MPF Migration: Coms to Xilo (both TTB)

Xilo yesterday asked if would like to be a guinea pig for an MPF migration from Coms, to which I agreed. I'll update this thread with developments.

Both the Coms (Complete DSL) and Xilo (Talk and Surf) packages are with TTB.

Today, Xilo informed me that the migration has been approved and a date set: May 9th, and have issued the router login details.

I sent Coms a ticket giving 30 days notice of termination. The following response was received within two hours:

"Thank you for providing us your migration date, we will update our systems to reflect this. As per the 30 day notice, billing will end Friday 23rd May. In terms of charges applicable, you will be the April invoice as normal and then on a pro-rata basis from 1st May - 23rd May. Coms will provide you an uninterrupted service as normal until the day you migrate away."

As billing for the service has always been for a month in advance (which ADSL24 clearly stated on their invoices, though Coms do not), I'm assuming the "pro rata" charges relate solely to any phone calls made in excess of the 100 minutes included in my package. Have sent another ticket seeking confirmation of this.

So, apart from the Coms billing query, everything seems reasonably clear so far.

There have been no charges for migration.

Stats for future comparison.

These figures have remained stable with Coms (though I had to request the SNR be lowered).

SpeedTest.net
Ping: 32ms
Down: 14.63 Mbps
Up: 0.87mbps

Router
DownStream: 17234 kbps
UpStream: 1020 kbps
Line att. Down: 19db
Line att. Up: 4 db
SNR Down: 6 db
SNR Up: 8 db

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Apr-14 19:28:30)

Very interested in how this turns out as I'm another Coms victim on MFP. So I'm going to have to move in the near future, possibly to Xilo even though so far my contact with the sales team regarding packages has been rather unfruitful.

Post deleted by ukwoody

Thanks for starting this Molehusband. I shall be following this with great interest

After 9 days, still no reply from Coms to my query about billing over the migration period. From what others have reported here, it seems they'll issue a refund of my advance payment for May from the date if the transfer to Xilo to the end of the month.

So far, I'm impressed with the speed and quality of Xilo's support.

Despite being able to login with my Xilo details for a few days now, I stayed logged into Coms to see what would happen on changeover day.

The connection died at around 11:30pm Friday and the router resynced with what appears to be the default TTB SNR reset of 12db down and up, with the expected drop in connection speed: 11992 kbps down/923 kbps up.

My Xilo account still reports the product status as "Pending" and the line as inactive. I'll see how it looks in the morning and contact support if the SNR is still at 12db.

Testing Xilo before the resync, performance was exactly what I'd come to expect from ADSL24, so I'm optimistic.

Phone-wise, 1571 voicemail stopped working early in the day, presumably due to Coms. The line went dead for a few minutes around the time of the resync and, on returning, the voicemail was back but 1471 now gives a "Sorry, you're not subscribed to this service" message. I thought 1471 was provided with Xilo's Talk & Surf, but cannot find anywhere in my account that lists subscribed phone services.

It will likely happen Monday if your "activation" date was today. Get in touch about the profile/VM though as they won't change manually.

Someone at TTB has to do the final bit of the work manually i'm afraid.

Edit: I am currently -5 and it's not 23:59 here yet

Matt

Edited by uno (Sat 10-May-14 01:09:28)

My SNR is now back to where it was with Coms (upstream a little lower), so here are the results of a speedtest and my router stats after a daytime reboot. Same equipment and Speedtest server as the original Coms results, which are shown in [brackets].

SpeedTest.net
Ping: 13ms [32ms]
Down: 13.75 Mbps [14.63 Mbps]
Up: 0.86mbps [0.87mbps]

Router
DownStream: 15880kbps [17234 kbps]
UpStream: 1015kbps [1020 kbps]
Line att. Down: 19db [19db]
Line att. Up: 4db [4 db]
SNR Down: 6db [6 db]
SNR Up: 7db [8 db]

I've not yet heard from Xilo re the lack of 1471 on the phone.

Edited by deleted (Sun 11-May-14 10:42:36)

You're syncing too low with a ds attenuation of 19db. You should be getting around 20mb @6db SNR. Time to check your wiring, plugging router into test socket, changing router, filters etc.

Thanks for pointing this out, and I'll get around to all this eventually, but my present focus is to see how Xilo matches up with Coms like for like.

In reply to a post by Molehusband:

my present focus is to see how Xilo matches up with Coms like for like.

But if your wiring is faulty, you are just rolling a die.

This die has rolled consistently for a long time. There have never been wild fluctuations. I've tested constantly before and after the Coms switch in January and - apart from when the SNR has been reset to 12db after Coms switched to their system and moving to Xilo - my stats have been very stable. I think this provides a reasonable basis for making a like with like comparison.

Whatever happens, I'll certainly not be running back to Coms (or anyone else) over a decrease of 1MB/s, but if connection speeds between providers using TTB can vary, I think it's useful to know.

FWIW, testing in the past has shown no significant difference when using the master test socket or swapping filters. Bell ring wires are all disconnected.

Looking back, the highest sync speed and lowest SNR I've ever seen here was in May 2013 (ADSL24 TTB MPF).

DownStream: 18837 kbps
UpStream: 1015 kbps
Line att. Down: 19db
Line att. Up: 4 db
SNR Down: 1 db
SNR Up: 7 db

Unsurprisingly, this lasted only a short time and dropped to the following which was typical until the Coms switch.

DownStream: 16176 kbps
UpStream: 1015 kbps
Line att. Down: 19db
Line att. Up: 4db
SNR Down: 6db
SNR Up: 6db

So, with Xilo, it's almost identical to the pre-Coms switch ADSL24.

Watching this with interest as I'm suffering under Coms too. Quick question, does TTB stand for Talk Talk Business? I thought TalkTalk was one of the absolute worst providers to end up on?

Yeah TTB is the business/wholesale arm of TT. TT's poor reputation is purely based on the residential division's phone support. The actual network is very good, it comes down to which provider you go with. If you want the dogs-you-know-what TTB connection then go with AAISP. If you want a decent TTB connection without breaking the bank then go with Xilo, Goscomb or TalkTalk Business direct.

Yes, but see baby_frogmella's post. There doesn't really seem anything to worry about with TalkTalk Business, except the full LLU (MPF) issue if and when you want to migrate out.

I had a similar drop after the move from ADSL24 to Coms. Nothing had changed (my wiring, router, whatever) except moving to Coms.

Since then they switched my SNR from 9db (which I had with ADSL24) to 6db, and I *still* sync at around 1,000Kbps less than when I was with ADSL24!

Looks like a fibre cabinet is *finally* in the process of being installed near my house - as soon as that bad-boy is commissioned I'll be leaving this shower behind!

In reply to a post by Molehusband:

if connection speeds between providers using TTB can vary, I think it's useful to know.

It does sound unlikely though, doesn't it? Or is Coms doing something more underhand, limiting speeds at their end?!

In reply to a post by ColinA3:

In reply to a post by Molehusband:

if connection speeds between providers using TTB can vary, I think it's useful to know.

It does sound unlikely though, doesn't it? Or is Coms doing something more underhand, limiting speeds at their end?!

I find that with TTB SMPF sync speeds vary depending upon when one resyncs the router. Even though one may have a 6dB downstream SNRM it probably depends upon the SNR at sync time.

On a 37db attenuation, 6dB SNRM, interleaved uno/TTB connection my sync speeds can vary anywhere between 12500Kbps and 13000Kbps. On a lower sync speed, usually after a resync at night, the SNRM will usually creep up to 7dB during the day and hence a comparative reduction in speed to when a resync is done during the day when the SNRM holds at 6dB due to a lower SNR at sync time.

It's possible that output power could be controlled by an ISP and hence sync speeds could vary between differing ISP's on a line with the same interleaving depth, SNR and SNRM at sync time?

Edited by 4M2 (Mon 12-May-14 14:09:10)

In reply to a post by 4M2:

I find that with TTB SMPF sync speeds vary depending upon when one resyncs the router. Even though one may have a 6dB downstream SNRM it probably depends upon the SNR at sync time.

On a 37db attenuation, 6dB SNRM, interleaved uno/TTB connection my sync speeds can vary anywhere between 12500Kbps and 13000Kbps. On a lower sync speed, usually after a resync at night, the SNRM will usually creep up to 7dB during the day and hence a comparative reduction in speed to when a resync is done during the day when the SNRM holds at 6dB due to a lower SNR at sync time.

It's possible that output power could be controlled by an ISP and hence sync speeds could vary between differing ISP's on a line with the same interleaving depth, SNR and SNRM at sync time?

My SNR is steady at 5.9dB. Downstream attenuation is 28. And yet I only sync at 13,416Kbps, compares to 14,047Kbps when I was with ADSL24.

Now, that maybe doesn't sound that bad - but consider that originally after the move to Coms it was syncing at only 12,274Kbps down. In order to get it back up to 13,416Kbps my SNR had to be changed from 9dB to 6dB and I removed the ring wire from my master socket. If I'd done both of those while with ADSL24 I'm sure I would have synced at faster than 14,047Kbps.

To me that sounds like your router and the Coms DSLAM are less compatible than your pairing on ADSL24.

I thought the ISP had little to do with your actually sync speed, as its between your home router and the exchange so before it even hits the ISPs routers?

Certainly in coms/adsl24 case where they both use TTB

Your right as a general point, I agree. What I wouldn't be sure about is whether or not the same TT DSLAM or line card would be used.

I'm probably talking rubbish, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility, given that we aren't aware of any other reason for a difference.

Well, as guinea pig number three, I can confirm I have just migrated from Coms LLU to Xilo LLU virtually hitch free. Just had to manually reboot the router and add the new login details and away we went! For some reason I remained connected to Coms even though migration was done.

Initial results look very good with some of the best speeds I've ever had!
Long may it continue!

Woody

Yea not sure why you can still connect to both old and new ISP, but happened with ADSL24/Coms migration

It happens a lot on BT Wholesale-based ADSLx. It will be the same cause here.

On BT Wholesale your login details are fed to an authentication centre (I think that's what it is called) which routes them to the ISP indicated by them. The losing ISP will usually not delete your account until a bit after they receive the Openreach notification of a completed migration, but the gaining ISP will normally activate the new one before the expected migration.

On TTB, if as has been said there is no real change other than an internal accounting one, I expect the same applies. Don't forget that on these connections they probably aren't a resold TBB product, but hived off the TT network at some stage to the backhaul provider for the vISP, Coms or xilo/uno. So both logins could work for a while, and there is no physical disconnection to wake you up.

yea, that make sense bob (both,lol)

Despite having migrated on the 9th and having given notice in April, my Coms account today still showed the service marked "active". Left a ticket and received the reply:

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Please accept our apologies our system has been update to reflect your migration."

It's probably best to make sure Coms acknowledge the migration before and after it occurs.

1471 now fixed. Had to be actioned by a third party it seems.

Next up: Usage reporting errors. Looks like offpeak time is being metered.

Are you on a metered TTB package Woody? If so, are the usage stats accurate?

i am also doing an mpf migration to xilo. I am due to complete on 16th May. will report back my experiences but at the moment i cannot wait to be back with a decent ISP

Mole, I am on unlimited, which appears to be about right usage wise

I'm on Xilo's 50GB package, which was more than enough with ADSL24. It's still counting usage 24 hours a day. Support said they'd investigate 10am yesterday but I've heard nothing since.

I also noticed that my Coms account was still showing the old Complete DSL product status as active. Sent Coms a ticket, to which they replied:

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Please accept our apologies our system has been update to reflect your migration."

No idea how this affects their billing, but it may be worth ensuring they acknowledge the service has been terminated.

Edited by deleted (Wed 14-May-14 22:00:56)

Did Xilo email you the new Login details before the migration? Mine is due today and haven't had any emails so im worried!

Login to this page using the email and password you chose when signing up, and you should see the details for your Xilo broadband account.

https://my.xilo.net/xilo/adslsummary.php

That worked great thanks!

Another successful migration to talk and surf from coms complete.

The activation date was Friday but it wasn't until Monday that it actually worked because of the manual intervention required by TTB. My profile did reset on the Friday just before midnight to the default 12db fastpath but the router wouldn't log in with the Xilo details at that stage.

Still awaiting Coms to close my account and bill me. I informed them of the activation date which they replied to saying they'll sort the billing and account when I've confirmed a successful migration. I've kept them up to date but it's slightly early to expect an answer just yet.

It's going to be interesting to see how that final bill looks beings as they accidentally refunded me the other month (they didn't update the billing when I wanted to cease the line and then changed my mind when Vivaciti started saying they could migrate for free).

Edited by deleted (Mon 19-May-14 10:56:15)

I suggest sending Coms a ticket requesting acknowledgement that the migration has taken place and that your package has been discontinued. My account was still listed as being active in the "My Details" section a few days after switching.

Thanks, have done

Xilo have replied that when a TTB connection is migrated, usage reporting can sometimes be initially incorrect, but that it stabilises at the start of the first full month. They also say that I need not worry about being penalised for seeming to go over the bandwidth limit.

Edited by deleted (Tue 20-May-14 10:54:56)

Good to know. Having just checked, mine seems to be behaving the same.

I left Dead Space 3 downloading late last night and noticed that 8GB of the 10 it was counted towards my usage today.

Edit: actually more like 6ish..

Edited by deleted (Tue 20-May-14 20:21:02)

Another successful migration from coms to xilo talk and surf. Like a previous poster here, my migration was delayed from friday to monday - supposedly due to lack of time on the part of a BT engineer.

however, everything now seems fine and xilo actioned a request to alter my line profile - noise margin from 12db to 6db, like lightning.

coms have also acknowledged the cease and the fact that my final bill may include a credit ,although i did already have an open ticket with them which dated back to my complaint regarding unilateral change to my ts and cs to include throttling. Since line rental and broadband is billed monthly in advance, there should be a credit and only calls should need to be paid for.

Coms allowed me to leave despite the fact that i was still within a 12 month contract, for anyone who might be interested. To coms credit on that point, they did not quibble (that is the only point that they can receive a credit for of course!). The throttling is still fully in effect at evenings and weekends ,with usenet and torrents blocked in all but name with speeds of no more than 2kbps. How they will have any customers left, paying more for Coms than they would have to for any standard isp with a throttling/fair use policy, is a mystery to me.

I am also on the xilo 50gb usage package so i will follow with interest whether the peak stats do become more accurate once we get to the first full month (which will be from June 1st)

I received an invoice from Coms on 22nd May showing that an amount would be refunded. As nothing had arrived in my account by today, June 2nd, I dropped them a ticket. They replied that their financial manager had been informed and I later received confirmation that the refund would be paid in 3-5 working days.

Anyone been refunded without recourse to prodding?

I also received an invoice showing an amount to be refunded on the 23rd May, I also received a ticket update on 8th May telling my service had gone live with new provider and I quote below ;;
"Good Afternoon,

We can see your line is with your new provider as of the 8th of May.

Please be advised your account and service with Coms have now been deactivated fully. Your next and final invoice should be issued to you around the 23rd of the month for payment on the 1st. Please read carefully as this invoice may be a credit back to you for services you've paid for but not used. This should process automatically if you have a direct debit in place with us, if not or if there are any issues with the refund, please call in at: 01457 6000 24 for billings dept to process your refund via BACS.

Kind Regards,
XXXXXXXXXX
Coms ServiceDesk "

I cancelled my DD on 2nd May and as yet have not been refunded, so have chased them up.

Edited by deleted (Tue 03-Jun-14 16:18:34)

Just chased them up, what a palaver. They do refunds once a week apparently and should go through this friday.

You should never cancel DD until settlement has taken place.

Coms today issued a refund to my credit card, which was my last payment method.

So far, apart from the well known major outage on May 15th which was beyond their control, I'm very happy with Xilo. The only thing lacking, in comparison with the old ADSL24, is a way to view ongoing phone usage. I'm guessing this may be a limitation inherited from their supplier.

I migrated from Coms to Xilo on the 26th May, yet I see from my bank account, they took a full months payment out on the 2nd June. I've raised a ticket and hopefully I'll get it refunded asap.

Hi,

Another Coms to Xilo defector here!

My connection has gradually been slowing down and it wasn't until I read an old post of mine on here that I realised just how much by. When I was with Vivaciti, I was hitting 11.5Mb/s consistently. My latest sync rates are around 9.8Mb/s! I can account for a comparatively small percentage of that, when I switched to fastpath but, that should only be around a 600Kb/s hit.

I'll be live with Xilo on 16th July if everything goes well. Can't wait!

Paul