"Meltdown, eh? Laughing stock of Europe? It might be credible if there weren't still a few good ISPs out there who are still managing to keep their customers happy."

I'm seeing some effects on my Zen connection and my local exchange is flagged as red. I fired up E-Mule for my weekly fix of Battlestar Galactica and it picked up well over 1000 sources. Normally, the download rate sits between 40kbps and 160kbps and 350MB arrives in three or so hours. During peak time it rarely got above 25kbps.

Lots of PN folks aren't likely to see anything wrong with bronze queue protocols as the draconian rate-limiting and QoS keeps speeds down. Gold & silver, very possibly. The question is, what experiences are folks at all the other exchanges flagged as red currently seeing during peak time? If your exchange is red, can you max your connection continuously during peak time?

"If the exchanges are melting, why isn't it affecting all ISPs?"

I'll correct my last post. It isn't the kit that is running hot, it's the ATM Virtual Pipe (VP) from the DSLAMs at the local exchange to its aggregation point within the BT network. It's looking like BT have decided upon certain limits for the number of users on a particular size VP and are rigidly sticking to it. If this is how BT are going to run their ADSL network, then peak times around the country and going to be sluggish for many people for a number of years.

TT

'scuse me all,

but what does this mean from samknows about my exchange?

"BT have set a target date of Q4 2010 for the switch to 21CN for the ???????? exchange"



thanks

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2819