Help needed with next step away from BT!

Hello
Hoping to get some advice as we switch away from BT. We live in rural Kent and get 2.4MPS on a good day - with dropout issues - only 2 adults using it.
Fed up with BT so have been researching alternatives, especially as we are 2.8km from our local exchange and appear to not be getting fibre anytime soon.
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NDBET
I have been looking at VFast - http://www.vfast.co.uk and they tell me they do have customers in our area but not on our road. I don�t want to get my hope up as trees may be an issue. Speeds unto 24mbps which I find hard to believe but have read lots of positive stuff.

We are with SKY for TV but don�t believe we can get their higher speeds.
We are using a BT HH3 (3rd one as have needed replacements) and our average usage is 94GB/month but can be higher so we would like an unlimited deal though would be able to stay within any fair usage policies as its just netflix/internet radio/uploading photos to cloud (has taken 3 months to upload 15,000).

My questions are mainly - are we likely to have fibre anytime soon? (We are near Pluckley station, Kent just outside the council maps for upgrading 2017)
Is switching to wireless necessary? Can we do more in our home? New Hub etc (though i presume this won�t help with speeds)

many thanks
Alex

Moving from BT will not improve the situation unless you go to a wireless/satellite or Virgin media product.

2.8km - is that straight line or following the cable route? I would certainly be expecting more than 2.4Mbps if that is cable length - over 5Mbps for ADSLmax or over 6Mbos for ADSL2+

Improving things at home.

Ensure the modem or hub is situated at the master and not on an extension. Minimise any other electrical equipment close by. Ensure any extension phones are taken from the filtered side of the master and that the cable runs to those are "clean" - avoiding power cables and other devices.


Get an unused (if possible) 2-wire 2700HGV which BT supplied as their business hub (not the 2701). They are extremely good on long lines and for a stable line will drop the noise margin down to 3dB. You may then be able to squeeze out a few more hundreds of kilobits.

Thank you
VFast is a wireless product hence considering.
2.8km is the straight line length.
Thank you for the tips about the hub at home - over the past few years I have tried different things to eliminate issues but without much success. We don't have any extension phones.

Has anyone got any success stories with wireless in rural areas?

I know a small team who put together a rural wireless network out in Oxfordshire - yes successful however it is very variable.

A few questions to ask or think about...

What is the network topology? One or more central base stations covering the village? Or do properties that are too far away link to an adjacent property and then daisy chain back to the base station?

How far from the base station are you?

Is it single channel from te base station or multichannel with each covering a small arc?

What is the back haul capacity and how many users?

What is the typical latency?

Are there any small woods or clumps of trees or other buildings in the way?

How high would your antenna need to be?

What actual cabinet are you on?

Cabinet 3 which serves postcodes to the north of the station is live for FTTC and was done by Kent BDUK project.
Cabinet 2 is not in the current plans, might make it into phase 2 but you are so far from it that it won't help.

Someone 1/3rd the way between Bethersden and the station on VFast has recorded speeds of 15 Mbps down and 4.5 Mbps up via Vfast (not on maps.thinkbroadband.com) as the test was in 2014

2 to 5 Mbps is the estimated range of speeds I reckon for ADSL, so you are in the range. The key thing to assessing whether playing with different hardware is the attenuation, noise margins and actual connection speeds

In reply to a post by Toonlass:

We live in rural Kent and get 2.4MPS on a good day - with dropout issues - only 2 adults using it.
... we are 2.8km from our local exchange and appear to not be getting fibre anytime soon.

We are using a BT HH3 (3rd one as have needed replacements) and our average usage is 94GB/month but can be higher so we would like an unlimited deal though would be able to stay within any fair usage policies as its just netflix/internet radio/uploading photos to cloud (has taken 3 months to upload 15,000).

Is switching to wireless necessary? Can we do more in our home? New Hub etc (though i presume this won�t help with speeds)

Firstly, I'd be interested to see if you can find out what the actual length of your line is. Assuming there is some overhead line involved it could be easy to see the length but chances are it's much longer than 2.8km. That could help determine if your speed could be improved by much

Second, you say you have dropouts. This could certainly worth fixing as it can massively contribute to low speeds. It could be a problem with the router or damp or other faults on the line to your home. Eliminate the dropouts and the speed can improve markedly. You might like to download

http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/RouterStatsHub/routerstatsh...

and run the programme for a couple of days and then let us know how many dropouts there are and at what time of day. Make sure your home hub is not turned off for at least a couple of days. You'll soon see the scale of any problem. It would be helpful if you could leave your computer on 24 hrs during this test but it's not essential so long as you leave the router on. Just make sure you start the router stats programme as soon as you turn your computer back on in the morning

Depending on the results it could well be worth investing in a different router

This may help explain some of the issues

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm#attenuation

What does this checker give for your phone number? Please copy and paste the table and the line above it, but blank out your phone number. Don't worry about the table layout going a bit wonky. Delete a few heading lines, we know them by heart. Like this:-

Telephone Number xxxxxxxxxxx on Exchange STEPPING HILL is served by Cabinet 19

FTTC Range A (Clean) 60 40 16.2 9.9 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 50.2 30 15.8 7.2 -- Available

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 4 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 4 Up to 0.5 2.5 to 6.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 3 -- 2 to 6 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

Thank you for all the support - I will download and start to run the dropout checker. I have run something on my iMac before which seemed not to detect dropouts though we often lose wifi to our phones. We use PS3 to stream netflix and have issues but the apple TV is better - could this be a ps3 issue then?

Thank you RobertoS - see info below:
Telephone Number xxxxxxxxx on Exchange BETHERSDEN is served by Cabinet 2
Featured Products

ADSL Max Up to 1.5 -- 1 to 2.5 Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
For all ADSL and WBC Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) services, the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage.

This line does not have left in jumpers.
Throughput/download speeds will be less than line rates and can be affected by a number of factors within and external to BT's network, Communication Providers' networks and within customer premises.

The Stop Sale date for Datastream is from 30-Jun-2012; the Formal Retirement date for Datastream is from 30-Jun-2014.

It seems a little brief compared to your example but I think that is as there are less options to us. We are 'under review' on the cabinet for BT infinity but have been for about 6-8months now.

Alex

Is there a Mac OS version of the dropout checker you suggest?

Thanks

Is the PS3 using Ethernet or wireless?

Wireless
though when it doesn't work we change to wired with a bit more success

Not good then. See MrSaffron's comment about cabinet 2.

I can't suggest your next step, others are doing that well, but I can warn against two options. The Sky and TalkTalk "out of area" products, both of which have a very poor reputation for throughput speeds.

Yes so cabinet 2
I have read about the BDUK project and their maps show progress upto the train line but not just a field further to us - if we know that the prospects are not looking good then at least thats more reason to look at wireless

depending on your line length to the cabinet, Fibre might not help as much as you might think !

Looking at the map I can see that your cabinet is someway out of "town"

This map shows where your cabinet is http://i60.tinypic.com/ei9wtk.jpg

Edited by mlmclaren (Tue 25-Aug-15 13:39:41)

In reply to a post by MHC:

Moving from BT will not improve the situation unless you go to a wireless/satellite or Virgin media product.

2.8km - is that straight line or following the cable route? I would certainly be expecting more than 2.4Mbps if that is cable length - over 5Mbps for ADSLmax or over 6Mbos for ADSL2+

Improving things at home.

Ensure the modem or hub is situated at the master and not on an extension. Minimise any other electrical equipment close by. Ensure any extension phones are taken from the filtered side of the master and that the cable runs to those are "clean" - avoiding power cables and other devices.


Get an unused (if possible) 2-wire 2700HGV which BT supplied as their business hub (not the 2701). They are extremely good on long lines and for a stable line will drop the noise margin down to 3dB. You may then be able to squeeze out a few more hundreds of kilobits.

This is good advice

A Billion 7800 adsl router will give stable adsl without dropouts unless there are line problems. Not cheap but will give best performance on a long line. Using one of these I got my 5km line up to 5Mbps after BT had cleared some faults on the overhead wires. I also had a faceplate with separate sockets for broadband and voice to eliminate any interference within the home

The 2700HGV business hub can be purchased new for about £20 from fleabay and may be the way to go

The distance from the cabinet suggests as Andrew has said that the fibre difference may not allow the improvement you would expect

I don't know about a programme for router stats for Mac I'm afraid

Try plugging your router into the test socket behind the master socket faceplate and see if there is a difference in speed

https://support.zen.co.uk/kb/Knowledgebase/Testing-c...

Does your master socket have twin sockets, one for voice, one for broadband?

Do you have microfilters on your phones, sky box, etc. If so, how old are they?

Edited by deleted (Tue 25-Aug-15 14:04:05)

Its worth taking the time to sort out permanent Ethernet for the console, the extra instability of Wi-Fi is actually worse when you have slow speeds as for streamed (non-live) material there is almost no way for you to buffer a decent amount.

Nobody seems to have mentioned the ring wire. Have I missed something?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Nobody seems to have mentioned the ring wire. Have I missed something?

Haven't got that far!

Hello
Please forgive me if this does not make too much sense � I am also new to this and certainly do not understand the technicalities.
I live in rural Kent (Gravesend area), just 25 miles from central London and would be over the moon if I could achieve 2Mbs. My download speed is just about 1MB. I have no option but to use a BT line (although I rent it from TalkTalk). My desktop is cable connected to the main BT socket via a TalkTalk router. I have a �go faster� plate fitted to the main BT socket � I think it is a BT Infinity plate, but am not sure as I really do not understand.
Mobile broadband is not an option for mobiles are seldom able to access the network, and never from indoors. I have been wondering if I should go satellite. I understand that this should give me some 20MB. It would be expensive, but how reliable would it be? We have Sky TV (we have no choice � we cannot receive terrestrial TV � before we had Sky we had to go without) and find that it tends to break up in heavy rain. Any advice or guidance would be very much appreciated
Many thanks

Peter

Satellite is OK depending on what you need it for, no good for console gaming for example. Satellite installs can come with small or large dishes, so if an area that gets poor view of southern sky e.g. some trees slightly masking then the larger more expensive dish options are best.

On your ADSL the key step is to determine the actual line statistics from the modem, and if you are not on an unbundled exchange going with TalkTalk may be a poor choice, as they tend to only offer poor speeds due to not buying enough capacity. Without any details on your exchange or cabinet it is hard to say more.

You can get cabinet info from https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html
along with estimated speed.