The sad reality of ADSL Max (IMO)

I have now been on ADSL Max since April. After the initial training period my once rock steady 2MB connection increased up to just over 4MB but was no longer steady.
It dropped a couple of times a day, not really a problem because the router sorted out the reconnects and it was hardly noticeable. The speed slowly decreased and the drops increased until it became unusable.

After a few weeks and several rounds of ticket tennis the line once again became rock steady with only one dropped connection over a week, speeds were good at a shade under 4MB. Unfortunately this was not going to last. Although the connection is solid the speed is now sub 1MB.

I have got past the blame Plusnet syndrome, in fact I have lost interest in the whole issue. In my opinion the Max roll-out was the greatest mistake ever and is the biggest self inflicted wound BT and the Broadband industry could ever inflict on itself.

For all of you lucky enough not to have been downgraded to 'Max' enjoy things has they are while it lasts.

I can no longer be bothered to raise tickets or waste time doing various tests. My system is O.K. up to the pole outside, that's when it goes pear shaped and the excuses flood in.

I think now is the time for me to move on to other pastures and look back on Broadband as one of life's less enjoyable experiences, When it was good it was very very good, when it was bad it was carp.

Well that's my whinge for this month and if things don't improve it will probably be my last has a Broadband customer.

Well people like you are in the minority, Max has been great for me and i know of dozens of people who have gone from d/l at 240KB/sec to around 680KB/sec and over!, i just got a steady 580KB/sec on a torrent actually.
It's been 100% stable and since i upgraded from my 100% 2mb line, i wasn't expecting to get near my sync speed most of the time like when i was on 2mb, and i haven't, but it's near it all the time in the off-peak period when i really get the GB's chewed up so it's all good.!

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-Aug-06 17:24:37)

I usually get speed from 4.5 Meg to 6.5 Meg. Seems fine here.

36 lines upgraded so far,

1 issue which turned out to be an exchange fault was fixed within a week.

All lines see full speed whenever i have tried them ... day and night.

cannot complain at all about the upgrades.

In reply to:

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1 issue which turned out to be an exchange fault.

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I am sure that most problems are at the exchange rather than with the ISP. In my case I am stuck with the exchange and can't blame the ISP.

they probably are at the exchange, however getting someone to sort the problem out, without jumping thru hoops seems to be the sticking point as far as i can see

At the wholesale level nothing stopping you being moved back to a fixed speed product again.

Rate Adaption can have oddities with some ADSL hardware, and too often there are little fixes/tweaks in firmware that fixes or breaks things in this area.

If the sub 1Mbps line sync (we are talking sync and not download speeds?) is due to disconnects and attempts to force a higher target noise margin, was it the case that occassionally your old 2Mbps would drop sync?

Andrew

In reply to:

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If the sub 1Mbps line sync (we are talking sync and not download speeds?) is due to disconnects and attempts to force a higher target noise margin, was it the case that occasionally your old 2Mbps would drop sync?

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Let me explain a little better. My post yesterday followed an horrendous trip on the motorway system of 472 miles lasting over ten hours. I arrived home, found my much needed connection was messing around again which delayed me completing a project!
I was a little miffed to say the least.

The sub 1meg speed mentioned was download speed.
My sync speed was 5807 and is now 3808
my MSR was 5000 and is now 4000 and does drop to 2000 on rare occasions.
My 2Mb connection never varied.

I realise it is rate adaptive, but just how low can it go?

Whilst I was away I used my fathers system, he is with NTL (not my choice, at the time I requested a Plusnet connection and they were less than helpful to say the least. There was a problem when my son also tried to go with Plusnet, The rep we spoke to was most obstructive, my son is on AOL now)
When using my fathers cable system which is on 1Mb it seemed far faster than mine is on a good day, Pages resolved faster etc. With his system been a lower spec than mine it seemed rather strange.

I thought NTL use web proxy caches for port 80 traffic

Bob

'Well people like you are in the minority, Max has been great for me and i know of dozens of people who have gone from d/l at 240KB/sec to around 680KB/sec and over!, i just got a steady 580KB/sec on a torrent actually.'

It must be really good to be that smug but if you check the plus discussion boards you will see that there is a fairly vocal 'minority' complaining about maxdsl. I have been a plus customer since 2003 and i never, ever had a problem with there service until the maxdsl upgrade it simply is nowhere near as stable as my old connection. When you have download speeds of sub isdn 2 levels ther eis an issue, my ticket has ben open since May of this year, this is a BT issue not Plus's and as i read in the original post it wasn't a pop at Plusnet (although they could be a little more responsive!).

I have transferred out and gone to NTL 10mb I couldn't be happier absolutely rock solid and away from the ageing network supplied by BT.

cheers,

LAnce.