Moving home

Hello.

It is my first thread&post on this forum.
I have been ntl/virgin media customer for 7 years.
Right now, I have 20M/756K/£29 line.
Stable line. No throttling on eMule or binaries/usenet. Don't know about torrents. Unlimited downloads.

Unfortunately, I am moving home and VM is not present in the new area. I have googled a bit and found 2 reasonable packages.

BE
# up to 24Mb download speed
# up to 1.3 Mb upload speed
# only £17.50 a month on a 12 month contract and no connection fee

and

02 Premium Broadband
# superfast broadband with up to 20Mb download speed
# only £14.68 a month for non-02 mobile customers
# up to 1.3Mb upload speed
# unlimited downloads subject to fair use policy

Both seem like good packages. Both "advertise" unlimited downloads.
What I would like to know whether their service is good? Do they deliver promised speeds? Do they throttle any kind of traffic? Binaries is very important for me, I am paying for external usenet SP (astraweb (has nothing to do with my nick though ))

What would you say about the aforementioned deals?
Do you have any better suggestions/advices?
Thank you in advance,
A.

A few more things I forgot to mention.
I will have to subscribe to BT phone line, correct?

I have found that VM have some ADSL 8M and 16M packages but I am not sure how good they are and what upload speed is.

Either Be or O2 LLU are the flavour of the year. You probably won't do better. Search for user MKD who references a comparison document he has done.

Can you get Be/O2 LLU? See http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

Virgin ADSL is among the poorer ISPs.

You will need a phone line from BT and the speeds you get will depend upon your line distance to the exchange and unless you are very close will not be the maximums quoted.

As far as I am aware neither Be nor O2 throttle or traffic shape currently.

Thanks a lot.

How do I use the link you provided?
I entered post code, it told me:

Bedford SMBF Bedfordshire East

What does it mean? If click on Bedford, it gives me info about whole town, not just my post code...I think.

That means your post code should be served by exchange

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SMBF

which does have Be/O2 LLU.

(page down, LLU Operator presence on right of screen)

Another decent choice is Sky LLU, if and only if, you want to subscribe to Sky TV.

O2 and Be are both owned by Telefonica SA and both run at the exchange end on Be's equipment.

Be is normally regarded as the province of geeks (non-insultingly) and gamers. Users on the top two products can alter settings via their control panel such as target noise margin options and setting gaming mode.

Though in my opinion those aren't as good as using your own router and tweaking the noise margin, and phoning support to get interleaving turned of is more effective than gaming mode, as although that turns off interleaving, (so FECs), other error correction routines remain in place that support also remove.

If you are merely a normal or even heavy user and not gaming then O2 is probably the better choice.

The link to MKD's excellent document.

It is worth noting that BE's T & Cs changed in the last couple of days and by the sound of it are less favourable to customers. I haven't read them yet.

O2 T & Cs I don't think have changed. As they will have a much higher proportion of low-usage users I think it possible things will stay OK with them. Unless there is a mass exodus of heavy users from Be to O2 .

Thank you all for your replies. Very helpful!

Be is normally regarded as the province of geeks (non-insultingly) and gamers. Users on the top two products can alter settings via their control panel such as target noise margin options and setting gaming mode.

This bit is way over what I understand. Although, I m not a total noob, I didn't deal with ADSL up until now. I will get a good ADSL Linsys wireless router for myself but I am not going to tweak settings for the line itself. I don't understand them.

I will read through T&Cs of both of them before I choose any.

I found something very confusing today.

Exchange: Bedford (2196m away)
Availability checks
ADSL available at ~3Mbps
ADSL2+ available at ~3Mbps
Cable services not available

3M? only? What is a point for paying for 24M?
3M is nothing nowdays

ADSL bandwidth depends on distance, shorter lines are better.
If that really is your line length you should get around 15Mb downstream.
3Mb indicates a much longer line or perhaps aluminium instead of copper.

Yeah, I know it depends on distance. But the house is in the town. 15M would just fine. Is there any way to check it?

You really need to know the attenuation from the router when it's plugged in. I suppose you could ask a neighbour or the current occupier.

Did you get those numbers from the Samknows mapping engine? http://www.samknows.com/broadband/mapping/mapping.php

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Did you get those numbers from the Samknows mapping engine? http://www.samknows.com/broadband/mapping/mapping.php

Yes.

Well, the estimates are quite conservative there, but don't expect too much more - even double would only be 6Mb

You could try and guesstimate the actual line line length using maps.google to get directions from the exchange bearing in mind telephone wires tend to follow main roads and have a problem crossing railways and rivers. Armed with the line length you could read off an estimate from the internode graph http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/ad...

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Well, the estimates are quite conservative there, but don't expect too much more - even double would only be 6Mb

You could try and guesstimate the actual line line length using maps.google to get directions from the exchange bearing in mind telephone wires tend to follow main roads and have a problem crossing railways and rivers. Armed with the line length you could read off an estimate from the internode graph http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/ad...

OK. I will try it.
There is a railway line. Maybe it is the cause of the problem
Oh well...

Conisdering the new Be layout and a chance of futher restrictions to Be* users in terms of their conections (from my personal stance anyway) You'd be better of going with 02. And if the time comes you getting a PAYG mobile or contract with 02 then it would save you £5 a month in coin.

Ignore the checkers. When I first had broadband installed it told me I could get 0.5mbps. Yet I somehow managed to pull of 7mbps. All depends on attenuration and signal to noise ratios. Get those stats, and we can hazard a better prediction.

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

Ignore the checkers. When I first had broadband installed it told me I could get 0.5mbps. Yet I somehow managed to pull of 7mbps. All depends on attenuration and signal to noise ratios. Get those stats, and we can hazard a better prediction.

Cannot get anything yet. I have not moved to the new house yet. When I do, I will have to arrange BT phone line/contract, then I will be able to do something.

In reply to a post by astra_lestat:

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

Ignore the checkers. When I first had broadband installed it told me I could get 0.5mbps. Yet I somehow managed to pull of 7mbps. All depends on attenuration and signal to noise ratios. Get those stats, and we can hazard a better prediction.

Cannot get anything yet. I have not moved to the new house yet. When I do, I will have to arrange BT phone line/contract, then I will be able to do something.

The BT Retail checker tells me this:-

We've just tested your line and can confirm your line supports the UK's most complete broadband package, BT Total Broadband. We estimate your maximum download connection to be up to 4.0 Mbps (Megabits per second).

On a BT-based ISP I connected at about 6500kbps with actual download speed of 5000-5500kbps. On O2 LLU I connect at around 6800kbs with downloads about 5700kbps.

Sorry about confusing you earlier. What I was basically trying to say is if you do a lot of interactive gaming online where you are fighting other users then Be. If not, then O2.

Given the estimate you have got, even though it may be lower than actuality, then no point going for anything higher than O2 Standard, which is still the LLU ADSL2+ service just capped at 8Mbps. They connect you uncapped anyway during the first few days so you can see what the line can deliver. If it is more than 8Mbps you can just upgrade immediately. No charge, just the higher package cost.

In reply to a post by astra_lestat:

I will get a good ADSL Linsys wireless router for myself but I am not going to tweak settings for the line itself.

O2 and Be both supply a router ready set up for their service. No cost, all you have to do is return it when you leave, else they charge you £50.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Given the estimate you have got, even though it may be lower than actuality, then no point going for anything higher than O2 Standard, which is still the LLU ADSL2+ service just capped at 8Mbps. They connect you uncapped anyway during the first few days so you can see what the line can deliver. If it is more than 8Mbps you can just upgrade immediately. No charge, just the higher package cost.

I wanted higher speed lines not only because of download but also because of upload. I am sending a lot of high res. pictures to my brother, parents and friends and I need upload.
I will discuss 2 days uncapped options with my future provider (I understand it is unofficial).

I still don't get why/where is a difference between BE and O2 if you play online games?
I used to play UT2004 online but didn't play it for 1 year. Not enough time but I might come back. So, what is the difference? Better ping?

Regarding modem: I have noticed that they provide modems but I prefer Linksys. I like its interface and flexibility. I have configured quite a few of them.

Thanks!

Edited by astra_lestat (Sun 26-Jul-09 12:48:06)

Better ping

Yes.

The upload on Standard and Premium is identical. Pro takes about 3Mbps off your download speed in order to provide the faster uploads, and if the line doesn't get a download sync well over 10Mbps on Standard (in the first few days) or Premium then it won't get over 1.3Mbps upload on Pro anyway as it just won't be good enough.

It isn't unofficial. It happens to everyone, while the DLM is checking the best settings for the line.

Oh, I didn't notice that Standard has the same upload speed as Premium.
With estimated download speeds I see no point paying for premium then.
It is 1.3 for both BE and O2.
The price is almost identical, £1 difference. If BE's ping is better I would go for BE, unless The clamped down on fair usage which I am going to read right now.

Edited by astra_lestat (Sun 26-Jul-09 13:18:29)

I just read BE's 'Fair and acceptable usage policy'. It is what you call T & Cs, correct? Frankly, I didn't see anything draconian, such as 30G per month, or shaping P2P/usenet traffic. O2 does mention something like 100G per month.
However, I am totally inexperience in this kind of things and I could miss something important or read a wrong document.
What do you think?

The Fair & Acceptable Use Policy will form part of the Terms & Conditions (Ts&Cs) you sign up to - other parts will deal with more obviously contractual matters, such as early cancellation, contact length etc.

The Fair Use Policy is the one where you expect to see details of over usage penalties.

There is no limit whatsoever on O2, any more than there is on Be. Just a few people speculating that one might be introduced. They do that every 3 months.

Have you read MKD's O2 Be comparison?

The lower pings/latency on Be are not available on the Value product, nor the noise margin setting, though maybe through support. Lower latency is basically irrelevant unless you are an interactive battle-gamer. For normal users Interleaved is better as the error correction with it vastly reduces the number of re-transmissions needed due to errors. So for most people interleaved speeds up the downloads compared to Fast Path.

The two other salient ponts in my mind are O2 provides email if you are daft enough to use ISP-based email, but Be don't, and you have the initial 30-day getout on O2 that virtually no-one on LLU uses so far as I know.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Have you read MKD's O2 Be comparison?

I read it but not in details, just scanned for key features. Now I read it properly (sorry for being lazy).
Both ISPs have an accent on interleaving, unless you ask BE and they upgrade you to FastPath.
I am not familiar with ADSL terminology. I guess I have to update my CCNA a bit

I just checked my ping/latency via http://www.speedtest.net/ and it is 21ms. I believe it is a very good latency for battle games such as UT2004 that I used to play.
Would it differ a lot when I move to ADSL domain? Whould there be a big difference between interleaving BE/O2 and FastPath BE?

In reply to a post by astra_lestat:

I just checked my ping/latency via http://www.speedtest.net/ and it is 21ms. I believe it is a very good latency for battle games such as UT2004 that I used to play.
Would it differ a lot when I move to ADSL domain? Whould there be a big difference between interleaving BE/O2 and FastPath BE?

If you seriously intend to go back to that game then I think Be for you, but you might have to go for the "Unlimited" product rather than the "Value" to get Fast path. I honestly don't know. Maybe someone will tell us if you can get it on value by ringing support, or you could ring yourself.

Otherwise I feel all the advantages for most users are on O2's side. In particular many people find a way of getting the discount for associating the broadband account with an O2 mobile phone. It doesn't need to be your phone or even the same address, as long as you have the owner's permission and can get them to tell you the authorisation code to enter into the O2 web site when you put in the number. (The code is sent as a txt message to the phone).

I fished out an old rubbish Samsung and used it. I top it up by £10 once a quarter and nearly zeroise my BT calls bill. (500 free minutes from my post code area in month 1 of 3, use the £10 Mon-Fri daytime in the other two months - BT free Evenings and Weekends plan).

Others just build up a load of credit on the phone, that they will use when their existing contract with another provider expires.

OK...lots of things to think about.
Thank you very much for your help.

Post deleted by Sadoldman

Thanks Sadoldman