Rural broadband query - what to go for?

Hi,

We're moving next week to a place that's a little bit out in the sticks. Currently we have Virgin cable broadband, but it looks like we cannot get that at our new place.

The exchange is EASTM: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/EASTM

This is a pic of what it says we can get: http://imagesocket.com/view/internets182.jpg

Basically, BT ADSL and Max; AOL, TalkTalk, Sky-Easynet, & Tiscali LLU's.

We don't do an awful lot of downloading, and any we do can generally be done overnight, if that helps. At the moment there is no gaming going on either, but that will change in the winter when the new WoW/CoD games come out, so gaming is something that should probably be considered.

By the looks of it our house is just under 4km from the exchange, and it says we're unlikely to get above 1Mb ADSL.

Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

Edited by deleted (Mon 02-Aug-10 15:03:03)

Any recommendations?

If you plan to have Sky TV etc then you could get Sky LLU broadband (avoid Sky Connect broadband), although it can now be obtained as a package on it's own.

Sky

Xilo/Uno use Tiscali wholesale (might depend on current setup in your exchange) to provide LLU packages.

Xilo

You will find comments on Xilo in the resellers and other providers forum as well as some of the other forums.

Edited by Apprentice (Mon 02-Aug-10 16:15:32)

As suggested it will probably work out best going for sky if you have sky tv, if you do not, it may be best looking at other providers, I would suggest going down the LLU route in order to bypass BRAS profiling which will only hinder your connection speed on a 4km line.

I would also suggest, when you move in, seeing what the face plate is like, if it is of a newer type with removable faceplate, I would get a filtered faceplate for it, also ensuring that you remove any ringwire. Best place to look when tweaking your connection is here - http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm

I would also suggest that the router you use will make a difference too, I use a dg834gt on a line 3.6km straight line distance from the exchage, BT wouldn't guarantee me 0.5mb originally, I now sync up at just over 2.5mb and on the checker it states:

Standard ADSL RAG results

* You cannot receive 2Mbps ADSL
* You cannot receive 1Mbps ADSL
* You can receive 512kbps ADSL
* You can receive 256kbps ADSL

I'm in Suffolk too we're just getting out of the stone ages, I'm waiting for FTTC and have been for some time.

Edited by deleted (Tue 03-Aug-10 12:02:41)

Thanks for the info guys. I don't think we'll be getting Sky TV, so I work it out as follows:

Sky - £21 per month

Unlimited usage
Free evening/weekend calls
Sky line rental

Xilo - £27.10 per month

Unlimited usage
Free weekend calls
BT line rental

So obviously the Sky one is a bit cheaper even without the small discount you get as a TV subscriber, and you get free evening calls. But with Xilo, presumably you are likely to get better customer service if something isn't right? Are there any other advantages to Xilo over Sky (apart from the satisfaction that comes from not lining the Murdoch coffers)?

benbird7 -- thanks for the info on the faceplate tinkering. The house is only two years old so presumably it is likely to have a removable faceplate? I had looked at the BT iPlate gizmos -- do they set out to do much the same thing?

I have been using a Buffalo Nfiniti WZR-HP-G300NH cable router. I was planning to continue using that for wireless and then just get something like a Thomson Speedtouch 516 to act as the ADSL modem. Is that a sensible plan?

I have been with Xilo for over a year now and they are great, in terms of speed and support. Although standard office based hours for telephone support their tickets are normally replied to within a matter of minutes. I could go with Sky and have their LLU with having sky tv it would actually work out quite a bit cheaper for me, but I would rather pay the extra and get the good service I do.

I see no contention and although I route through C&W LLU if you went through Tiscali, I doubt you would see any difference. I don't know whether they can set it up so that they incorporate the line rental too? I think that may of been with Talktalk though.

You've got to work it out on your own circumstances, like what the lines going to be used for and whether it would be worth paying the extra, as sky from what I've read do provide a decent connection and given the difference in price, it may be better for you.

With either ISP this may be worth noting:

You can get relatively cheap dg834gt's off ebay ex sky etc for next to nothing if you get it right, £15-20. If you then flash this with DGteam firmware it gives you more advanced settings like being able to tweak modulation, and reduce SNR margin plus other things.

You will note on the modulation frequencies adsl1 and adsl2 both operate on a 1.1 MHz frequency, but adsl2+ works on double that at 2.2MHz, on longer lines this can really lead to instability issues as it's more susceptible to background noise and a reduced sync rate, so would recommend going on the adsl2 instead of adsl2+ if you do get that router and tweak your modulation, but still trialling between the two to see what offers the best in terms of speed and reliability.

Edited by deleted (Tue 03-Aug-10 15:02:41)

The xilo unlimited package is through C & W which you can't get.

The LLU 75 is the Tiscali one and probably better than the C & W unlimited.

Xilo support seems to be first class.

Re the faceplate it sounds as though it will have an Openreach logo, instead of the older BT one. If so it is already ring-wire filtered so an iPlate/Accelerator is unnecessary.

I reckon rather than a Speedtouch modem you would be better on this line getting one of the Netgear ADSL routers benbird7 recommends, even if you just use the modem facility and bridge through to your Buffalo. My reason for saying this is that if the line is fairly clean wrt transient noise you could tweak the speed up a bit from the standard, whereas with the Speedtouch I doubt if you can. You certainly cannot tweak recent Speedtouch ADSL routers.

IIRC Sky require you to buy one of their own firmwared Speedtouch ADSL routers, but I could be wrong.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

IIRC Sky require you to buy one of their own firmwared Speedtouch ADSL routers, but I could be wrong.

Sky give you a free router. Sometimes a Netgear, sometimes a Sagem.

They don't seem to ask for it back at the end of the term either.

Matt

In reply to a post by benbird7:

You can get relatively cheap dg834gt's off ebay ex sky etc for next to nothing if you get it right, £15-20. If you then flash this with DGteam firmware it gives you more advanced settings like being able to tweak modulation, and reduce SNR margin plus other things.

Don't forget it is dead simple to tweak with DMT or through the CLI, more finely than with DGTeam I think. Doesn't that go in 10% steps like the DMT slider? DMT CLI Tab works like true CLI. I use various intermediate settings depending on my mood.

The only advantage of the DGTeam is the preservation of the tweak through a power-cycle. The disadvantage seems to be, as an observer, that recent versions are proving a bit dodgy compared to v849 and earlier.

Thanks Matt. Must have changed then. I felt it might have done.

I'm not sure Sky have ever charged for the router and/or used Speedtouch?

UK Online used to make you buy their Netgear router for their 2+ services.

Matt