Moving to 24Mbps - any thoughts?

I'm on f2s 2M at the moment but it's service is palpably deteriorating - the dead hand of Tiscali I would guess. So I plan to upgrade to a new speed and a new ISP. My front runners are:

Be unlimited - 3-month rolling contract and no included web email are the bigest turnoffs
O2 - Be's owners only go up to 20M but rest of offer looks good apart from the12-month contract opener
adsl24 - much recommended on the f2s forum but I have spotted a few complaints over speed and reliability recently. Like the 1-month contract though.

My thought is to start with adsl24 and if I don't like it there's not too much hassle to move on. Thoughts anyone?

Do you know if your stats support a full 24Mb? Most people's wouldn't. So, quite possibly the 20Mb limit on O2 would not be a limit at all.

Do you have your current line stats that you can post?

Your plan makes sense to me. If you post your stats we could give you a speed estimate.

John, what stats should I post (and where do I find them?)

Assuming your stats as requested by others already are OK for LLU above 6500kbps then I suggest you approach things the other way round but using O2 not Be.

O2 have a 30-day money-back guarantee, and it is also possible assuming you don't use that getout to get cashback from Quidco by signing up online through them. Email is included if you really want to use ISP email, which is always a nuisance at migration time when there are better cheap or free solutions.

At 6500kbps and above O2/Be LLU beats the ADSL MAx offering, or even the WBC one, from ADSL24 hands down. Four reasons. The obvious ones are that O2 is cheaper and unlimited.

The third is the lack of the profiling system which on ADSL24 (any IPStream or WBC) slugs you down in speed for several days if you get a lower sync than usual for any reason - even just connecting when it is dark. This effect is even worse if you are able to get the ADSL24 WBC (up to 24Mbps product) and run above 8Mbps on that, as the steps are 1Mbps at a time.

Fourth is the Entanet ALT system. Have you also seen the Centrals monitor - particularly 22:00-24:00 and at weekends. (I believe there will be an ALY system on WBC as well, but apparently they will have 20Gb capacity instead of 3.7Gb so it probably won't be called into play.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 08-Dec-08 17:10:56)

RobertoS a lot of that went way over my head but I think I get the gist. I do know that I am an LLU bsubscriber and I lve within a few hundred metres of the North Finchley exchange. Both Be and O2 say their test shows a max of 11Mbps on my line.

I should have been clearer, my previous post has clickable links for stats and estimate.

No problem. It is a bit complicated.

I see you are on a WBC exchange - that's BT's 21CN network and WBC allows up to 24Mbps the same as other ADSL2+ suppliers such as O2/Be. (O2 publicise it as 20Mbps but that seems to be because a line that can go higher than that is rare - I believe O2 actually lets you go higher if you can. But you can't!).

So you could have the 11Mbps from ADSL24 as well as from O2/Be.

Given that, the profiling system becomes important. This table might help explain what I mean. If your connection/sync speed is between the figures in the left-hand two columns, your actual maximum speed is limited to the figure in the right-hand column.

ADSL24 is subject to that table. O2/Be are not - you just (normally) get 80% or better of your connection speed. A very important difference is that if for any reason, and there are many, you ever sync below a profile boundary on ADSL24 then your profile drops immediately. Then it can take up to 5 days after you get your normal sync back for the profile to rise accordingly .

On O2/Be as soon as you sync higher then your actual maximum speed rises immediately.

You don't have this problem at the moment on a fixed speed line, but your actual connection speed is 2272kbps. Once you are on a Rate Adaptive line which you will be, your connection speed depends on the electrical/electronic noise levels at the time you connect, and these vary considerably over 24 hours. Noisy at night so a low sync, less noisy in the day so a high sync.

If you have a high sync it usually stays the same even at night. Unless the noise gets too much, then the connection drops and your router re-syncs at a lower speed to cater for the extra noise. Thunderstorms are very good at causing a loss of connection and a very low re-sync, but that is an extreme case. To get a high sync back you have to cause a re-sync yourself preferably in daylight. That's when the profiling or non-profiling systems make the difference.

All a bit long-winded, but I've tried to be as non-technical as possible. Hope it clarifies things a bit.

Okay, now I see! So using that handy page I entered the following figs:

Sync speed 2271 Kbps
Attenuation 9 dB
Noise Margin 31.1 dB

And got this result:

Your maximum line connection speed using an ADSL (up to 8Mbps) service is: 8128Kbps

If using a BT Wholesale Max product, then your expected IP Profile (sometimes called BRAS Data Rate) will be: 7.15Mbps

If your service provider uses ADSL2+ the maximum line speed likely is: 20800Kbps

With ADSL2+ the maximum IP throughput (result from a speedtest) is likely to be around: 18407


The range of ADSL speeds expected at this attenuation are 8128Kbps to 8128Kbps

Your ADSL2+ speeds are likely to be in the range 20800Kbps to 20800Kbps.

Gosh you must be close to the exchange. I'd still be tempted to start off with ADSL24 and then migrate to an up to 24 Mbps service if you decide you need the speed (or want the "unlimited" service supplied by Be/O2).