In reply to a post by lew87ys:

thanks guys you have been a real help. i think i am going to go with the 1st 02 package and the bt evening and weekend calls and if i feel i need to change to be unlimited its good to know i can

The O2 standard package is unlimited in every sense except that after a week or so, you'll be artificially pegged to 8M/1.3M speeds. This gives you the advantage of seeing what your line can do if you were to take a more expensive package.
You will need to ensure that your internal cabling and telephony equipment is in good order though as ADSL2+ uses a wider frequency range.

i cant get over 4meg now so i think that 8 is gonna be fine for me

also how do i know if my internal cabling and telephony equipment is in good order?

Edited by lew87ys (Tue 18-Aug-09 00:40:04)

You'll get UP TO 8M depending upon your line characteristics.
The simplest method of testing your internal wiring etc is probably to note your line stats from your current setup and then take a reading from the hidden test socket of the NTE5 (If available). If there's an appreciable difference in "attenuation" and or "SNR" or similar, you have a problem that needs fixing.
Using CW1308 or better cable, removing the "ring wire" from all sockets (Leaving only terminals 2 and 5 connected) and sensible cable routing will improve conditions dramatically in most cases. There's a pic here of an NTE5 along with directions for wiring.

Just to confirm what Deadbeat says, if you get 4Mbps now you are very unlikely to get any significant increase on ADSL2+. You will get a huge jump in upstream though.

Re the NTE5 wiring I prefer this link.

Re your expected download speed, all graphs about that are slightly questionable, but the second one on this page gives the sort of thing to expect. To find your attenuation from your modem/router if you don't know how look here. (That's the same link as Deadbeat gave you for line stats).

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 18-Aug-09 09:24:25)

i just got off of the phone with bt to get my mac code and they said that providers like 02 use LLU and its very unstable and speeds with drasticly decrease in peak times. is this true?? or are they just getting me to stay?

That can only be described as outright lying, or the person saying it is completely without any knowledge. In both cases they have no right to be saying it. Exactly the opposite is the truth.

"very unstable and speeds with drasticly decrease in peak times". Isn't that what all the complaints about BT in that forum here are all about?

The truth is that O2 offer two services - LLU and BT based. The BT-based one is dodgy.

The LLU one is excellent. All the reports you will see on here from O2 LLU users (barring genuine faults) are that their download is over 80% of their connection speed 24/7. The maximum possible is about 85% and most of us get over 83% nearly all the time.

Equally as good is their sister company Be. I believe also good are Sky/UKOnline/Easynet. TalkTalk is good for mass market such as BT serve - where no great performance is required.

C & W LLU through resellers such as vivaciti, xilo and aquiss are apparently more than satisfactory, though perhaps not through Demon.

Orange LLU some people report good, many report bad. Tiscali and its subsidiaries are dreadful by what we see here.

So with regard to those I suppose the person could justifiably claim that they are no better then BT. But O2 was specifically mentioned and it isn't so.

thats good to know then, they must have just wanted me to stay with them. i have my mac code now and 02 will be ringing me tomorrow to confirm my order. any idea on how long untill the switch will take place?

What are you doing ringing O2?

That has cost you £45! (Well it hasn't cost you, it has stopped you getting £45 cashback through Quidco).

Anyway - at least you made the right decision . You will be amazed how much better it will be. Which package have you signed up for?

wow thanks i forgot to do that. but today when i rang them they game me a email to use with 02 is it to late to get the quidco??

also i got the standard package because i cant get over 8 meg anyway

I reckon it's too late. The signup has to be completely online, and you are already signed up.

I don't reckon on any ISPs email either. It makes it a pain to migrate - so many people and contacts/shops to tell. Lots of people use googlemail and also lots buy ISP-independent email from places like Purple Cloud that I use, or 1 & 1 is very popular. Costs me £1.15 per month and I have my own domain. Nothing at all changes when I migrate.

On the Standard package they run it uncapped for a few days anyway, so you will be able to see what it can do. Then they cap it, but if it will do over 8Mbps you can upgrade.

Enjoy .