Stay or Go ?

Hello All, i am currently with Pipex (for around 7 years now ) i am currently on a Fixed Rate 1Mbps connection and service has been fine, my issue is the fact i am paying £23 p/month and feel rather ripped off, my contract is up in June and was wondering whether to move to an upto 8Mbps, my concern was with the reliability of speed/ping e.t.c , in comparison to my fixed speed at the moment! I fancy O2 as i am in a LLU service area from them. P.S i also like online gaming so ping fairly important to.

My line stats >

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1152 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 46 db 13 db
Noise Margin 13 db 25 db

Thanks for any feedback !

In reply to a post by Simon_Pipex:

I fancy O2 as i am in a LLU service area

Do it! you'll get 6meg+.

Edited by deleted (Thu 05-Mar-09 17:51:40)

Its an absolute No-Brainer.....Migrate Now!!!!!

I`m on BE* , same network, brilliant. Not the best line, but I`ve gained a 50% rise in Sync & download speed.

Nothing wrong - the noise margin is low, so when estimating how much more speed you can get it not give a good figure. Hence why I also give a figure based on the lines attenuation, which is around 3800Kbps. Pays to read the full text.

The low margin is probably because you are on a fixed speed product, and power levels are held back

from www.farina1.com/adsl

Your maximum line connection speed using an ADSL (up to 8Mbps) service is: 1764Kbps

If using a BT Wholesale Max product, then your expected IP Profile (sometimes called BRAS Data Rate) will be. 1.5Mbps
The IP Profile is set based on the lowest speed seen in the last 5 days, it drops immediately, but may take 5 days to improve even if you reconnect at a good speed again.


If your service provider uses ADSL2+ the maximum line speed likely is: 7203Kbps

With ADSL2+ the maximum IP throughput (result from a speedtest) is likely to be around: 6374Kbps

It would appear your line is under performing with regard to ADSL, this may be due to issues like the ring wire, unfiltered equipment and other factors. Ideally you would expect to see connection speeds of 3800Kbps or higher at your attenuation

Your ADSL2+ speeds are likely to be in the range 4850Kbps to 7900Kbps. With the line under performing with ADSL, it is likely this will hold back any speed increases the checker is suggesting for ADSL2+.

If your ADSL or ADSL2+ connection speeds are slow for the attenuation of your telephone line then take a look at this guide to removing the ring wire from your extensions.

In reply to a post by Simon_Pipex:

Connection Speed 1152 kbps
Line Attenuation 46 db
Noise Margin 13 db

Do it!
But, with that noise margin (considering you're only connecting at 1152kbps), I suspect you'll be back on here, when you only connect at around 3Mbps (at which point, we'll be suggesting things like, try an iPlate, or an ADSL filtered face-plate, or removing the ring wire, etc.).

I would agree, move to a new service. What you can do is "lower" your line speed for stability. Some modems allow you to set the maximum speed to connect at, which if you are not happy with the default (ping speed), you can turn on.

Thanks for that, i believe O2 is ADSL2+, which should help with my poor'ish Attenuation and SNR correct me if i'm wrong! i got a 4Mbps availability result on their test page, so that should be ok, as to my noise margin i am connected via 15m extension lead, but cant really connect Router directly to main Phone socket as i want to continue using a wired ethernet network round the house and i'd have to relay all that. I have taken out my phones and that has moved the SNR to about 22dB for interest.

My main concern for the upto 8Mbps service is the "variability" of it e.g i've heard people going down to almost dial-up speeds when it's busy e.t.c which would drive me mad and make online gaming unobtainable. What your opinion on that ?

In reply to a post by Simon_Pipex:

but cant really connect Router directly to main Phone socket as i want to continue using a wired ethernet network round the house and i'd have to relay all that.

Better to run ethernet over the distance rather than the phone line. If you sign up with O2 they'll give you a new router, so just put that next to the master socket and run a single ethernet cable to our existing router connected as it is currently.

In reply to a post by Simon_Pipex:

My main concern for the upto 8Mbps service is the "variability" of it e.g i've heard people going down to almost dial-up speeds when it's busy e.t.c which would drive me mad and make online gaming unobtainable. What your opinion on that ?

That's the 8Mbps O2 Access (non-LLU) product not the 8Mbps O2 Standard (LLU) that you are going for.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 05-Mar-09 22:01:49)

In reply to a post by 12eason:

Better to run ethernet over the distance rather than the phone line. If you sign up with O2 they'll give you a new router, so just put that next to the master socket and run a single ethernet cable to our existing router connected as it is currently.

Great idea, I currently have a Netgear DG834G, so would i put the Ethernet cable from O2 box 1st socket to 1st socket on DG834 and then configure the router in some way to access the Web from that ? to my other PC's and Xbox ?

Thanks