Also does your router give you any line stats like Line Attenuation and SNR/Margin. If yu post those we can then see what you may be able to get on ADSL Max (The BT figure is not very accurate). Also, your SNR/Margin figures are more important in determining your speed on ADSL Max.

Show you what difference being in Northern Ireland with interleaving switched on makes!
This is from a Sky connection, so probably not much use, but just to show you what difference each ISP's routing and your location can make. I still reach the site fast though, so difference can be minimal.

Tracing route to sodburyhouse.com [77.75.194.21]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 63 ms 70 ms 63 ms cr0.nints.uk.easynet.net [87.87.251.228]
3 58 ms 60 ms 59 ms ip-87-87-167-161.easynet.co.uk [87.87.167.161]
4 73 ms 73 ms 73 ms be2.er10.thlon.ov.easynet.net [195.66.224.43]
5 82 ms 72 ms 73 ms ge-2-1-0.mpr1.lhr2.uk.above.net [195.66.224.76]

6 73 ms 73 ms 72 ms 213-152.240-2.PXu259.above.net [213.152.240.2]
7 82 ms 73 ms 74 ms gi2-1.thexcs2.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [87.236.9
5.246]
8 75 ms 73 ms 74 ms gi0-22.thexes4-1.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [87.23
6.95.226]
9 74 ms 76 ms 74 ms 77.75.194.21

Trace complete.

matt

In reply to:

---

Show you what difference being in Northern Ireland with interleaving switched on makes!

---

As was my result from above.

This one is from the West Coast of the Scottish Highlands, using a fixed speed 2Meg connection (fast path)
through a TG 585v7 router.

Tracing route to sodburyhouse.com [77.75.194.21]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 54 ms 99 ms 99 ms dsldevice.lan
2 34 ms 32 ms 35 ms rb4-lo1.core.global.net.uk [80.189.99.252]
3 41 ms 36 ms 33 ms rb2-ge0-3v405.core.global.net.uk [80.189.99.209]

4 35 ms 35 ms 38 ms po2.pte-gw1.plus.net [212.159.2.113]
5 38 ms 40 ms 41 ms te2-4.pte-gw2.plus.net [212.159.1.102]
6 33 ms 38 ms 37 ms fa2-0.thexcr1.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [195.66.2
25.21]
7 36 ms 37 ms 40 ms gi2-2.thexcs2.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [87.236.9
5.238]
8 37 ms 42 ms 38 ms gi0-22.thexes4-1.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [87.23
6.95.226]
9 39 ms 35 ms 36 ms 77.75.194.21

Trace complete.

Edited by Apprentice (Thu 01-Jan-09 22:07:46)

From Southampton on an interleaved business connection:

Tracing route to sodburyhouse.com [77.75.194.21] over a maximum of 30 hops

1 31 ms 98 ms 99 ms 10.0.0.138
2 28 ms 27 ms 28 ms lo0-plusnet.ptn-ag2.plus.net [195.166.128.53]
3 25 ms 23 ms 23 ms ge0-0-0-204.ptn-gw02.plus.net [84.92.3.93]
4 24 ms 25 ms 24 ms te2-2.pte-gw2.plus.net [212.159.1.106]
5 24 ms 24 ms 27 ms fa2-0.thexcr1.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [195.66.225.21]
6 24 ms 23 ms 25 ms gi2-2.thexcs2.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [87.236.95.238]
7 26 ms 23 ms 23 ms gi0-22.thexes4-1.thex.uk.provider-noc.net [87.236.95.226]
8 24 ms 23 ms 27 ms 77.75.194.21

Trace complete.

Ian

@Roberto

It is Clacton on Sea (Main Exchange)

@ Peter

Yup, the first router on the line, goes something like this.............

Connection Speed 2304 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 41.0 db 23.0 db
Noise Margin 27.8 db 24.0 db

Done a BT Test and it says that I should be able to get between 4.5 and 5mb download speeds

There is a second router hardwired via Cat5e on to the main router which goes into another area of the house to extend the WiFi capabilities etc...... but the stats for that one don't matter really for this.

Well checking your exchange from the other post you can get Sky LLU if you have or would like Sky TV, or UKOnline if not.

If you plug these stats into this fairly reliable estimator you get a forecast of 8Mbps on normal ADSL Max - where you have a choice of four well-known ISPs (on these forums) at the moment or Sky/UKOnline possibly 9Mbps.

My choice would be O2 Access - get someone in the family to have an O2 monthly or PAYG mobile and you are at £17.13pm., (subject on PAYG to a £10 topup every 3 months).

Otherwise IDNet or Zen. Newnet would also give you good speeds but probably not enough allowance at a sensible price.

This is what O2 said when I asked their website to check my line..........

You can get O2 Home Broadband Access

We've estimated that your maximum download speed is 5 meg. This is based on information BT gave us about your BT line. You're outside the network area that O2 Broadband covers, but all is not lost. We can offer you our O2 Home Broadband Access package. Actual download speeds depend on different things, like the distance between your telephone exchange and your home, or the quality of your BT line. We'll work with what's there and always give you the fastest speed we can, depending on your chosen package. Even then, your broadband speed might vary from time to time.

I really don't want anything to do with sky, I have found their "Customer Services" to be apalling in the past, so see no reason why their support should be any different for their broadband packages.

Which leaves me with Zen and IDnet to choose from?
IS THAT RIGHT?

Becuase I have read UKonline's FUP and they won't even mention what they consider to be fair usage, so knowing what you download is irrelivent if you don't know how much you can download !

Because I have not moved providers very much at all, since you could get on the web from home (although I sent my first email in 1976) I have no real in depth knowledge of what is out there...........

Edited by TrevorSP (Fri 02-Jan-09 17:08:01)

In reply to:

---

Which leaves me with Zen and IDnet to choose from?
IS THAT RIGHT?

---

No - Wrong!

All ADSL Max ISPs have only got BT's line length database and speed estimator to go on, and they would be foolish to use any other although it is well known that it is often way out. IDNet and Zen will see the same data as O2.

The crucial bit, which also applies to all, is "Actual download speeds depend on different things, like the distance between your telephone exchange and your home, or the quality of your BT line. We'll work with what's there and always give you the fastest speed we can, depending on your chosen package".

That is the whole point about ADSL Max. In terms of the connection between you and the exchange, (the sync speed or connection speed or data rate - depending on what your router wants to call it), it goes as fast as possible on any particular line at any given time. As a regular poster's sig used to say, (I can't remember who and haven't seen it for a while), it goes as fast as it can and doesn't look at the estimator first.

If you look at the graph on this page you will see it agrees pretty well with what the other one says about ADSL2+, and about 6Mbps for ADSL Max. Bear in mind that is an ISP site so they won't want to forecast too high! So I think you can assume 6-8Mbps connection, then a thing called the IP Profile comes into play, see this table. So you should get 5-7Mbps actual maximum download. Isn't that what O2 taking a conservative viewpoint said?

And as I say, the same is universal.

My reason for the list I gave was that all those give you consistently high speeds (barring faults anywhere) within your profile. Others in the well-known ISPs have various forms of speed-limiting at various times of the day and week as they do not have sufficient kit to cope with peak demands.

O2 is top of my list because:

- although it is a 12-month minimum term there is a 30-day money-back guarantee at the start, and they have recently upgraded to cope with their rapid growth, so it should be a while before significant problems occur. It is almost certain that some slow-downs will happen in a few months, depending on further growth and BT WBC roll-out and what plans they have made wrt WBC - we have no information - and I would be pretty certain they will already be planning to deal with any slow-downs like they have in the past;

- the service is truly unlimited which could be important in your case. There is an FUP but no-one has heard of it ever being enforced;

- the price is very low for what you get, compared to the other two known quality ISPs.