Breathe Internet - TalkTalk LLU, ADSL2+?

I'm with Breathe (by default, as my original ISP was taken over by them) and in November 2011 I was moved from my existing ADLSMax "up to 8Mbps" package onto to their "new infrastructure" and "up to 24Mbps", and they told me in an email that I was now on the maximum speed available from my exchange. I take it this means Talk Talk LLU, since that's around the time TT came into my exchange and I believe Breather use the Talk Talk backbone - first of all, is that right?

I immediately saw an increase in connect speed of around 30%-40% and this was sustained for a year.

Recently, it's gone down again to the levels it was at before and I've put in a query, thinking I've been moved back to ADSL. Now they're saying I was never on ADSL2+, I'm only on ADSL, even though it's an "up to 24Mbps" plan, and the cost would have been more for ADSL2+.

It was never explicitly stated to me that I had been moved to ADSL2+ in Nov 2011, the wording was as shown above in the first paragraph, so I guess they could be right in that I was never moved onto ADSL2+. but is this possible? Isn't Talk Talk LLU automatically ADSL2+, especially if they told me I was now at the maximum possible - they wouldn't have said that if I'd remained on ADSLMax throughout the change. Something caused the dramatic speed increase when the change was made. And isn't is misleading to advertise and sell an "up to 24Mbps" plan if they only put people onto ADSLMax therefore it's impossible to reach anywhere near that speed? Their packages don't differentiate between ADSL and ADSL2+, they just call it "up to 24Mbps ADSL".

What speed did you actually get when it was faster?

700-850Kbps.

Now it's 400-500Kbps.

Yes, I'm on a long line. That's why every little counts! but it does represent a big percentage drop.

Counter-intuitively, at that line length ADSL2+ is frequently worse than ADSL2, and ADSL is sometimes the best of the three. I think we need to look closer at what could be going on.

Do you know how to get your line stats from your router? Connection speeds, attenuations and noise margins being the most important. There may also be a Mode: G.DMT; G.992.1; G.992.3; G.992.5? What make and model router is it please?

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 07-Feb-14 16:56:20)

Not at my router at the moment, but attentuation from memory is around 68dB.

According to http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html the speeds I've been seeing are quite consistent with ADSL and ADSL2+ and that ADSL2+ should be faster.

It's a Netgear DGN3500 I think. but will check everything when I get home!

Since had a reply from Breathe:


You are currently provisioned on an LLU ADSL product and the maximum available speed at your location being reported by our checkers is 576kbps. You are currently connected at 504kbps which is what you would expect with these results. This is the most appropriate product for your location and is the product that you are currently paying for.

In 2011 you were moved from BT's IP Stream service to the TalkTalk LLU service.


So again, this is consistent with the speed table if indeed it's only ADSL, and that ADSL2+ should be better. But I just can't explain the year I had at 800Kbps, which started as soon I was moved onto the LLU. I ha da phone line fault in Dec 2012 and that is actually when the speed drop happened - do you reckon Openreach gave me a pair that was worse than previously when they fixed it? (They definitely disconnected the line and reconnected at one point)

You could well be being supplied with Up-to-24 Meg TT LLU ADSL2+ but you line is far too long to benefit from it and it would sense that and auto downgrade you to ADSL2 or ADSL1. Maybe the speed changes you see are as it tries to swap between those.

Post your router stats and we will know for sure.

In reply to a post by csimon:

I had a phone line fault in Dec 2012 and that is actually when the speed drop happened - do you reckon Openreach gave me a pair that was worse than previously when they fixed it? (They definitely disconnected the line and reconnected at one point)

You didn't mention that before. That is almost certainly the cause. In fact I lost 700kbps when I had a pair swap. Fortunately that was from about 6000kbps so not as painful as yours.

The reason you would have had the speed rise when they moved you to LLU would be because you stopped being hit by the BT Wholesale IP Profile structure, which at low connection speeds is a real pain. (Scroll down to the table if you can't see it).

And, , I think you are misreading that FAQ.

In reply to a post by csimon:

So again, this is consistent with the speed table if indeed it's only ADSL, and that ADSL2+ should be better.

Have you accounted for the fact that moving up to ADSL2+ usually increases your attenuation by about 3dB? So you need to read those tables at 71 dB for ADSL2+.

So it quite possible that the change of speed you saw was a switch from ADSL1 to ADSL2+.

Does your router have a setting (not a status) where you can change ADSL Mode?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Do you know how to get your line stats from your router? Connection speeds, attenuations and noise margins being the most important. There may also be a Mode: G.DMT; G.992.1; G.992.3; G.992.5? What make and model router is it please?

Netgear DGN3500

Connection speed: 504 down
Attenuation: 68.1db
Noise Margin: 5.2db

Can't see a Mode at first glance.

That's the trouble with Netgears; they don't show ADSL Mode unless they do Telnet. Has yours a Telnet I/f? Try this http://www.kitz.co.uk/routers/netgeardg834_interleav... but ignore the interleaving aspect; just get the stats.

I followed those instructions to get a telnet session but none of the listed commands were found. My particular router model number isn't listed either.

I've still to get the bottom of what I was given initially, why I got 800Kbps for a year, and what caused the reduction in speed again after the fault was fixed. I've asked Breathe if it's something they can bring up with Openreach and I need to get Breathe to confirm that I was never on ADSL2+ with them and therefore there was nothing that changed at their end in December 2012.

They want another £3 per month for me to try ADSL2+, which I'm quite willing to do, although of course they can't guarantee it will work.

But this is the package I agreed to upon the move to LLU in 2011, in an email from Breathe Sales:

1- ADSL & Call Charges

Up to 24mbps- actual speeds achieved are subject to line conditions and distance from exchange.
£10.99 per month


Does that not imply ADSL2+? It seems they're now telling me what they actually gave me was an "up to 8Mbps" ADSLMax service and they want a futher £3 to give me an "up to 24Mbps" ADSL2+ service instead. The acronym "ADSL" that they used in the descripttion above doesn't mean anything as there are different flavours of ADSL, it's just a generic description of a ADSL service rather than fibre or dialup. It can't mean ADSL1 as that cannot be "up to 24Mbps".

Whether or not I can actually get 24Mbps, or even 8Mbps, is irrelevant because the ADSL2+ service is likely to give me better speed than ADSLMax and that's what I thought I was gettting, and that's what I attributed the increase in speed to.

Edited by deleted (Fri 07-Feb-14 20:57:45)

In reply to a post by csimon:

Connection speed: 504 down
Attenuation: 68.1db
Noise Margin: 5.2db

Where's your Up stats? That's could tell us a lot. When asking for help and you are asked for some data, never edit it and only select that which you think important.

Did Telnet make a connection even if you couldn't find the right command?

In reply to a post by csimon:

Whether or not I can actually get 24Mbps, or even 8Mbps, is irrelevant because the ADSL2+ service is likely to give me better speed than ADSLMax

I see I'm wasting my breath on Breathe .

No, you won't at your distance!

"Up-to-24 Meg" can only be ADSL2+. You are on an ADSL2+ service but it can & does downgrade itself to ADSL2 or ADSL1 if it finds it can sync faster.

"ADSL" is a generic name for all flavours of ADSL as well of the name of the 1st "Up-to-8 Meg" standard. Your ISP is entitled to market its product as ADSL to differentiate from Fibre or VDSL BB.

In all probability your decrease in speed was due to the phone repair you had as they coincided.

By all means waste £36/year but it will not make a blind bit of diff. I can guarantee that it won't work.

BTW: You don't get ADSL MAx on LLU; it's a BT product.

Also have you ever told us your exchange?

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sat 08-Feb-14 00:38:54)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by csimon:

Connection speed: 504 down
Attenuation: 68.1db
Noise Margin: 5.2db

Where's your Up stats? That's could tell us a lot. When asking for help and you are asked for some data, never edit it and only select that which you think important.

When asked for stats and there are a lot of them it would be helpful for someone to say which stats they want and what they consider important. I work in IT support myself and am welll aware of "stupid people" just sying "it doesn't work" and "it won't lket me do this", but please don't treat me like one. If I want a user to supplky inforamtion then I make them aware of what information I want them to supply/

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Also have you ever told us your exchange?

No. Have you ever asked for it?

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by csimon:

Connection speed: 504 down
Attenuation: 68.1db
Noise Margin: 5.2db

Where's your Up stats?

Up speed is 284kbps, attenuation 39.6db, noise margin 13.2db

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Did Telnet make a connection even if you couldn't find the right command?

Yes.

I hope you did the browser address http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=debug 1st while logged into router.

When issuing the suggested Telnet commands:
# adslctl info --stats
# adsl info
you are not meant to type the '#'; think it's meant to be the prompt.

You can try to get help on the commands by just typing adslctl or adsl on their own.

Please which exchange are you on?

Yes, I did all that. I didn't type that exact address as that's not the IP address of my router, specifically the subnet, however after substituing the correct address I did get the "debug enable" message page as the instructions described. I didn't type the hash in front of the commands, the hash is indeed the prompt.

I've just done it again now and took a screengrab. I can't see at first glance how to attach an image to this post but here's a transcript of the session:

login: <id>
Password: <Password>

Busybox v1.00 (2011.06.21-10:54+0000) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# adslctl info --stats
-sh: adslctl: not found
# adsl info
-sh adsl: not found
# adslctl
-sh: adslctl: not found
# adsl
-sh adsl: not found
# help

Built-in commands:
-----------------------
. : alias bg break cd chdir continue eval exec
(and so on with a list of standard telnet commands)

The exchange is Llanberis (WNLR).

Edited by deleted (Sun 09-Feb-14 18:57:55)

Post deleted by csimon

Try using xdslcmd instead of adslctl

Edited by deleted (Sun 09-Feb-14 19:23:41)

Yes, you were word perfect with your Telnet.

Funny that it presents a Busybox shell but does not respond to adslctl or adsl. My DG834GT responds to either and they don't appear under help.

Just a forlorn idea but would you like to try it again but 1st issue the command after logging in:
PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
or even try my encapsulated link http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bi... which gets my stats from my Netgear w/out using Telnet, but 1st edit it for your router's IP.

Yes, your exchange does have TT LLU ADSL2+ but you are too far to benefit from it.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sun 09-Feb-14 19:38:43)

Good idea!

No, I'm afraid none of those ideas worked!

xdslcmd wasn't found.

Tried setting the PATH but same result.

Tried the URL (after making sure the IP address was correct) but just got a "Problem Loading Page - The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading" page from the browser (Firefox).

While in telnet I tried cd'ing to all those directories mentioned and doing an ls and there were no commands of those names listed. Tried "ls -l *dsl*" on each of those directories and only these two files were listed in each case:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 0 0 5852 Jun 24 2011 adslmod
-rwxr-xr-x 1 0 0 544516 Jun 21 2011 dsl_cpe_control

Well, you tried everything we can think of. Looks like this Netgear won't display its current ADSL Mode. Pity!

Mind you dsl_Customer-premises-equipment_control looks interesting .

I presume you can not get fibre yet.
If it was me is would get the one plan from three 18p/m 1 month contract.
I would try this as your landline speed are so bad.
I don't know what three service is like where you are but I would be surprised if it was worse then your landline.
with the one plan you can tether unlimited.!

No, I can get fibre, but I don't need it. However I can't speak for the OP who you are not addressing.