Help Choosing the right LLU provider

So line went live yesterday with O2 LLU, the PRO package.

25dB line and an 18 meg sync rate, great.

I don't want to stay with O2, however. The router (TG585N) is RUBBISH, and they won't disable interleaving (enable fastpath).

Now I have lots of LLU providers on my exchange, O2/BE, Easynet, Bulldog / C&W, etc etc.


I am looking for an ISP that offers:

Uncapped ADSL 2+
No FUP / AUP / Bandwidth Limitations / Traffic Management
Ability to disable interleaving / enable Fast Path

I've narrowed my choice to:

BE Unlimited, Vivaciti LLU, or UKOnline.

BE had had a history of bandwidth issues which although now resolved, scare me.

Vivaciti LLU (C&W) is new and I know very little about it

UKOnline works best only with a very expensive router


I'll be buying my own router, so don't care what is included.


So what's best? I don't want to start the ISP Hopping game again, but nor can I stay with O2 if they won't disable interleaving and expect me to pay a premium for this appauling router.

Help appreciated

Well if it helps we have no problem with fast path and on a 25db line I would expect the line to be enabled as fast path to start with.

What a very strange post.

Your sig and Profile say Be* (Value), so I presume you went from them to Sky. What bandwidth issues on Be are you referring to?

What did you think of the BeBox when you had it?

On Be Unlimited and Pro you can disable interleaving yourself. Or a call to support is even better as another fault correction routine is disabled by them.You can also migrate internally from O2 with no problem.

How's the latency compared to anything you have ever had before? Your only complaint seems to be interleaving as you are happy to buy your own router with any ISP.

Why are you on Pro? That's the only premium you are paying, unless it was for the wireless N rather than the upload speed. If the upload speed matters then I only know of O2/Be offering it.

So what's the question? I doubt if you would seriously consider any of the etc etcs. Sky you just left.

And by the way, I believe if you get to the right level of support in O2 you can get interleaving turned off. This post refers to earlier ones I have also seen, but it's not my job to find them.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

What a very strange post.

Your sig and Profile say Be* (Value), so I presume you went from them to Sky. What bandwidth issues on Be are you referring to?

What did you think of the BeBox when you had it?

On Be Unlimited and Pro you can disable interleaving yourself. Or a call to support is even better as another fault correction routine is disabled by them.You can also migrate internally from O2 with no problem.

How's the latency compared to anything you have ever had before? Your only complaint seems to be interleaving as you are happy to buy your own router with any ISP.

Why are you on Pro? That's the only premium you are paying, unless it was for the wireless N rather than the upload speed. If the upload speed matters then I only know of O2/Be offering it.

So what's the question? I doubt if you would seriously consider any of the etc etcs. Sky you just left.

And by the way, I believe if you get to the right level of support in O2 you can get interleaving turned off. This post refers to earlier ones I have also seen, but it's not my job to find them.

Yes I had Be* Value at my mothers house and then Migrated to Sky and the migration failed.

I haven't updated my sig since before I migrated to Sky at Mother's house, so that's old and apols, it needs updating.

And again, yes you are right I am paying the extra for "Pro" so that I get the "N" router and not so that I get Upload Plus.

If I can get interleaving disabled after 11PM tonight then I'll be a very happy bunny and won't need to migrate away.

It's not just for the ping times, but also because on short lines that are error free, Interleaving decreases the sync rate a bit.

I'll see what O2 say tonight, if not then I'll have a rethink.

So what bandwidth issues on BE are you referring to?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

So what bandwidth issues on BE are you referring to?

The multitude of exchanges that were experiencing high latency / low throughput about a year / year and a half ago.


If you can't remember then you probably weren't affected, but the issues were widespread and BE took a while to pull their finger out.

BY the way - just got off the phone to O2 Tier 2, and they refused point blank to enable fast path.

They tried to fob me off by saying "I've spoken to my manager and he said that Interleaving protects your data".

I explained to him how interleaving works, and how it can increase throughput / sync rate on a long, noisy line, but actually decreases sync rate on a short, quiet line not to mention doubling my ping times.

I also explained that Vivaciti, UKOnline, and BE are able to offer me Fast Path but I can't migrate to BE because they don't accept O2 MACs, only the other way around.

So, I think I'll be giving Vivaciti a call tomorrow, clearly O2 don't want my custom!!

I thought my post might upset you and hoped it wouldn't. Seems it didn't.

I used to think that interleaving reduced connection speed on ADSL Max. I was wrong - it doesn't until you hit 8128kbps.

On Be there have been several reports of interleaving ON increasing the sync speed compared to OFF. The only explanation I can think of is that the BT DLM does it one way, and the Be DSLAM firmware does it another.

In a way it would make sense to allow a higher sync with interleaving, as interleaving greatly reduces retransmissions. It is therefore safe to allow more errors to occur due to higher speed as without retransmissions the overall throughput improves. Just the latency that suffers.

I hope you get somewhere with the phone call. Several have done, but I have seen just one who said he didn't get straight through to 2nd tier and didn't get a result when he did.

The other thing you can think about if you don't need/want the faster upload is to get Annex M turned off at the same time. Go back to Annex A. That should add about 2.5Mbps to your connection speed.

If you are familiar with the DMT bit-loading graph, Annex M grabs the bottom end of the download frequencies just above the upload ones, and uses them for upload. Therefore unless you are on the exchange doorstep you lose download speed.

Alternatively, if you still intend to buy your own router get yourself downgraded to Premium and save the money! (Towards the router).

Never mind...

... I tried, interleaaving tends to decrease the sync rate on short quiet lines under about 30db but increases sync rate on longer noiser lines.

Off to Vivaciti.

In reply to a post by izools:

BY the way - just got off the phone to O2 Tier 2, and they refused point blank to enable fast path.

That's right, they don't do fastpath.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by izools:

BY the way - just got off the phone to O2 Tier 2, and they refused point blank to enable fast path.

That's right, they don't do fastpath.

They have been known to. You have to get a helpful level 2 or above.