Which ISP O2 or Sky

I am with eclipse at the moment and the service is little faster than ISDN speeds... I have requested my MAC code and am looking to move to a better ISP.� So far I think my best options are to go with either sky or o2.� I am a sky subscriber and my exchange is enabled for both sky and o2.
My stats are

Downstream
Line Rate 192Kbps
Noise Margin 26.3dB
Line Attenuation 50.5dB
Output Power 13.8dBm

Upstream
Line Rate 288Kbps
Noise Margin 26.0dB
Line Attenuation 31.5dB
Output Power 11.8dBm

It should be noted that my down load speed is typically less then 18kbps

I was thinking that the o2 8 meg service would be the best as it has no down load limits and is the cheapest if I use my pay as u go sim. but is the 8 meg service just a standard adsl connection or is it a throttled ADSL2+ connection.
What ISP would people suggest given the stats above.

I am 2.45km from my local exchange as the crow flies and 4.25km from the exchange if you go by road.

Thanks

Mike

The good news is that O2 is ADSL2+ throttled to 8Mbps.

The bad, and far more important news is that there is something seriously wrong with your line, and it probably isn't eclipse's fault. When did the speeds go bad, and what were they before?

You are actually connected to the exchange at 192kbps. Your attenuation is 50.5. So you should be connected at 576, 11nn or 2272 depending what service you are on. 512k, 1Mb or 2Mb? If on Max, then you should be at 4000+ down and 448 up.

Unless they have LLU'ed you. But that 288 upstream suggests a fixed speed service.

Have you got anything at all connected to the phone line not through a filter. Sky box, burglar alarm, XBox, any phones, anything at all.

Have a look here and do what it says re the ring/bell wire. While you have the socket open, plug your filter without a phone into the test socket inside and see what the connection stats are then.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 07-Apr-08 23:41:38)

Thanks for the advice,

I do have other things pluged in and one extension to the intruder alarm, I know all of my phones and my sky box are all connected through filters and I am sure that the intruder alarm is too although would need to open the box up to confirm this.

I have never had a consistanly good line with eclipse I did until recently get around 240Kbps down load which I think equates to the 2250 figure you qouted, I was getting 280Kbps when the line first synced for the 10 day period used to determin the stable line speed. I have not been too happy with eclipse for a while as most of the time best speed I can get is around 40-60 Kbps and I only get the 240Kbps in the middle of the night or very early in a morning.

I think I am on the Max product as its an upto 8meg service although a recent call to tech support they suggested moving me onto a fixed rate but wouldnt say what that would be. They confirmed that there was a problem with the line but refused to contact BT and have them check for a fault until I had replaced my router, all my filters my BT master socket and proved that there was nothing wrong with the extension wiring in my house. Hence the decision to switch.

I can get a much cheaper deal a new router and filters so I can rule them out. I can disconnect the extension wiring easily enough and test the master socket as you have suggested. I am hoping that I can get my new ISP to contact BT to check my line too so I can get to the bottom of the problem.

Incidently the the line was only syncing at 64Kbps recently and all of this started when I lost my ASDL sevice altogether around 1week ago, right when the eclipse status page was suggesting routine maintenance and some ADSL outage. Of course eclipse suggest this had nothing to do with the sudden drop in performance I am experiencing.

Regards

Mike

Don't get mixed up between sync speed and download speed. Download speed from download displays is often measured in kBps (kiloBytes)ps, whereas sync speed and speed test results are in kbps (kilobits)ps. You seem to understand that, but your post throws them around as though they are the same .

Your line in the first post was sync'ed at 192kbps. That doesn't even figure in the table of Profiles against sync speed. Note that any good sync you get can take 5 days to be reflected in your profile, and it is your profile that actually determines your download speed at any given time, not your sync speed.

A low sync causes an almost immediate drop in profile .

No need to disconnect any extensions, if you open the master socket and check ring wires as suggested before, then plug the filter into the test socket inside, that's what you need to do. All extensions should be wired to the back of the faceplate, that's the point . With luck sync speed will improve, but as just explained that's probably all. Download speeds will stay poor.

The burglar alarm sounds suspect. Specially if it is wired to the back of the socket not the faceplate.