It looks like both the network & equipment upgrade has helped you out quite a bit.

Apart from the mast being changed, are you still using your original/supplied router? I opted to use my own Linksys WRT54GL + Tomato firmware when I signed up. With the prospect of higher speeds on the horizon, I’m looking at upgrading my router to an Asus RT-N16 (or something of similar spec) as it appears that the WRT54GL becomes a bottleneck on the higher speed Virgin Media cable connections.

Yes, definitely, my antenna has been re-angled onto a different transmitter but there are quite a lot of trees in between me and the flats where the transmitter is located (but a much shorter distance). Thankfully the transmitter is very high up so there shouldn't be too much foliage in the way - from what I've seen, even though the LOS isn't perfect the connection feels perfectly stable, time will tell on this especially when we move from winter to spring time next year.

Router wise, I'm just using a Netgear wireless cable router, seems absolutely fine to me. I've tried other brands of routers before but they've all broke after a years use. The Netgear' always seem to be the most reliable.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProduc... then click on "when we're planning to come to your area here" and the "South East"

"These exchanges will be enabled in 2012: Addiscombe, Blue Bell Hill, Burgess Hill, Canterbury, Crowborough, Herne Bay, North Cheam, Portsmouth North End, Ringwood, Southwater, Waterlooville, West Malling"

We have a connection at a rented house in Canterbury that has an obstructed LOS to the nearest mast (Neals Place Farm) which would stand to benefit when the network upgrade is in place locally. Our home connection has a clear LOS to the mast at Dunkirk so one less variable to worry about.

I'm guessing that information is still from Openreach data even though it's from BT Retail's site. I presume the next Openreach update will probably confirm this in time.

Oh well, at least it co-insides with the Digital TV upgrades for our area. Apart from VFast, Blean is in a digital black hole .

Edited by Yaz (Mon 01-Nov-10 17:39:01)

Hi Slimj,

Could you do a few speedtests to a few different speedtest.net servers and report back please. We upgraded some bachaul in thanet today.

Thanks in advance
Darren

Hi Darren,

Not a problem. Here are some results, not sure on how busy the network is at 9pm but it may be slower than normal.

Server: Ashford
Ping: 23ms
Up: 10.10Mbps
Down: 3.11Mbps

Server: Canterbury
Ping: 27ms
Up: 5.06Mbps
Down: 13.05Mbps

Server: Sittingbourne
Ping: 11ms
Up: 21.53Mbps
Down: 18.48Mbps

Server: Maidstone
Ping: 22ms
Up: 19.88Mbps
Down: 18.46Mbps

Some impressive looking speeds from Sittingbourne and Maidstone!

The 1GB test file from TB downloaded at a constant 1.8 - 2.2mb/s and took around 8 mins.

I also ran the test on Think Broadband, result is below. I'll run a few more tests after midnight when the network is quieter.

Cheers
James

Hi Darren,

Some further 'after midnight' test results for you:

Server: Ashford
Ping: 10ms
Up: 14.99Mbps
Down: 25.67Mbps

Server: Canterbury
Ping: 13ms
Up: 18.24Mbps
Down: 29.93Mbps

Server: Sittingbourne
Ping: 10ms
Up: 19.58Mbps
Down: 22.87Mbps

Server: Maidstone
Ping: 19ms
Up: 17.10Mbps
Down: 22.40Mbps

Hope this data helps.

Thank you,

I think those speeds might be down to the heavy use on the speedtest servers, i have done a test from your radio to our edge router tonight and got 67mbit

Thanks for your help
darren

hi Darren,

If you are using the same technology we use here, which i suspect you are from what people say then you will find you can get 60+Mbps using the UDP speed test facilities on the routers and using 20 threads TCP you would get similar (i am assuming over more than one hop here).

Due to the aggregation and QoS built in to those routers you will not get much more than 25 Mbps from one of the speedtest.net sites from the client radio if you have two or three links between your core and the client. (they use 4 threads typically, TB uses 1 as far as i know).

This is why we only offer faster than 24Mbps to customers 1 hop from the DC, even though there is far more available on aggregate (i.e. multiple clients can draw equal amounts each).

I would be interested in your 100 Mbps new headline figure too as i can only guess this is not using the same radios as they only have 100 mbps ethernet ports and a top unidirectional throughput of about 90 Mbps under perfect unshared PtP situations with multiple threads.

the aggregate to the client there will always be under 100 Mbps for obvious reasons.

If you want to discuss any of this then email me..

Cheers