Sick of this MaxDSL - who still offers legacy conn

I'm sick of my poor dowload speed of 40k or below and with Zen offering no return to their 1mb product which was seeing me at 115k consistently for months, it pains me to say I'm going to move (not what I want to do really, but I have no other option).

Can someone please recommend an ISP which will give me my 1mb fixed line back?

Many thanks,
Rik.

just one question, how long have you been on max? and whats the problem?

Well firstly 40k is under BT's fault threshold, have you reported it?

If your minds made up about the jump ISP's I know of off the top of my head that are still offering legacy products are
AOL, Fusion and UFS Network there are more but those spring to mind

Edited by frontieruk (Sat 27-May-06 15:04:41)

I'm no sure how long i've been on max, I think it's around 3 -4 weeks. My problem is I was on the zen 1mb package running at a stable 110 - 115k. Then I stupidly thought the 8mb MaxDSL package Zen were offering would give me a faster speed (silly me). Since moving I have never seen a download faster than 50k, all online speed tests return around 40 - 48k. I've spoken with Zen support who claim that there is no problem (?!!!) and the fact I'm running at less than 1/2 the speed is "acceptable". Well not in my book.

I've tesed a different router/filter and am running from the master socket. I also live in the centre of Manchester so it's not lik I'm out in the sticks.

Requests to move back to my 1mb service with Zen are not possible, apparantly.

I love Zen and would really like to stay with them, even though they're more expensive, but I'm not prepared to pay 100% of the cost and receive less than 50% of my speed.

That's why I'm looking for someone who can provide me with my old connection again.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Rik.

What you need to do is:

Change your router/modem zen login details to:

User: speedtest@speedtest_domain
Pass: 1234

and go to http://speedtester.bt.com and do a speedtest. do 3 in the day so say 1 in the morning, afternoon and evening. Then ring zen support and tell them youve done these speedtests and they can see the resaults there end and when they see the speed is slow (40k) they can get bt to fix it

Or if you have hard-coded DNS addresses into your PC and can't get to the tester via URL, the relevant IP addresses for the two speedtest servers are listed on http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/btwspeedtest.htm

Is 40k 40kbits or 40kbytes? Seems to me it's more likely 40kbytes, but please confirm anyway (edit: "I was on the zen 1mb package running at a stable 110 - 115k." seems fairly definitive, but just to be 100% sure...)

What sync speed are you getting (speed between you and the exchange). Your modem/router will tell you. If you don't know how, post what modem/router it is and someone will know how

If as is likely your sync speed is 2271 kbits or under, then I'm afraid a throughput of 40kbytes is within BT's limits of acceptability.

You should also check your modem/router to make sure you're not seeing any line errors (CRC/FEC/HEC). These can slow you down too; the qualification limits pre-Max were set such that most folk never saw them, but with Max they're somewhat more common.

Edited by c_j (Sat 27-May-06 16:13:01)

In addition to the other ISPs that have been listed, I think Griffin still offer the legacy 1mb product.

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Can someone please recommend an ISP which will give me my 1mb fixed line back?

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I'm still on 'home 2000' and very happy with Zen. I may give the max a try in a while when things are better, but not sure.

If you really do want to leave Zen I can recommend a small but well established provider who offers 8 mb with limits also with limits of 120 peak, 330GB off peak or even unlimited 8 Mb speeds. He also offers the fixed line speeds of 512k - 1 Mb - 2 Mb and you can swap between any of them if you find one does not suit you. So, you can migrate to them at 8 Mb if you wish then change to fixed lower speed later, or migrate direct to one of the lower speeds.

Don't let the look of the website put you off,, it was designed for him at a great cost but did not turn out as professional looking as was expected, it will be altered in the coming months to reflect the professional ISP that he is. www.ruralinternet.com

edit. one month contracts and a fixed IP if you wish.
Second edit: Sorry guys, gave the wrong url. Its http://www.ruralinternet.co.uk/

Edited by deleted (Sat 27-May-06 18:14:20)

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Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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You might have a 512k BRAS profile setting holding your speed down. Ask Zen that question - "what is the BRAS profile data rate applied to my line". The answer should be divisible by 32 and fit into the table in the news archive on the main site here (0.5M steps).

What is your sync speed in kbits/s
What do the speedtesters say in kbits/s
What is your current download rate in kbytes/s