Eclipse cut speed. Who can offer the same as I had?

Users will probably know that Eclipse recently changed supplier and in doing so reduced the line speed of a number of users..

I'm one of those users. I used to sync at approx 15-16 Mbps downstream, but now it's 8 Mbps.

Eclipse can't do anything for me, simply offering me fibre, or a few pence rebate and 1 Mbps upstream - not much use.

What has happened here ? I've tried to get an explanation from Eclipse but nothing is forthcoming.

I'm thinking of going to Sky, who offer ADSL Max from my exchange. Although Sky say I can expect between 9.5 - 16 Mbps downstream, I'm concerned that they might be able to only supply speed of 8 Mbps, as from what I read, this appears to be the theoretical maximum for ADSL Max.

Is it likely that anyone will be able to offer me a downstream speed of 15 - 16 Mbps again??

If your exchange is 21CN enabled then any BT reseller can offer the higher speeds.
If it isn't then your only hope is LLU - have Sky unbundled your exchange

Edited by deleted (Fri 21-Oct-11 11:03:37)

No sign of 21CN here, but Sky have unbundled here so they're looking favourable.

My worry is speed - BE seem to be the only ISP able to offer the kind of speed I had before, or can Sky offer it too?

Thanks.

Please can you post the link to what samknows says about your exchange, as we are shooting in the dark without it.

As a side question, Eclipse changed supplier? From and to? Or don't you know.

Here's what Samknows says about my exchange - http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/ESDAB

Eclipse don't say who they've changed to. Their e-mail said -



"Many thanks for your email, I am sorry to hear you are getting slower speeds.

I have spoken to my technical support team in relation to this.

What's happened is we have moved away form a previous supplier and moved to a better infrastructure for our core network.

This has affected a small number of customer speeds and yours is one of them, we are able to reduce the cost you currently pay to £12.56 inc vat and increase your upload speed up to 1 meg"

I believe Eclipse are no longer buying LLU services and are switching folk, where they can, to 21CN. I was so moved a few months ago and my speed went up 40-50%. However it's evident that where 21CN is not available then folk are being moved back to BT non-21CN services. Some win, some lose. For the latter it's not a very good way to keep customers happy, or to keep them at all.

Sounds a bit like Orange!

Eclipse used to take datastream (and then presumably LLU) wholesale services from Tiscali - now park of talktalk.
It appears that they are now solely using BT Wholesale.

Back in the day whe they first did this, you could opt out of having a line moved to the datastream network and be left on BT.

If I were to make a guess, the switch back of all lines might have something to do with (new?) opal LLU connections now having to by MPF rather than SMPF which doesn't seem to fit too well with Eclipse's business model.

In reply to a post by ionic:

If I were to make a guess, the switch back of all lines might have something to do with (new?) opal LLU connections now having to by MPF rather than SMPF.

(Opal is now called TalkTalk Business Wholesale). But since when do their wholesale connections have to be MPF? That used to be the case, but, for example, as far as I know vivaciti are offering SMPF through them. Possibly others are as well.

The others have explained what has happened - you have been moved onto BT IPStream Connect, the equivalent of the old ADSL Max, and capped at 8Mbps sync.

Your best option for the broadband itself on that exchange is Be. For best price, TalkTalk direct or Sky. (You no longer have to have Sky TV, and you can have Sky Talk keeping it a "BT line", or if you take Sky Line Rental it will be full LLU, which I don't like but you have to take Sky Line rental so full LLU like TalkTalk direct).

There are also a few TalkTalk Wholesale resellers, including such as vivaciti that I just mentioned, xilo/uno, and IIRC Aquiss.

All of these will bring your speeds back up, with Be probably marginally the fastest, particularly on clean lines where you can have it put on higher performance settings.

(Edit - I forgot about the "full LLU only" from 1 September. My thanks to boysteve for pointing it out to me).

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 21-Oct-11 23:12:23)