Tesco Broadband - First Impressions

I decided to take the plunge and go towards the cheaper end of the market, here is my 2ps worth.. Plus there aren't many reviews about it!

Have been with Plusnet for ages, and I can't fault them. However we kept going slightly over our 60GB limit and with four of us using it, I looked at other options. We dont need unlimited, nor the 100GB Tesco claim is unlimited, but probably needed about 80GB a month.

It costs £16.25 a month for Tesco Home Phone (ie line rental) and broadband for a year, normally £20.25 a month. I got cashback of £35, so this sort of covered the £40 cost for a monthly contract. Its provided by Cable & Wirless LLU.

From ordering to completion took exactly two weeks, was kept updated by text and email. Received wireless router a few days before.

Its a Thomson TG580 which comes preconfigured and worked straight away. Other reviews slate this router, but it seems fine for day to day internet.

Eventually it was easy enough to customise, ie SSID/Wireless key. The default admin password was the wireless key, took me ages to find that out!

On activation day, my old broadband died at 10am and at 11am Tesco was working.

So far it seems fine, got full speed torrents, iplayer/youtube didnt buffer all the time, web pages loaded quick etc, speedtests same as before on Plusnet.

I did contact Tesco to get my username and password, in case I wanted to use my own router and they gave it to me without any hassle. Call answered within 30 seconds in UK call centre.

Speedtest (it thinks I am on Orange!)



(Since going over to LLU, some online speedtesters don't appear to work especially the upload test!)

Pingtest

[IMG]http://www.pingtest.net/result/59107820.png[/IMG]

Line Stats:

Uptime:1 day(s), 16:19:33

DSL Type:G.992.5

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1023 / 12371

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [KB/KB]:895 / 1870327

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:12 / 18

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:12 / 25

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:10 / 10

Vendor ID (Local/Remote):--- / ---

Loss of Link (Remote):0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote):1939 / 0

CELL Count (Local/Remote):40917971 / 3158361

FEC Errors (Up/Down):61487 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down):2776 / 35

HEC Errors (Up/Down):25307 / 11

I will keep you posted if it changes! So far hasn't slowed down at peak times much. Will see if they keep up with capacity!

Edited by deleted (Sat 17-Mar-12 12:10:35)

In reply to a post by dmanicolo:

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1023 / 12371

Far too slow! Should be getting 18 Meg @ 6dB NM. Even @ 10dB NM should be getting at least 16 Meg.

Have you checked home wiring, extensions, ring wire, filters and plugged into test socket?

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sat 17-Mar-12 12:35:39)

Good point, however always got 10MB ish via ADSL here.

Plugged straight in to test socket, and stats are:

straight in to test socket socket, new Thomson Filter and supplied Cable:


Link Information

Uptime:0 day(s), 00:00:56

DSL Type:G.992.5

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1023 / 13064

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [B/B]:7627 / 8784

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:12 / 18

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:12 / 25

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:11 / 9

Vendor ID (Local/Remote):--- / ---

Loss of Link (Remote):0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote):1 / 0

CELL Count (Local/Remote):233 / 196

FEC Errors (Up/Down):75 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down):2 / 0

HEC Errors (Up/Down):13 / 0

Speedtest:


As above, but with old BT Filter:

Link Information

Uptime:0 day(s), 00:00:33

DSL Type:G.992.5

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1023 / 13127

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [B/B]:6095 / 12720

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:12 / 18

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:12 / 25

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:10 / 9

Vendor ID (Local/Remote):--- / ---

Loss of Link (Remote):1

Error Seconds (Local/Remote):0 / 0

CELL Count (Local/Remote):335 / 696

FEC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 0

HEC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 0



Will try with old BT voyager 2110 router later.

Edited by deleted (Sat 17-Mar-12 13:14:22)

It thinks you are on Orange because when they were a true ISP, (now they just sell White Label BT Wholesale), they used C & W for their LLU. C & W I expect have retained the IP addresses that were allocated to Orange before the change, so yours could easily have been be registered against Orange but now allocated by C & W to Tesco LLU connections.

Good to hear such a glowing report. As you say, very few if any previously, good or bad.

As XRaySpeX says, your downstream looks low. But you report speeds the same as Plusnet.

Have you done any re-connections since the migration? The times in your post and stats suggest so, but another during daylight, with stats taken straight after, would be interesting.

Have you any stats from Plusnet days?

(Edited to correct my brain-fade re the ownership of Orange, pointed out by a couple of posters).

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 17-Mar-12 19:20:15)

Thanks. I don't have any Plusnet stats. However I'm quite content with 10MB.

I changed from a BT Voyager 2110 router to the Tesco Thomson A580 one last week, new filter and new cable etc, thats about it.

Please try playing a YouTube 1080p or 720p video this evening (Saturday 17-03-12) during peak time and see if it buffers well ahead of playback speed or perhaps a streamed BBCi HD video.

For me if it passes those tests, despite your relatively low downstream sync, then it would be a very good deal assuming the upstream connection is also stable.

Orange are owned by France Telecom and before that Hutchison.

Looks like Tesco is using Orange's BT Wholesale service.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It thinks you are on Orange because C & W own(ed?) Orange so the IP address could easily be registered against Orange.

Since when?

Orange is owned by France Telecom

More likely they are reusing IP addresses originally assigned to Orange.

i am on the Cable and Wireless network which tescos uses for it's LLU service, but I am using it throught ADSL 24 and I did the same test and it had no idea who My ISp was.

So while the test me be ok for speed test, but even then compared to other speed testers it was a different result, it seems to get confused with ISPs names.,