My experience with Vivaciti Broadband Complete

Haven't found much info on Vivaciti as an ISP so thought I would post my experience of migrating from AAISP to their broadband complete package (CPW/Opal).
This package migrates both voice and data away from BT so a bit more cumbersome to change to another ISP later if you decide you want to move, with possible charges involved, at least for the cease on the CPW side.

First of all I had no issues at all with AAISP. My peak usage (9am to 6pm) was climbing but I was OK with paying for that given the excellent connection and throughput I received.

The main (only!) reason I moved was because my exchange received it's first LLU provider in Talk Talk and I wanted to access some faster speeds. Was getting maximum sync on ADSL max.

As I didn't want to go with talktalk I did some research on these forums and came up with Vivaciti as one of the options.

Ever the cautious type I thought I would raise a ticket for some info to see how they would respond.
Initial query was about their checker not showing my exchange as available for LLU, maybe because it had only been activated a few weeks before. Had the same issue with the Xilo checker.

I received a response within 15 mins with a link to place an order. I made a few more replies to confirm notice period (30 days) and to obtain a PDF of phone charges all of which was done within a couple of hours. Good so far

Next step was to obtain my MAC from AAISP. For info this took around 10 seconds from confirming the request on their site to receiving an email with MAC!! A lesson in how it should be done?

I placed the order and received a number of mails with account details etc and an install date 14 days from order date.
I could see the cease order on my AAISP control pages showing the same date.

On the activation day the line went down around 9am for around 30 minutes during the switch over.


Some details on the connection.

Initial Sync

Att 20db
Snr 12db
Sync 12559 kbps

Standard connection seems to be a target margin of 12db with interleaving on.
Had to wait a few days before requesting a change to 6db and to switch interleaving off. Also fitted a filtered faceplate although wasn’t getting an improvement in the test socket.

It only took an hour to implement my request to change to a 6db margin.

Att 18db
Snr 6db
Sync 15400 kbps

Changed router from a Zyxel 660R 61C to a speedtouch 516v6

Att 17.5db
Snr 6db
Sync 17500 kbps

+1 for the broadcom chipset.

Even the final sync speed seems a bit low for the attenuation although don’t think I can blame that on Vivaciti

Had it confirmed that any DLM is removed if a change to target margin or interleaving is requested.

Throughput seems very good on my exchange at least, at around 14Mb/s on speedtest.net.
Unfortunately the TBB checker hasn’t been working for me either on AAISP or Vivaciti giving very low results between 0.5 and 1.5Mb/s including the port 80 test. Haven’t got to the bottom of that yet.
The TBB line usage software gives more normal speed test results as do the TBB test files.



Re the phone service this seems fine so far. Standard voicemail is free and shows an indicator on my phone when I have a message. Can’t remember the BT one doing that although haven’t used that for quite a while?

Had to ask for caller display to be activated which was done overnight and costs around 50p a month I believe.


A few minor negatives so far.

I asked for a list with prices for any available phone services, call waiting etc a couple of weeks ago but this ticket is still open. I think info on the phone service is a bit sparse on the website. Had to get call prices mailed to me on a PDF.

Also asked for a block of 4 IP’s a few days ago which hasn’t completed although I haven’t bothered to chase that yet. Was told this should take 24 hours. There should be no charge for these however when they are allocated.

There is no usage tracker on this package at the moment although the impression I get is that the FUP will be managed with a light touch unless I go crazy. Maybe a phone call to discuss if you consistently go over or you go mad one month. Don't hold me to that though!
Don’t think I ever hit 100gb with AAISP though so shouldn’t be a problem for me.


In general then very pleased so far, especially with support. I’ve phoned in a few times and always got through within a minute or so and had ‘sensible’ discussions. Had the best results with the sales line. Selected technical once to discuss target noise margin but the guy seemed a bit confused, I think because he couldn’t find me on their system. He was apologetic though

Don't seem to have been invoiced yet although not sure if that counts as a negative?

Left my domain and email with AAISP at the moment so can't comment on the included hosting (Gold package).


Well done if you got to the end

Gary

Some latency charts.


AAISP Chart


Vivaciti Chart


Vivaciti showing interleaving being switched off around 10am

Might want to make your graphs public

Matt

Oops, thanks
Too late to edit now so....


AAISP Chart

Vivacity Chart

Vivacity showing interleaving being switched off around 10am

The red bits are me taking the router off line and not service outages from Vivaciti

Edited by gmoorc (Fri 29-Oct-10 15:35:56)

just completed my first month with Vivaciti surfwise phone and broadband all i can say IT ROCKS good speed downloads all the time ping to uk servers 20 so i would agree with the op nice 1

Glad it is working for you, thankfully we have the Cable and wireless network here. If Opal was the only LLU network here I would rather stay with BT. at least we do have a bit more of a choice here, Opal/Talk Talk, Sky and Cable and wireless.

Apart from the outage for a few hours over the last couple of days I am really pleased with the service.

i been told I am mad as Talk Talk and Sky are cheaper than what I am paying now, but I do get a good speed. and no DLM.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If Opal was the only LLU network here I would rather stay with BT.

Time will tell I guess. The TBB line monitor is a good replacement for the AAISP firebrick charts and should give an indicator of connection quality.

Do they have a bad reputation for their network?

I've just swapped from Enta, (through Vivaciti), to Vivaciti's own line/ broadband package but have had a few probs accessing sites like iplayer and ebay which is annoying. Dunno where the prob lies yet but they're helping me through it.

Their customer support is really good. They always reply to emails, always answer the phone quickly and have never treated me like a computer novice, (ie: Have you turned the router on, have you plugged it into the phone line, am I reading from a script..).

Hi guys my exchange is talk talk enabled, here is the samknows page.

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

Does this mean i can go with Vivaciti using the talk talk tail?
Thanks in advance.

Yes, as long as there is spare capacity.

As it is the only LLU there it may be fully taken up.

Ask vivaciti.

In reply to a post by TiMeTraVeLeR:

Does this mean i can go with Vivaciti using the talk talk tail?
Thanks in advance.

Yep. Give them a call if their checker doesn't show the product as available.

Just found out today that there is protocol throttling during office hours up to 7.30pm on the complete package which restricts certain activities. Found out while I was trying to diagnose very slow streaming on iplayer.
Some details in this thread. Some pretty major throttling going on in my tests.

Didn't realise when I signed up but should have asked I guess. They could do with making that clear on the website although they were very open about it when I asked them today. I guess £25 for phone and broadband with 100Gb allowance does require some restrictions to make it viable.

You can have this taken off for a completely unmanaged line if you think it would affect you for an additional £19.99 a month. This obviously adds considerably to the price but I think remains in the OK range for an unmanaged quality service. (If that is what it turns out to be )
Pretty much what I was paying with AAISP if you include line rental.

Anyway I've ordered this option (Called "File sharing add on") so will report back on how it goes.

Thing is I'm only getting a maximum of 1000Kb/s streaming after 7.30pm so hopefully it will solve this as well.

Actually just tested again before posting and now streaming at 9000Kb/s so either my add on has gone live already, something odd was going on yesterday or protocols are still throttled after 7.30 but to a lesser degree.

tbb speed test is also working again now which was also throttled, especially during the day.

Phone support was very good as usual. Even spoke to the owner the other day while chasing an IP block who was very helpful and came across very well. Got the IP block within 10 minutes of my call.

Gary