Possible migration from BT to BE, Eclipse or O2

Hi folks.

Apologies if this is in the wrong seciion of the forum.

My contract expires at the end of June and the faster LLUs in my exchange are BE, Elcipse and O2.

So my basic down/up stats are:
Sync - 7616 / 448
Attenuation - 20 / 20.5
SNR Margin - 27 / 15.5

According to The ADSL & ADSL2+ Line Capability Estimator I should be able to get up to 17000Kbps on ADSL2+ (but I am not sure whether this calculator is reliable)

My local exchange (Harlesden, London) is a 5-minute walk from my flat and is 0.4Km distance by road (0.2Km as the crow flies)

So, when checking possible speeds via the BE, Eclipse and O2 websites I am given the following figures:
BE - 8Mbps
Eclipse - 16Mbps
O2 - 8Mbps

I can't understand why Be and O2 would be so slow. I rang up BE and they told me that my cable length from the exchange (according to BTW) is over 2KM!!!

I would prefer to migrate to either BE or O2 due to their good customer feedback and unlimited monthly downloads as I am a heavy user.

Can anyone give any feedback on whether the O2/BE speedtest estimate is accurate or not. Also, with my stats above can anyone estimate a ADSL2+ speed for me please.

Thanks

This is one of the best estimators around and basically agrees with the high speed. I think the 20Mbps connection likely to be correct, but the actual download more likely to be 16500 - 16800kbps on O2 or Be.

Something is wrong with the line length estimate they have, and O2 is almost certainly from the same database. That will be a BT one, and they have more than one and they are often a lot different. Eclipse must be looking at the good one.

As long as you are on an ADSL2+ product the line will go as fast as it can, it won't check against the estimator first. (O2 Value and Be value are both limited to 8Mbps purely from a marketing aspect).

As long as you get an LLU connection from O2 or Ultimate/Pro from Be then it will be fine. If Be only offer the Value product you would be able to upgrade afterwards I'm sure. However I would go for O2 if I were you, as long as you go for Standard, Premium or Pro, not Access. The big advantage of O2 is the 30-day money-back getout. Also at the moment there is a free month, and £70 possible cashback by signing up through Quidco (make sure you delete all cookies first). Drawback is the 12 month minimum term. Look in the O2 or Be forum here for a post by MKD and follow the tinyurl link in his sig for his comparison of the O2/Be packages and deals.

Eclipse I would steer well clear of. That will be a Tiscali LLU connection. The sync speed will be similar or slightly lower than O2/Be as I believe they work on a higher target noise margin, (which is why they only estimate 16Mbps I reckon), but the actual downloads can be dire. Have a look through their forum as well. I haven't been there for a while myself.

If you see a lot of complaints in the O2 forum, those are all about the Access product that I said to avoid. First it is very overloaded at the moment, and second that really is an 8Mbps BT Wholesale product just like you are on now.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 24-Mar-09 05:13:12)

Thanks for the reply RobertoS.

Lol...We both used the same speed estimator...and got the same results!!!

As far as the cable length goes, I reckon I can go with what you are saying. It makes sense that the BT database which Be/O2 are using is giving incorrect information as I have spent over an hour speaking to various people at Openreach to confirm my cable length and no-one knows or is able to point me in the direction of someone who would know. All I do know is that 2km+ is way too much when I can see the exchange from my window...BT/Openreach really do need to improve in this type of customer support so they can answer questions from their customers...

I won't be able to get a MAC until April 28th at the earliest as my contract doesn't expire until June 28th so I will have to wait and see what cashback offers or other goodies are available at that time. I forgot about looking at Quidco or other sites about cashback offers so thanks for reminding me.

I am aware of the recent problems with O2 Access but have noted during my research that the feedback from LLU customers is far more favourable. Be feedback is also good. I was never really considering Eclipse due to to the generaly poorer feedback I have read but just mentioned them in my first post as they were estimating good speeds when others were not. I thinlk I will be going with O2 Premium. If I get reliable speeds of over 15000Kbps down and 750Kbps up then I will be happy. If I don't then I have always got the 30-day cancellation period. I'll sign up to an O2 mobile contract in the next 2/3 weeks so I can take advantage of the discount on the broadband which means I'll have the broadband at half BTs monthly rate and at (hopefully) more than double the speed, plus the money I save will pay for a large chuink of the mobile contract. Good stuff during the credit crunch ha ha.

Thanks also for the information re MKDs Be/O2 comparison.

I only wish we could keep our old email addresses when you change ISPs. Now that would be totally cool...

Need modem stats before you can even guess you'll get:

If I get reliable speeds of over 15000Kbps down and 750Kbps up then I will be happy

Even though you can see the exchange, your line stats may tell a different story.

In reply to a post by Gzero:

Need modem stats before you can even guess you'll get:

If I get reliable speeds of over 15000Kbps down and 750Kbps up then I will be happy

Even though you can see the exchange, your line stats may tell a different story.

Hi Gzero and thanks for taking the time to post a reply.

I included my basic stats in my original post. Below are the full stats from my BT Home Hub. Are they good, bad or so-so (as far as getting a fast ADSL2+ connection would be concerned)? Thanks

Uptime: 2 days, 10:06:19

Modulation: G.992.1 annex A

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 7,616

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/GB]: 106.05 / 1.51

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 11.5 / 19.5

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 20.5 / 20.0

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 27.0 / 17.0

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ALCB

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 1 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 1 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1,258

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1

Line Profile: Interleaved

In reply to a post by cozumel:

I only wish we could keep our old email addresses when you change ISPs. Now that would be totally cool...

You can.

Two, possibly three ways in your case.

I think BT will let you keep your email service for something like £1.47pm, you just access it through your new connection.

The other thing I believe they do is let you downgrade your account to dialup when you migrate. This also keeps your email account active, for free, and allows you to connect to it through your new broadband connection as well, but you have to dial into it at least once every 90 (60 now?) days else it just gets closed with no real warning. happened to me, I forgot once!

The best method is what I do. There are several suppliers but I like Purple Cloud as they have been near-perfect for me for over two years. There are free services like googlemail as well but I don't like them.

I have my own domain for £7.50 every two years. (Currently £7.34 because of the vat change). That's mydomain.co.uk or mydomain.me.uk.

Basic email to go with that is £10 per year and gives 10 mailboxes, unlimited aliases, POP3, SMTP, IMAP and Webmail, with Spam Assassin on the servers. So mailbox/alias@mydomain.xx.uk.

That's cooler still and is £1.15pm equivalent.

You could get that going today and notify all your contacts, change all subscriptions, store accounts and so on starting immediately. You start sending and listening on the new one and just listen on the old so that you pick up any you missed.

When you migrate there is absolutely nothing to change, no-one to notify. (Going to a few ISPs that block port 25 for SMTP to external servers, such as O2, you just need a once-off change to the SMTP ports in your email client accounts - or you could set them up with the alternative port to start with).

In reply to a post by cozumel:

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 448 / 7,616
Line Profile: Interleaved

Didn't read the rest of this thread, just noticed this. Ask whoever your isp is to switch off interleaving and you'll sync at 8128.

Edited by deleted (Tue 24-Mar-09 12:57:41)

The domain route with Purple Cloud (three links in my sig by the way) also allows free email forwarding of domain-addressed email to your ISP's email service. So all you pay for is the domain if you want to save the £10 per year.

I send an email to [email protected], (there are more to choose from than on .co.uk, obviously), and it gets forwarded to you@yourISPemailaddress. You set up your email (SMTP) accounts to say your email address and return addresses are the domain ones.

I don't think that is as good, as you are relying on both services working, and you do need to change the forwarding address the moment you migrate

In reply to a post by 12eason:

Ask whoever your isp is to switch off interleaving and you'll sync at 8128.

True, I didn't bother mentioning it as I thought an immediate migration was intended.

I wonder if BT would say that starts another 12-month term!?

@cozumel - just another thought following on from 12eason - if you got the £70/65 cashback from Quidco and the current free month from O2, you can buy out the BT contract and still be quids in and have the better service next week!

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 24-Mar-09 13:04:47)

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1,258

Line Profile: Interleaved

This interleave option. Please correct me if I am wrong or misinterpreting what I have read. I only looked at my stats for the very first time about six weeks ago when I had a problem with my connection and kept losing sync. I used 'Kitz' website (and others including thinkbroadband) to read up on the stats, what they meant, to troubleshoot my connection and prove to BT the fault was at their end so I could get a refund of the call-out charge and receive compensation. (I was successful and BT finally came out and sorted out the poblem at street-level. I have also been contacted on the phone by BT customer service and will receive a £99 call-out refund plus £40 compensation).

Anyhow, I'm wondering off-topic..back to interleaving...I have had 1,258 FEC errors corrected by being interleaved over the last 2 days and 10 hours. With interleave off these errors could have resulted in data being lost or corrupted meaning the data would have to be resent thus losing speed. I have no idea whether these errors would make my speed faster or slower overall but seeing how I am migrating soon I am not sure it really matters. If anyone could tell me what level of FEC errors would cause speed to drop below interleaved sync rate it would help me for the future. However, I don't think O2 has an option to turn off interleave but Be does.

Finally, my first paragrapgh was not meant to criticse BT too heavily. Overall they have offered me a reliable service. Their poor customer service and the poor knowledge of contact centre staff in both the UK and India are the thing that caused me stress. Because of their reliability I would probably renew my contract with BT If I didn't want faster speeds. The good thinkbroadband user ratings for O2/Be customer service has also been a (minor) factor in drawing me away from BT.

Edited by cozumel (Tue 24-Mar-09 15:39:06)