results, similar distance and attenuation measured for one on a different cabinet (and probably the other is on the same cabinet as mine, presumably similar distance and attenuation), showing 10 Mbps downloads.

All the other TBB results in the area are decidedly lower.

So in my case, it is very unlikely that the Samknows Whitebox is having any detrimental effect.

In reply to a post by scopio:

Thanks for that. I was just worried it may interfere or have a bad effect on my internet connection. I have read the SamKnows web site notes and they seem to give us a password to access the stats and a monthly email check.
You have put my mind at rest.

Mine doesn't seem to do anything. I haven't had the email and I can't get to any UI for it. I've had to plug my server back into my router instead of the Samknows box. When plugged into the Samknows box it kept getting conflicting IP addresses. I'm guessing I'd need to tell the Samknows box about static IP addresses but without a UI I can't do that.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by scopio:

Thanks for that. I was just worried it may interfere or have a bad effect on my internet connection. I have read the SamKnows web site notes and they seem to give us a password to access the stats and a monthly email check.
You have put my mind at rest.

Mine doesn't seem to do anything. I haven't had the email and I can't get to any UI for it. I've had to plug my server back into my router instead of the Samknows box. When plugged into the Samknows box it kept getting conflicting IP addresses. I'm guessing I'd need to tell the Samknows box about static IP addresses but without a UI I can't do that.

Ah ha! Just an email saying I'm connected.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Ah ha! Just an email saying I'm connected.

I've had the Whitebox connected for four days now. I can get to the Monitoring Performance Charts by signing in, just waiting for the monthly email showing the statistics. The Whitebox will just sit there monitoring and reporting the internet connection.
If you are having problems with your server, IP addresses and the Whitebox I suggest you contact Samknows at [email protected].

I've had mine a few days. Don't notice anything affecting the connection (and I'm a bit pedantic about such things). It knows if you're doing things on the connection and just doesn't test if that's the case.

And, importantly, they fulfil their GPL requirements on the included software, it appears to run OpenWRT firmware with some basic tools.

To be honest, I only really ordered it because at the end of the trial you get to keep it. A free TPLink router isn't to be sniffed at, and even a year or more from now I'll still be able to use it for what I want (especially if I have the source to the firmware!).

But the graphs are pretty and seem to reflect reality.

In reply to a post by greenglide:

I would "hope" that all whiteboxes are now the version 2 spec as it would be very difficult to correctly manage the distribution of version 1 and version 2 boxes depending on the connection profile.

I had hoped that yor were right but the theory doesn't seem to work in practise. I received my white box today and is the old version.