Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.

harryagain wrote:

Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?

Unless your exchange has any unbundled providers the speed you get from
all ISPs will be identical as it thwy will all be using the same
equipment. see the exchange checker here ...

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

Some ISPs have sharper teeth as far as persuading Openreach to fix
faults, and improve service to the largest extent possible.

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.

Switch to AAISP if you want world-class gnawing at BT's balls, but they
can't turn 5 miles of damp mouldy string into 50 yards of gleaming
copper or fibre.

Do not expect them to be cheap, but if you're not a heavy user, their
revamped usage-based tariffs don't look as painful as the old ones.

http://aa.nu/

I have AOL

That's no surprise.

It's ****e.

That's no surprise either.

harryagain wrote:
Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

Maybe. The speed depends mostly on your distance from the exchange,
though old wiring from the exchange to you can have an effect.

I use BT, in spite of the extra cost, because they can't do the buck
passing that other ISPs have been known to try. *All* the stuff in the
circuit is theirs, from the server to the router.

Some prefer cable companies,lke Virgin, and if you're in their area,
it's faster than phone company broadband.

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

Ask for a line test, but be aware that if it shows your line to be
clear, you may be charged for it.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=aohell

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

harryagain wrote :
My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

Your neighbour's line might take a different, shorter route back to the
exchange. Your line also might have a fault on it - have you tried a
'quiet line' test? You dial 17070 I think and listen to the menu.

Have you tried disconnecting everything and plugging the router
straight into the faceplate at the master socket?

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

harryagain wrote:

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently.

I'm no expert, but I was having similar problems,
and found that replacing the modem/router provided by my ISP
(Telecom Italia) to a Billion modem/router (5200RS)
cured this problem completely.
(I changed my Telecom Italia modem twice before going over to Billion.)

On the other hand, I had much worse problems in Ireland,
and in that case my ISP there replaced the last section of wiring
(from telephone pole to house)
and that cured the problem completely.


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:10:45 +0100
"harryagain" wrote:

Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be
faster then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently.
My neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.



There are two (at least in a simple layman's explanation) parts to
broadband speed.

The first part is the physical line speed between your router
and the exchange (I presume everyone knows how to DIY the bit from
router to computer for best results). This is mainly determined by the
length, routing, and quality of the wire, which is the main determinant
of the signal to noise ratio - a router (and the dslam in the exchange)
needs about 6dB of noise margin to recognise and decode the signals.
Even at 6dB there will be errors, and than means retransmission and
hence slowdown. This is the bit that moving from one ISP to another
can't affect. Moving to a different supplier of hardware means you may
get a better dslam in the exchange, but it can't do much about your bit
of copper. 'Better' here means better noise discrimination, i.e. it can
did the signal out of more noise. Cable is just a different bit of
wire, and a much better kind all together.

The second determinant is what the ISP does with your connection, and
here there is vast differences between them. The contention ratio is
one thing that matters - how many connections share the connection
between exchange and servers or how much bandwidth the ISP buys from
your exchange to their servers. The speed of their DNS lookup system
(you can use your own, and this helps), makes a difference to when
pages first appear, but not to, say, iPlayer speed. Throttling is also
an issue. I would be interested in scientific comparisons of ISP's in
these respects, but I have not yet found one.

I buy a business broadband from TalkTalk Business, which seems to me
much better than my neighbours, but then my bit of copper, or my
router, or by chance the dslam that I'm on might be the reason.
Although I'm a km further away from the exchange, I'm a km nearer the
main road, so I might have less noise on my longer line than them. But
I think that my 20:1 contention ratio is probably the thing, they are
all on 50:1.

I'm sure that's mostly twaddle, but it's how I understand it.

R.

In article ,
TheOldFellow wrote:
On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:10:45 +0100
"harryagain" wrote:

Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be
faster then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently.
My neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.



There are two (at least in a simple layman's explanation) parts to
broadband speed.

The first part is the physical line speed between your router
and the exchange (I presume everyone knows how to DIY the bit from
router to computer for best results). This is mainly determined by the
length, routing, and quality of the wire, which is the main determinant
of the signal to noise ratio - a router (and the dslam in the exchange)
needs about 6dB of noise margin to recognise and decode the signals.
Even at 6dB there will be errors, and than means retransmission and
hence slowdown. This is the bit that moving from one ISP to another
can't affect. Moving to a different supplier of hardware means you may
get a better dslam in the exchange, but it can't do much about your bit
of copper. 'Better' here means better noise discrimination, i.e. it can
did the signal out of more noise. Cable is just a different bit of
wire, and a much better kind all together.

The second determinant is what the ISP does with your connection, and
here there is vast differences between them. The contention ratio is
one thing that matters - how many connections share the connection
between exchange and servers or how much bandwidth the ISP buys from
your exchange to their servers. The speed of their DNS lookup system
(you can use your own, and this helps), makes a difference to when
pages first appear, but not to, say, iPlayer speed. Throttling is also
an issue. I would be interested in scientific comparisons of ISP's in
these respects, but I have not yet found one.

I buy a business broadband from TalkTalk Business, which seems to me
much better than my neighbours, but then my bit of copper, or my
router, or by chance the dslam that I'm on might be the reason.
Although I'm a km further away from the exchange, I'm a km nearer the
main road, so I might have less noise on my longer line than them. But
I think that my 20:1 contention ratio is probably the thing, they are
all on 50:1.

I'm sure that's mostly twaddle, but it's how I understand it.

That's essentially it - when using the BT Wholesale network (and BT
Retail are just one of dozens of ISPs who use the wholesale part)

So the bit between you & the exchange is usually "fixed" in that there's
little you (or the ISP) can do about it - without BT Openreach changing
the copper or doing a "lift & shift" at the exchange.

The next bit - over the BT Wholesale (BTW) network is also relatively
fixed too - however from time to time, some exchanges do get more
congestion than others.. One thing to note though - BTW offer ISPs 2
levels of throughput over this network - standard and elevated - this used
to be 50:1 and 20:1 contentions, but they did away with that a few years
back and now offer minimum speed guarantees for a percentage of time
(it's something like 2Mb/sec and 3Mb/sec for 90% of the time respectively,
no matter what your sync speed is - even up to 40Mb/sec FTTC AIUI)
Some ISPs do not use the elevated services fron BTW (they cost more,
obviously!), and still sell "business" grade connections - in this case,
it's giving you more bandwidth rather than less contention over the BTW
network. (So beware!)

Finally - the handoff from BTW to the ISP an this is where I reckon
most of the slowdowns happen - the ISP doesn't have enough capacity,
or they simply run a bad network.

The LLU operators are somewhat different - in that they cut-out the BTW
part, but I don't think many of them have actually published contention
ratios, etc.

There are other factors too - broken kit in the exchange, the dreaded
"stuck bRAS profile" problems, but these are rare.

In general, you get what you pay for... An ISP offering services for
£9.99 a month is very probably going to have a busier network than an
ISP offering services for £19.99 a month, but hopefully the latter will
provide better support, well-defined caps/limits and so on, rather than a
"wooly" set of T&Sc and AUP.

Gordon

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:10:45 +0100, harryagain wrote:

Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

As others have said, it does depend on your ISP, as the ADSL
connection from you to the exchange is typically over the
same Openreach maintained route. Some ISPs are more ready to
log a fault with Openreach and then to manage the fault
intelligently whereas others seem to only act as a barrier
to this part of the service. The ISPs, BTinternet, who are
a separate company to Openreach, and AOL are in this second
category in my experience. For an independent survey of
ISPs, see
www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php . Here you can see the
difference in the speed ratings as seen by users. Some ISPs
throttle their connections at their end which can result in
a fast ADSL line have a poor data throughput.

In my case, and others I've helped fix, the route for the
ADSL to the exchange can have a mix of cables such as the
old copper going to houses have all sorts of old, noisy
equipment, the dreaded aluminium, installed after the War,
through to newly installed copper serving new houses having
modern equipment. Fortunately I wasn't on the aluminium but
was on the old copper. My connection was intermittently bad
causing a high SNR margin setting and slow speed and the
initial visit by Openreach didn't find the fault. My ISPs
(A&A) refusal to accept this got them to come out again for
an extended test, checking or replacing all the components
on the way to the exchange. As a result of this, my ADSL
speed was almost doubled and the intermittent gone when they
switched me onto one of the new copper cables installed for
the new estate nearby.

Before logging the fault with A&A I had replaced my ZyXel
router with a Billion and tested my end of the ADSL
connection with the router connected directly into the
"test" socket of the master connection with no "ADSL
filters" in the circuit (they aren't necessary for an ADSL
only connection, since they only do anything on the phones
side). This eliminates all the private in-house wiring,
which will be blamed if at all possible. When Openreach were
on-site, I never let them connect my wiring to "check it
out" since, once they do that, it is a chargeable call since
they have worked on your part of the installation. I'd also
got graphs of the ADSL performance when the intermittent was
active, so could show the line deterioration.

You will find the ADSL link even goes down on a perfect
connection where a link restart is needed, due to work being
done on the exchange equipment or on the route to your ISP.
This shouldn't impact your connection speed settings as the
better modem/routers can handle these very quick
disconnections whereas the older ones may need a manual
reconnect.
--
John W

In article ,
harryagain wrote:
My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.

You need to check to see if the ADSL connection is still working at these
times. If not, that's a fault. It should work at all times and at a (near)
constant speed.

Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.

That could well be nothing to do with your actual connection.

--
*Why isn't there mouse-flavoured cat food?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"harryagain" wrote in message
...
Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.


I am with Plusnet which is really good, it should be though as it is owned
by BT, and my neighbour is with TalkTalk. She is always complaining that she
could go to work, return home, put the kettle on, have a shower and her
dinner before it connected. She has talked to TalkTalk who refuse to
acknowledge that there is a problem.

Sounds like sort of speed of the old Sinclair ZX81's.

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:57:36 +0100, the_constructor wrote:

I am with Plusnet which is really good, it should be though as it is
owned by BT,

Sorry, I don't see the connection.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

"Andy Burns" wrote in message
...
harryagain wrote:

Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?

Unless your exchange has any unbundled providers the speed you get from
all ISPs will be identical as it thwy will all be using the same
equipment. see the exchange checker here ...

Even if they use the same exchange equipment they can vary widely in speed.
They can have different provisioning on the various links that can slow them
down below the speed that the BT part allows.
Different ISPs will throttle traffic in various ways, even the ones that
claim not to (it is quite possible to throttle at the ATM layer for
instance).

On 13/08/2011 08:10, harryagain wrote:

Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

Yes and no.... ;-)

The sync speed (i.e. the number of bps the router reports) will be
largely dependent on the distance from the exchange. You will get some
variation with different hardware etc but not a huge amount.

What the ISP does with the traffic after that can make a difference -
but if you are downloading at close to your sync speed anyway, a good
ISP will not miraculously make that go any quicker.

Where you will see a difference is in the level of service offered, the
speed at peak times and so on.

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.

Sounds like you have a line fault. Does restarting the router fix it
when its going slowly?

Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.

Indeed, it is, and I wouldn't!

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"harryagain" wrote in message
...
Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.

As others have pointed out there are other issues that come into play as
well as distance from the exchange incl.

Throttling ... unless you are on unlimited & uncapped .. you will not get
full service

Contention ratio ... BT typically overbooks a DSLAM circuit by a factor of
20:1 on domestic use ... which really tells at peak times.

IP Profile ... you may well have a service capable of for example 4Mbps ..
but if the IPProfile is set to 2Mbgps that is the maximum you will ever
get.

If you want to se what BT has set your IP profile to be run this test and
look at the result text:
http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

harryagain wrote:
Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT should be faster
then broadband from say AOL?

yes, and no.

Or is it all down to geography?
yes, and no.

If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

yes, and no

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently. My
neighbour is unaffected this way.
Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

1/. change providers because:


I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.


2/. then get new provider to report line fault. With luck they will spa
pairs till you get a decent signal.

(I did this with a fault that seems to have been at the exchange:
however on the way to proving that, i've doubled my speed. BT is not my
ISP).


The yes and no is because there are two limiting factors to actual real
world speed - one is the bottleneck caused by the actual line to the
exchange and changing providers wont make that any better, though
changing wires may. . The second is a function of how cheapskate the
provider is at having other bottelnecks in their system.

Timothy Murphy wrote:
harryagain wrote:

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently.

I'm no expert, but I was having similar problems,
and found that replacing the modem/router provided by my ISP
(Telecom Italia) to a Billion modem/router (5200RS)
cured this problem completely.
(I changed my Telecom Italia modem twice before going over to Billion.)

+1 on Billion. Little known, but good stuff. Love mine.

On the other hand, I had much worse problems in Ireland,
and in that case my ISP there replaced the last section of wiring
(from telephone pole to house)
and that cured the problem completely.


+1

same here..got a +5.5dB SNR boost following two visits by two engineers.
Didn't fix the problem, but it was a faster problem!

On 13 Aug 2011 12:12:44 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:57:36 +0100, the_constructor wrote:

I am with Plusnet which is really good, it should be though as it is
owned by BT,

Sorry, I don't see the connection.

I'd say Plusnet is good /despite/ being owned by BT.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 17:40:33 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

On 13/08/2011 08:10, harryagain wrote:

Is there any technical reason why broadband from say BT sgould be faster
then broadband from say AOL?
Or is it all down to geography?
If I changed providers could it be any faster/better?

[snip]

Sounds like you have a line fault. Does restarting the router fix it
when its going slowly?

It does sound like a line fault. Get this sorted out first. There's
no point considering other factors until this is rectified.

Sometimes it's nearly as slow as dialup was.
I live in a rural area, we only had broadband about five years ago.

I have AOL BTW. It's ****e. Don't buy.

Indeed, it is, and I wouldn't!

Neither would I.

--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:57:07 +0100, Mark wrote:

On 13 Aug 2011 12:12:44 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:57:36 +0100, the_constructor wrote:

I am with Plusnet which is really good, it should be though as it is
owned by BT,

Sorry, I don't see the connection.

I'd say Plusnet is good /despite/ being owned by BT.

That would be more like it.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 15/08/2011 23:21, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:57:07 +0100, Mark wrote:

On 13 Aug 2011 12:12:44 GMT, Bob wrote:

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:57:36 +0100, the_constructor wrote:

I am with Plusnet which is really good, it should be though as it is
owned by BT,

Sorry, I don't see the connection.

I'd say Plusnet is good /despite/ being owned by BT.

Indeed - I had fears that BT ownership would knacker them, but they do
seem to have retained most of their original advantages.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"John Rumm" wrote in message
news
On 15/08/2011 23:21, Bob Eager wrote:
On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:57:07 +0100, Mark wrote:

On 13 Aug 2011 12:12:44 GMT, Bob wrote:

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:57:36 +0100, the_constructor wrote:

I am with Plusnet which is really good, it should be though as it is
owned by BT,

Sorry, I don't see the connection.

I'd say Plusnet is good /despite/ being owned by BT.

Indeed - I had fears that BT ownership would knacker them, but they do
seem to have retained most of their original advantages

When BT purchased Plusnet, they told them that although they owned then they
would still be able to operate without any interference from them. I forget
the exact wording but in a nutshell that is what they meant, which is
probably why they have such a good reputation.

In article ,
Timothy Murphy writes:
harryagain wrote:

My broadband connection keeps dropping out, more and more recently.

I'm no expert, but I was having similar problems,
and found that replacing the modem/router provided by my ISP
(Telecom Italia) to a Billion modem/router (5200RS)
cured this problem completely.
(I changed my Telecom Italia modem twice before going over to Billion.)

I have 4 ADSL lines, and I have found that the modems do seem to
have limited life. Some die completely, but others just drop in
performance. If you have one which is over 4 years old, you might
want to think about changing it anyway.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

(Andrew Gabriel) writes:

I have 4 ADSL lines, and I have found that the modems do seem to
have limited life. Some die completely, but others just drop in
performance. If you have one which is over 4 years old, you might
want to think about changing it anyway.

I certainly don't have your experience of ADSL gear, but for most
hardware that would be rather odd behaviour.
Do you know of any mechanism which would explain it?
Leaky electrolytics seem unlikely.
Some kind of accumulated malware might explain it, but that also seems
unlikely.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
@ O n e t e l
J.R.R. Tolkien: . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

On 20/08/2011 04:32, Windmill wrote:
(Andrew Gabriel) writes:

I have 4 ADSL lines, and I have found that the modems do seem to
have limited life. Some die completely, but others just drop in
performance. If you have one which is over 4 years old, you might
want to think about changing it anyway.

I certainly don't have your experience of ADSL gear, but for most
hardware that would be rather odd behaviour.
Do you know of any mechanism which would explain it?
Leaky electrolytics seem unlikely.
Some kind of accumulated malware might explain it, but that also seems
unlikely.

Where I have had ADSL routers go tits up, its usually the line interface
side that dies. Possibly lightening strike related. It seems to be
location related. Some places have no difficulties, while others may be
on their second or third router in the space of five or six years.

Had one a couple of weeks back that seemed to have gone barking on the
network side - lots of timeouts and lost packets just attempting to ping
it or reach its configuration pages. However that was an unusual
failure, although it was at a site that has lost a couple of routers and
ADSL filters in the past.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/