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Migrating Away From Plus Net ADSL
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
As far as I can tell plusnet have joined forces with Tiscalli and are usign their network where they can.
Ever since Plusnet said they were going to speed up the connection to anything up to 8 mb/s I've had no end of problems and 1mb/s is about as stable as it gets even though I only seem to be 540 metres from the telephone exchange.
Anyway I've given my 30 days notice and fromt he loks of it I might have to totally disconnect ADSL fromthe home line and reconnect as migration doesn't seem an option according to a lot of websites I look at when trying to sign up.
ATM I seem to have 3 main contenders to switch to.
1. AOL for £14.99 per month for 1mb/s which is basically the same as I get now with plusnet as I can't seem to be able to connect reliably at much more then that only difference will be no caps at all unlike plusnet that have a peak and off peak cap.
2. Sky Broadband for £5 per month (already have Sky TV)
3. Be Broadband for either £14 per month and 4GB limit or bit the bullet and shell out £24 a month for unlimited service.
Any thoughts and suggestions of other ISPs?
I like Plusnet but have put up with their antics for many months now, some times they change settings without prior notice and I can't connect for 7 or 8 hours. Now I connect but so slowly that download speed tests suggest I'm more like on a 512 kb/s connection then 1mb/s.
Any other ISP suggestions?
I don't want a telephone package (already have 250 minutes free on my mobile), don't want combined line rental really (but may consider it - parents pay for the line rental I pay for the ADSL)
Download and Upload about 20GB to 30GB on average per month, not too fussed about speed 1mb/s was fine for me, more reliability I want.
Ever since Plusnet said they were going to speed up the connection to anything up to 8 mb/s I've had no end of problems and 1mb/s is about as stable as it gets even though I only seem to be 540 metres from the telephone exchange.
Anyway I've given my 30 days notice and fromt he loks of it I might have to totally disconnect ADSL fromthe home line and reconnect as migration doesn't seem an option according to a lot of websites I look at when trying to sign up.
ATM I seem to have 3 main contenders to switch to.
1. AOL for £14.99 per month for 1mb/s which is basically the same as I get now with plusnet as I can't seem to be able to connect reliably at much more then that only difference will be no caps at all unlike plusnet that have a peak and off peak cap.
2. Sky Broadband for £5 per month (already have Sky TV)
3. Be Broadband for either £14 per month and 4GB limit or bit the bullet and shell out £24 a month for unlimited service.
Any thoughts and suggestions of other ISPs?
I like Plusnet but have put up with their antics for many months now, some times they change settings without prior notice and I can't connect for 7 or 8 hours. Now I connect but so slowly that download speed tests suggest I'm more like on a 512 kb/s connection then 1mb/s.
Any other ISP suggestions?
I don't want a telephone package (already have 250 minutes free on my mobile), don't want combined line rental really (but may consider it - parents pay for the line rental I pay for the ADSL)
Download and Upload about 20GB to 30GB on average per month, not too fussed about speed 1mb/s was fine for me, more reliability I want.
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We've been wanting to do it for over a year so far, but even with the promise of higher bandwidth and a small price drop those customers just aren't biting.
They left a message on my mobile phone about migrating back to a service provided by BT.
But now I've begun the process of actually seeing what else other have to offer I see Tiscalli themselves offer 1 mb/s Broadband plus free weekend called for £12.99 and UK Online which is unbundled in our exchange offer 1mb/s for £9.99 per month with no download limits and maximum contention ratio of 33 to 1 as opposed to BT provided line at 50 to 1.
Plusnet's most similar package has a 4GB per month download limit between the hours of 4pm to midnight so any big downslods I do after then. But not having this time frame with UK Online, AOL or Tiscalli would save me lots of time, more then even a 24 mb/s connection!! cos I'm no longer waiting until midnight to download big files.
I can't believe they removed the entire Easynet website and replaced it with a call centre.
At least with plusnet they've got a really good website and you can self manage most things from there, with sky you have nothing but some random person on the end of a telepehone and most reports are saying it can be a 40 minute on a national rate number to talk to anyone.
Also since you're sharing the line with other broadband users I'm sure if you go with someone really popular like Sky you'll see the speed slowing down at peak times. This is what happens to my next door neighbour with Orange Broadband, after 4pm it's useless.
And I've had nothing but problems trying to maintain a stable connection over 1mb/s - I don't know if the problem is my phone line or the equipment at the local exchange but they tried in June 2005 to get me on 2mb/s and it was useless, 1 mb/s worked well.
UK Online is offer 1mb/s unlimited for £9.99 per month - anyone use them?
http://www.ukonline.net/broadband/upto1Mb.php?sso_auth=0
The seem alright for what I need and they're unbundled where I live so the contention ratio is 33 to 1
I take it you work for an ISP?
Why do you want to take people off an LLU and back to BT? .. is the LLU unreliable?
What annoys me is my exchange is just down the road (800 yards walk or 540 meter in a straight line) and from all reports I should easily get 6.5 mb/s instead anything about 1mb/s and I'm getting an unstable signal, and this includes when being plugged into the master socket.
You got any suggestions for me?
Someone suggested on another forum dialing 150 and just saying the line is crackling just to get BT to investigate my line, we have had the same phone line for over 30 years, could the line just be old? i.e. maybe it's damaged somewhere along the line but you can't tell with a normal phone call?
We deployed LLU in exchanges BT said they were never going to do. As soon as we did, they changed their minds. As these are small exchanges, it isn't cost effective. Do you have any internal extensions? Have you checked that the monkey that installed them didn't use master sockets on the (there should be no capacitors in internal sockets) Have you disconnected all wiring from the master socket and tested?
It could be the line is aluminium. In which case you are stuffed.
That would be my dad (a retired telecommunications engineer) :wave:
In fact he ran a special new line direct from the master socket up to my bedroom where the modem is located to try and get the best direct link into the master socket instead of daisy chaining my router throughout the rest of the house and we kept the bare minimum of extra extensions.
And yeah I've connected it to the master socket - with nothing else plugged in except a Netgear DG834G modem / router. Tiny bit better but not much in the decibels.
My friend who also lives about the same distance from the exchange but in a totally different direction also gets no more then 1mb/s to 2 mb/s with Tiscalli but then again the next door neighbour says he gets upto 5 mb/s on a USB modem with Wanadoo/Orange
Anyway I've handed in my notice with Plusnet - so far my number one contender is UK Online's 1mb/s servce for £9.99 on their own LLU with 33:1 contention
I doubt I'd ever get more then 1mb/s reliably here, which is fine I guess. At east there's unlimited downloads with UKK Online unlike Plusnet which only gae 4GB between 4pm to midnight every day. And upto 50gb I think at any other times. Not having to wait until after midnight ot start big downloads is a big bonus for me even if the speeds are similar.
But also Sky Broadband is unlooped in my area, so dunno - I'm wondering if it's worth taking a risk with them for the £5 per month deal?
Some stats for you if that helps - house was built inthe 1930's - we've been here about 32 years no idea how old the actual telephone cable is or what it's made from.
HOWEVER I think we did have the master socket rerouted or moved (by a BT engineer) maybe 15 years ago when we had a front porch made, could this have affected the conenction?
If so how do we check?
I'm told I'm on the LLU and interleaved?
Modem
ADSL Firmware Version 4.01.02.00
Modem Status Connected
DownStream Connection Speed 1156 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 260 kbps
VPI 0
VCI 38
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 624319 663975 0 4270 4196 07:07:08
LAN 10M/100M 656274 626006 0 4587 4753 07:08:28
WLAN 11M 7221 0 0 92 0 07:08:17
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1156 kbps 260 kbps
Line Attenuation 57 db 12.5 db
Noise Margin 15 db 22 db
I don't suppose you could get him to disconnect everything at the master socket, just in the interests of eliminating the internal wiring - it'll only take a minute to pull 'em out, and another two to punch them back in
I think it was mid to late 70's that copper prices were so high aluminium was used instead, so I think you should have missed that.
yes, it could well have done - he may have extended the line, in which case there's a good chane of a poor connection. There could be a junction box somewhere - about the size of a modern mobile phone
I'd turn the Wireless off if it isn't in use.
15db at 1Mb/s is a fair margin - I'd expect that to be running at 2 (although not being able to see the margin at 2, I couldn't say wether I'd be happy at 2....)
I think I've found out why we connect so badly and why the signal starts becoming unstable above 1mb/s
About 15 to20 years ago a storm blew down our telephone line to the house and BT came and by the looks of it replaced it with Aluminium wires instead of the traditional copper wires, from the telephone pole to the house.
we checked and the colour of our wire is silver and went next door and our neighbour's is a copper coloured - he connects easily at 7.8 mb/s on Orange and with a standard cheapo USB modem, whilst I'm using an expensive Netgear ADSL 2 compatiable Modem / Router and Struggling with 1mb/s.
I think the fact we're only 540 metres from the local exchange is why I've managed to get a signal at all - and it's only now the speeds have increased I'm finding the wire is probably causing all sorts of problems.
I've phoned BT and seeing what they can do for us to take out the old cale and replace it with a new copper cable. - hoping they aint going to charge.
If I can't get the wire changed then it won't matter which broadband company I use they'll all struggle to give me anything above 1mb/s
And yes the line was extended, the wire fromthe pole is black, the wire to the master socket is White - there's a little box near the roof of the porch that connects the black and white wires together.
If I can get BT to replace the cable for copper wire and predrill all the holes they need into the house willthey likely rung the new cable direct to the master socket or does it alwasy have to go via a junction box? My neighbour has one as well (a junction box before the master socket - but he don't even have a porch).
Don't know if they're particularly good or bad being about 540 metre in a straight line form the local telephone exchange ??
We have detected a feature or service on your line that is incompatible with Broadband. Your line maybe a 30k loop, private circuits, RedCare, Meter Pulse or a PBX extension line. You will either have to ask BT to remove this feature or choose another line
All I know was I joined Plusnet early last year and then several months ago they increased the line speed (which gave me all sorts of problems) and I think moved to me to an LLU (Think it was with Tiscalli) .. At the time had no idea what an LLU was or how it would affect my connection or ability to move to another ISP.