Does leaving Plus.net = better download rates ??

Hi all,

Sounds like a stupid question but, as above, would leaving Plus for another non-LLU ISP make any difference to your download rate ?

Or is it the case, as I suspect, that since you're still on the same line connected to the same exchange ... it won't make any difference at all ?

If I was to move to an LLU ISP is there anyway of seeing if the download rate would improve then ?

The other thing is kind of an issue .... leaving Plus would mean having to change my email address. Are they things I can do (websites, etc) such that if I leave Plus I can then have the same email address(es) - and not stuff like @hotmail or @gmail - for life regardless of which ISP I am on ? The emails would have to be accessible from Outlook/Thunderbird rather than through a website.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Regards,

Adam Brunt

Depends what you are doing. If it's HTTP (browsing and downloading files off websites) then it probably won't make a difference. However, if you do FTP, NNTP, p2p etc etc then you will be better off with a different ISP that doesn't have such harsh shaping.

Edit: Also on LLU, you're almost guaranteed to get a huge speed boost due to no contention, especially at peak times.

Edited by mr_mojo (Wed 01-Nov-06 22:17:36)

Another ISP - depends on what you download, e.g. if your use is something on a Plusnet bronze queue another provider may well be faster.

But in terms of line sync speed, if on a Max product it will be the same line speed elsewhere on Max.

Email - providers like One & One provide mail hosting e.g. [email protected]

Andrew

Adam,
If you use P2P then I think you will see a big speed gain if you
move to the right ISP..
I was getting 2KB/s on PN, when I rebooted router to new ISP
it shot up and an hour later was getting 100KB/s

P2P isn't a problem for me somehow ... for example last night, off-peak, I was getting 480kbps (unless uTorrent was lying to me)

I was capped at 2KB/s,
If I had that sort of speed on torrents,
I would never have left.

Ok my problem is .... i'm syncing fine (5800-6000) with no disconnection for weeks but during the day speed tests give a download rate rarely above 2500 [ This is compared to the 1900 I constantly got when on the 2MB fixed package pre-maxDSL ]

Is this low downstream rate due my connection with the exchange (contention etc), which as you say would only really be fixed by moving to LLU, or "the exchange to Plus", or a combination of the two ??

Regarding switching to LLU ... there's a choice of 3 according to Samknows for my exchange (THGG); Bulldog, Be (not due until 05/07) or Tiscali (which I assume would mean staying with Plus)

Now - if I knew LLU had the desired effect then maybe asking Plus to switch me might work. Is there anywhere one can find out what the capacity currently is on an exchange for BT and LLU ?

Also, I am sure I read somewhere it was possible to work out your potential LLU sync speed from your maxDSL SNR and attenuation. Is this correct ??

Edited by AdamBrunt (Thu 02-Nov-06 10:01:16)

To be honest I don't know why I (and plenty of others on here) don't have any p2p problems with Plus other than (i) I don't do it during the day, only between midnight & 8 and (ii) I don't use the default uTorrent port.

I am never sure if the speeds I get are that good ... for the 480kbps example, a 380MB file took about 10-15 minutes to download.

>> Email - providers like One & One provide mail hosting e.g. [email protected]

Thanks MrSaffron, I'll take a look.

Adam, if an LLU ISP would be better (if you pick the right one of course). For example, try and see if Be* is enabled on your exchange. They are a brilliant ISP. They try to offer 1:1 contention ratio to the connection. And you will probably get more than 6Mbit's (Sync rate) than the current ADSL1 line you have. Download speeds have drasticly improved, I haven't gone below 800Kbytes/s. And I go upto 1.4MByte/s on Newsgroups (Because of multiple connections).