TalkTalk (CPW) resellers

Hi all,

I've just requested a MAC from Sky to bring my Sky Connect contract to an end. The only LLU provider in my exchange (SMYG) is TalkTalk (CPW) so, I'm looking for one of their reseller's to provide my service from now on.
Some facts:

Current sync (down): 8128Kbps
Current sync (up): 448Kbps
Throughput off peak (down): 69xxKbps
Throughput (up): 380Kbps
Line attn (down): between 34dB and 37dB depending on modem/ router used
Line attn (up): 10.5dB
Round trip latency to bbc.co.uk (off peak): 13ms
Most speed checkers seem to say that I should achieve between 10Mbps and 11.5Mbps, with a 37dB attn (my guesstimate usin the lowest ADSL1 figure I see). I've contacted Uno and they expect that I'd be able to achieve 8Mbps with my line.
Can't really tell what I should expect from Vivacity and ADSL24 states I should achieve 2Mbps.
Are there anymore available to me?
I guess I'm also after some advice from people who've used these resellers for what I should/ could expect too.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

If you go with TalkTalk direct, you'll be fine..as long as you don't dabble in p2p...every other protocol runs at line speed 24/7. The horror stories relate to their poor phone support which somehow the masses think is the only way to get support. Stick with forum support and you'll have no problems at all. Why waste your money on a reseller when you can get cheaper broadband with no download limits?

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

Most speed checkers seem to say that I should achieve between 10Mbps and 11.5Mbps, with a 37dB attn (my guesstimate usin the lowest ADSL1 figure I see). I've contacted Uno and they expect that I'd be able to achieve 8Mbps with my line.
Can't really tell what I should expect from Vivacity and ADSL24 states I should achieve 2Mbps.

Not used them but all three have good reputations here.

Your attenuation figures point to a connection speed of 10-12Mbps, as per what the checkers you've used say. If you also post your Noise Margin figure (SNR or SNRM perhaps in your router), that would help.

I don't know where those lower figures come from those three ISPs. I suspect you are on their wrong product pages or something. Though they may be giving throughput estimates. Based on (say) 80% of sync the uno ones looks fair enough. The other two will give the same speed, but the estimates are wierd.

Thanks for the responses.

I've contacted all the ISP's mentioned for more details estimates and to see what packages they can offer me.

With regards to going to TalkTalk direct, I'm not really keen. I've had very bad experiences with Plusnet who are also reported to be bad all over the web and yet still manage to offer a good service 'officially'. In my experience, all ISP's are fantastic until you have issues. I'd rather pay a bit more and have fantastic support than none at all.

For reference, my SNRM is 6dB (although, it will dance all over the place during throttled periods) down and 26dB up. By all accounts, the performance I see is very good for the length of the line. I have put a lot of effort into cabling and equipment choice though. I'm hoping the same exceptional performance will be seen with an LLU service.

Paul

In that case go with xilo/uno. Since talktalk use Infineon equipment at most of their exchanges you'll probably find that a router with an Infineon chipset will give you the highest sync speeds. From the top of my head such routers include Netgear dg834g (some versions), dgn1000, draytek 120, 2820, 2830

Also don't get too hung up on speed estimates....they tend to be very conservative. Talktalk told me I could only get 9 meg on a 27db attenuation LOL. As long as your wiring is in tip top shape and you're using a half decent router then you will definitely get higher speeds than you're currently getting on ADSL1

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-Jun-12 20:35:41)

Thanks for the advice.

One other thing that has just come to mind; My phone line will stay with Sky. Is that normally an issue with LLU suppliers?

Paul

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

One other thing that has just come to mind; My phone line will stay with Sky. Is that normally an issue with LLU suppliers?

It can be with TalkTalk connections. Some resellers are able to do SMPF (shared connections) and some only do Full (MPF) where the line rental and broadband are together.

Also!

As you are on Sky Connect it's unlikely your line is not a "BT Line", i.e.WLR (Wholesale Line Rental). So there will be no issue if uno do SMPF for TalkTalk connections. If they odn't, and would need to take the line as well, then I'm fairly sure vivaciti do a choice of SMPF or MPF on TalkTalk.

ADSL24 I'm not sure. Theirs may be monthly contract however.

That's great, thanks.

I should have been clearer, when I wrote "my line will stay with Sky", I meant from a payment/ contract perspective.

It looks like Xilo can provide me with ADSL2+ speeds using their Pro 24 75GB package. I'm just waiting to hear back from ADSL24 and Vivacity now and then I can make the decision.

Paul

Paul,

My adsl2+ downstream attenuation of 37dB (formally 34db with adsl1 now adding 3dB for adsl2+) gives me a downstream sync of ~13.5Mbps with uno Pro 24 75GB on a partial LLU (CPW - SMPF) connection. Downstream throughput is always ~11Mbps and upstream throughput is always ~850Kbps and both are very stable - TG585 v7 router.

Incidentally my phone line rental is still with BT on a 12 month contract.

It's certainly is not the cheapest deal for adsl2+ broadband but it's very reliable and uno support is excellent.

BTW. uno Pro 24 75GB is now unlimited off peak.

Best of luck - ADSL24 or Vivaciti may in fact be just as good for your needs

Edited by 4M2 (Mon 25-Jun-12 01:18:55)

Hi,

Thanks for the response.

It's great to hear from someone who is in as closer an exact situation to me as you could possible get when it comes to broadband.
ADSL24 would require my phone line to be with them too so, they're out.
Vivaciti could supply what I need, on their Variety ADSL2+ LLU package. That reports to be unlimited but, they do use traffic shaping during office hours (8am to 7pm Monday to Friday) for certain types of traffic. That to me isn't unlimited... I think they mean unmetered. Regardless, that would make no odds to me as I'm not at home during those hours.

If I went with Xilo/ Uno, it would be the Pro 24 75GB package I'd go for. If I could attain the sorts of speeds you have, I'd be over the moon. I'd like to think I'd be in with a good chance too, seeing as how strong my current ADSL1 performance is.

Out of interest, what do Xilo/ Uno count as peak times?

I'm guessing that either Vivaciti ir Xilo would offer me comparable performance, if they don't restrict the lines at all. If that were the case, Vivaciti would be the choice for me due to the nature of their package and the cost.
If however, Xilo had equipment that would enable better performance, I'd happily go with them for the extra few quid and slight inconvinience of peak traffic management.

Paul

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

Out of interest, what do Xilo/ Uno count as peak times?

8am-12am Mon-Fri is considered peak currently.

Matt

Paul,

Sorry can not comment on Vivaciti's partial LLU service having never used it personally.

Looks like Matt has answered your question about what counts as peak times with uno

Actually at the moment I'm considering a move to uno 21CN from partial LLU (and would keep my line rental with BT) because my exchange has just been enabled but that may not be relevant to your current situation...

Edit: just checked here http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SMYG and 21CN would probably NOT be relevant for you at the moment. Also just to clarify: uno Pro 24 75GB off peak is unmetered but there is a 200GB fair usage check.

Edited by 4M2 (Mon 25-Jun-12 15:52:57)

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Also just to clarify: uno Pro 24 75GB off peak is unmetered but there is a 200GB fair usage check.

Might be worth checking with Vivaciti as well. I believe they still have a FUP but not sure if it is still around the 100GB mark. May have been relaxed?

I phoned to check when they changed the product description as I pay extra for unlimited / unmanaged but was told my usage still warranted the bolt on.

*** Edit to say I am on the broadband complete package rather than variety but I think both use the surfwise product.

Edited by deleted (Mon 25-Jun-12 16:18:32)

gmoorc,

How's reliability, stability and general upload/download speeds, including streaming BBCi player HD and YouTube 1080p buffering speed (if you use them) at any time of day with Vivaciti LLU?

Edit: this is what I like so much about uno partial LLU: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8020/7440987896_f9dc64... test done at 4.40pm today (25-06-12) and I always get a consistent result just like this at any time of day or day of the week on my 37dB adsl2+ downstream attenuation

Edited by 4M2 (Mon 25-Jun-12 17:01:13)

I'm using Vivaciti LLU Variety - phoneline still with BT.
Have no problems with speeds whatever the time of day.
The speed management only applies to P2P traffic during office hours - not something I do.
BBC iPlayer is fine.
Pre move my stats were:
Connection Speed 8128 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 18.0 db 8.0 db
Noise Margin 13.4 db 24.0 db
after move

Connection Speed 19280 kbps 1022 kbps
Line Attenuation 20.5 db 9.7 db
Noise Margin 5.8 db 9.3 db

But I also tweek my router to a Noise Margin of ~3 dB and get >21Mbps download sync.

Hope that helps

Im on the same as rarrar and speeds are full throttle during the day 24/7. I use the Jdast speedtester which tests every hour and the lowest throughput I have seen over 1000 samples is 16 mbps.

Thanks for the comments guys, I must admit that I'm swaying towards Vivaciti, as the product just suits my needs.

@rarrar, what modem/ router are you using out of interest?

And are any of you guys matching chipsets?

Thanks,

Paul

I am paying to have restrictions removed so take my comments with that in mind. I don't think streaming should be managed but I had some odd results way back before I added the bolt on.

Synced at 21Mbps

Reliability
I'd say good. Had occasional outages lasting up to a few hours which resulted in packet loss and latency spike but these have been rare. Maybe 3 or 4 in last couple of years.

Stability is good. Always seem to get full speed at all times of the day. Same for streaming, never noticed any problem.

Only slowdown I have noticed is with downloading games through Steam weirdly. 1.9MB/s down to 1MB/s.
The thinking was that this may have been down to peering as if I connected through a VPN speed shot back up to max again. Haven't tried recently though.

Busiest time for the network seems to be between around 9.30am and 6.30pm weekdays where recently started to see max latency (Yellow plot) creep up a bit. Not affecting real world use though. Average and min ping still flat.

My Iplayer results not quite as good as yours though. Assuming this may be peering also?

Link

Vivaciti looks good

BTW.forgot to mention this:

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping bbc.co.uk

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.241.131] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=245

Ping statistics for 212.58.241.131:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 34ms, Maximum = 35ms, Average = 34ms

...and I have interleaving on for stability.

Don't know much about chipsets but my Thomson TG585 v7 router has a broadcom BCM 6338 chipset I think...seems to work OK with the LLU kit at the exchange.

It was Plusnet branded but I installed generic firmware 8.2.6.5.

I've just thought, do these resellers supply routers for their services? Or will I have to supply my own? Not that I'm short of a router...

I've just pulled the trigger and have gone with Vivaciti. Looking forward to being switched over now.

Paul

Don't know about Vivaciti supplying routers, the other guys will be able to answer that, but with uno it's a choice of buying one from them or using one's own...

Best of luck with Vivaciti....my cousin can't believe the price that I'm paying for partial LLU because he's on TalkTalk full LLU and paying a fraction of the price for broadband and phone - but that's another story

Thanks for the support.

I think my next questions to Vivaciti will be about the vendor of the DSLAM and line cards they use in my exchange. That way I can choose a suitable router for the line.

With regards to costs, I was paying £11.50 a month for 100Mbps down and 15Mbps up at my last address, with FTTP. However, the £21 Vivaciti are charging is still more pallatable than the £17 Sky charged me for the service I had with them, if their service is as good as it seems.

Paul

Probably Infineon as baby_frogmella mentioned earlier in this thread and I have read elsewhere that the DSLAM could be a Huawei possibly from Huawei's SmartAX 5600 series.

For sure my cousin has a Huawei router that was supplied by TT although his external and internal wiring isn't that brilliant and it's difficult to judge whether his router is better than something with a broadcom chipset...

Well I have a decent TP-Link cable router with G/bit ports and 300N wireless so, I may just buy a Draytek Vigor 120 modem. That should work well enough with and Infineon based DSLAM if that's the case.

Just waiting for my Vivaciti forum activation and I'll ask the question directly.

Paul

Possibly only the guys at your exchange really know http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/telephone_exchange.htm LOL!

It's only down the road. Maybe I'll pop down there and have a snoop around! )

Paul

All we can do is get everything right on our side of the nte5 and hope that things are reasonably OK on the exchange side - I wouldn't even know what to snoop at other than the incoming wires at the back of the nte5

Your quest for a compatible router is definitely a good move though!

Exchange chipset is Broadcom here on Vivaciti Surfwise LLU so bought a Billion 7800 to match.

In reply to a post by 4M2:

All we can do is get everything right on our side of the nte5

I've done a little bit more than that at my place but, in the interests of not wanting to incriminate myself, that's all I'll say.

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Your quest for a compatible router is definitely a good move though!

It certainly worked well on my ADSL1 line. The DSLAM chipset is made by Texas Instruments so, I bought a Netgear DG834Gv3 which has the ARM7 chipset. It'll hold on at 0dB SNRM and has literally maxed out my line as far as throughput goes. It'll also stay up indefinitely. I've also tried a Speedtouch 585v7 and Sagem 2504n on the same line and they fall down in all of the area's mentioned. I tried a Billion 7402GXL too. The sync rate was lower in that but, I didn't have it long enough to evaluate it's other facets.

@Banger:

It would seem TalkTalk use a number of different pieces of kit in the exchanges they have a footprint in then. I must admit, I do like the Billion kit so, would be more than happy if my exchange was set up like yours.

Paul

Edited by deleted (Tue 26-Jun-12 09:23:24)

@Banger:

It would seem TalkTalk use a number of different pieces of kit in the exchanges they have a footprint in then. I must admit, I do like the Billion kit so, would be more than happy if my exchange was set up like yours.

Probably highly depends on Openreach.

Have used a Dlink DSK-2640R which I think had TT firmware in.
But now using Netgear DG834Gv4 which allows me tweek the Noise Margin using DMT when I can be bothered.

No real difference for me but I prefer ( more used to) the Netgear menu system.

Secondhand modem/routers are cheap and easy to come by

What ever you do don't incriminate yourself LOL!

If you do try the Speedtouch 585v7 it would be interesting to see the router stats once you are connected up to adsl2+ and whether you have interleaving applied at any stage or not. That would compare nicely to my TG585v7 stats with and without interleaving.

21/37dB attenuations, 10/6dB SN Margins and 1022K/~13500K syncs should be feasible based on one of your adsl1 downstream attenuation readings of 34dB.

Indeed, I think I paid £12 for my DG834Gv3.

I have my eye on a Draytek Vigor 2820VN if the exchange is equipped with Infineon kit. Or any number of Billion modem/ routers should it be equipped with Broadcom kit.

I'm still waiting on my forum activation from Vivaciti which doesn't give me the greatest first impression but, I will pose the question to them as soon as I can.

Paul

In reply to a post by 4M2:

What ever you do don't incriminate yourself LOL!

If you do try the Speedtouch 585v7 it would be interesting to see the router stats once you are connected up to adsl2+ and whether you have interleaving applied at any stage or not. That would compare nicely to my TG585v7 stats with and without interleaving.

21/37dB attenuations, 10/6dB SN Margins and 1022K/~13500K syncs should be feasible based on one of your adsl1 downstream attenuation readings of 34dB.

I think it's worth trying it, just as an experiment alone. It's not as though I have to worry about BT DLM kicking in when it sees a couple of line drops, when I change the routers over...

Paul

Only thing I get when restarting the router, restarting the router several times during a short period or when I lose the dsl connection - which is not very often, are variations in downstream sync. Currently on the lowest downstream sync of 13092K that I've had due to a cold restart several days ago but that would undoubtedly improve after a router restart during daylight hours - not bothered though because the line is stable and speeds a currently more than adequate for my needs

Edit: actually when I first connected to uno adsl2+, back in January this year, my downstream sync was 13910K but that has settled down to a more stable level and interleaving has been applied.

Edited by 4M2 (Tue 26-Jun-12 16:27:15)

If you do decide to disconnect and reconnect, leave it offline for 15 minutes at least. That way, you'll drop the current DSLAM port you connected to.

I tend to unplug all phone lines and devices from my router when I perform a re-sync too. May seem a bit anal but, it never fails to get me the best sync.

Paul

Interesting that you disconnect all devices from the router when you do a re-sync and get the best results that way...

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

If you do decide to disconnect and reconnect, leave it offline for 15 minutes at least. That way, you'll drop the current DSLAM port you connected to.

I don't think that's what you mean. You are hard-wired to the DSLAM port.

A 15-minute disconnection will almost certainly cause the DSLAM to trigger a Session cease on the connection to the ISP, if one hasn't occurred immediately from the way you disconnected. As far as I know that's about it.

Vivaciti forums - last time I looked it seemed very quiet and not worth visiting.

That's what happens when things are running smoothly!

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

If you do decide to disconnect and reconnect, leave it offline for 15 minutes at least. That way, you'll drop the current DSLAM port you connected to.

I don't think that's what you mean. You are hard-wired to the DSLAM port.

A 15-minute disconnection will almost certainly cause the DSLAM to trigger a Session cease on the connection to the ISP, if one hasn't occurred immediately from the way you disconnected. As far as I know that's about it.

I did intend to write port, as in the hardware port however, I didn't mean that the physical connection would be disconnected. I meant at a software level. You however, have explained it better.

Re the Vivaciti forum, I've actually emailed their support mailbox this morning and still not received any response. That initial poor first impression isn't getting any better...

Paul

To be honest, I've not tried performing the same process with everything connected. So, it's just as likely that I'd get the same result. My OCD side showing, in the same way that I double filter the DECT base that's plugged into the master socket (the only phone socket connected in the house).

Paul

Took me a few days to get activated on the Viva forums. Usually someone from Viva is active on these forums, maybe it's holidays?

In reply to a post by Banger:

Im on the same as rarrar and speeds are full throttle during the day 24/7. I use the Jdast speedtester which tests every hour and the lowest throughput I have seen over 1000 samples is 16 mbps.

Indeed, full line speed 24/7 & cannot fault Vivaviti's service so far.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Exchange chipset is Broadcom here on Vivaciti Surfwise LLU so bought a Billion 7800 to match.

Ditto me too, already was using the superb Billion 7800N so happy from the start. Used many routers over the years and not used one better on my line.

Its always worth keeping an eye in there, we normally post updates and any service news items in there, plus any outages.

Hi,
Do you have the ticket number as we are not showing any open tickets from yesterday, only some from over night that they are working through this morning.

Hi,

I don't have a ticket number, no as I didn't get any response at all from the email I sent to the Vivaciti support address.

Thanks,

Paul

Edited by deleted (Wed 27-Jun-12 10:29:36)

In reply to a post by Lazza:

In reply to a post by Banger:

Exchange chipset is Broadcom here on Vivaciti Surfwise LLU so bought a Billion 7800 to match.

Ditto me too, already was using the superb Billion 7800N so happy from the start. Used many routers over the years and not used one better on my line.

That's interesting as every response I've seen across the web on the same subject states that TT use Huawei kit. Admittedly, most of the responses are years old
Seems that they may have even upgraded certain/ all exchanges or have a spread of kit across their network.

Paul

What email address did you send it to, as our support email address would have generated an auto response back with the ticket number.
Or did you click a link somewhere to raise a support request?
The support email address is: support [AT] vivaciti [DOT] net

That's the address I sent it to, via the the mailto link at: http://www.vivaciti.net/contact.php

I can send you the email from my sent items should you need it...

I didn't get any response, in my inbox or spam box.

Paul

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

That's interesting as every response I've seen across the web on the same subject states that TT use Huawei kit. Admittedly, most of the responses are years old
Seems that they may have even upgraded certain/ all exchanges or have a spread of kit across their network.

Paul

If your exchanged was LLU'd by TalkTalk in the last few years, then it almost certainly WILL have Huawei (Infineon) kit. Its only on the older Tiscali LLU exchanges (which TalkTalk took over) which use a Broadcom card.

That's good information, thanks.

Paul

Just done some testing and the mailbox is working fine plus we have had tickets coming in all day, I dont suppose you know the date and time you sent it so I can get someone to go through the logs to see if there was any errors at the time.

No worries.

It was sent on Tuesday 26th June at 10.58am.

I can send another if that would speed things up?

Thanks,

Paul

Was it about forum registration?
If so it was imported OK and a reply was sent to you on 26/06/2012 @ 11:13 (15 mins ticket response)
(you can see the ticket if you log into your client area and go to tickets)
The reply was:

Hi,
You should have received an email although we do know that AOL does sometimes place isp emails into spam.
the details we have for your registration are:

[personal details information]

You could go back to the forum and request a new activation email.
if you still have issues let us know and we can get the info sent to the web dev guys to try to accept the account (if possible)


Regards
Vivaciti

I am glad we got that sorted, and my guess is the same reason you never received the forum registration would be the same reason you never received our response to you from the ticket.

That was it, yes.

I've not received either email. I've checked my Spam, inbox and recently deleted and nought in any of them...

Oddly, I've had no issues with any other comms to Vivaciti.

Could you possibly send me a new activation email?

Thanks,

Paul

Hi,
I have had a response back saying this was re-sent to you.

Hi,

Still not received anything...

Not to worry though as I've set up another account using my gmail email address.

Thanks,

Paul