[smazibummigue]

Over the last month, BT have done nothing but make anything internet-wise nothing but a misery. Ever since I got my Xbox Live gold subscription, my connection turns out to be very poor compared to everyone else as I lag alot apparantly (and Kentris will know that), but it comes to no suprise really.

At the moment, we're using a BT Home Hub and i'm living under my parents roof. My parents bought the router from BT when we moved into our new house and since day one, there's been nothing but problems with it, and the service from BT too. When we lived in our previous house, we had over a 2Mbit connection, which was fairly good compared to standards back then. However on January last year just when everyone was getting their superfast broadband, guess what? We're downgraded from 2Mbit to 1Mbit on our new line. That downstream hasn't changed one bit ever since we moved in as well. Really poor. [thumbdown]

We've complained to BT many times about this, and we're always told that's all the line will take, but I'm not convinced, as my other friends in the town (and not too far from where i'm from either) get much faster speeds than this, and we only live 2 miles away from the exchange! Even so, my parents have been paying through the roof for this crap service, even despite the numerous times i've told them to switch ISP.

Over the year as well, we've had problems connecting to the router as it'll spontaneously change the settings to default for no apparant reason. [thumbdown] Hell, even when i'm playing on Xbox Live, my wireless connection will crap out between the router and Linksys Wireless-G card i've got very randomly, and then it'll connect automatically once the damage has been done to the online play. [thumbdown]

Then today, we find the internet connection has slowed right down to around 56k modem speed, with the connection flickering off and on. After trying numerous attempts to get it going manually, I could only conclude it was ISP troubles. After 1 hour of speaking to an Indian call centre this morning and moving the router to a different phone socket and swapping filters around, he could only conclude the original socket we plugged the router in to after I plugged the router into a different socket that the original was faulty and needed an engineer out to it. After this, I ended the call and all I could think of was BS when the plugged the router back to its original socket and it now works perfectly, even if it's half a megabit slower than last night. [cursing]

As you can imagine from this experience (I could name more experiences along the line too, but I don't want to bore people), it's been nothing but trouble, and it's a disgrace when my parents are paying through the roof for such a shoddy service. Now i'm determined to get a decent connection if that's technically possible from where I am, because anything should be better than BT. [ban]

[EliteFranceska]

try see if be.co.uk is available

edit - 2 miles is quite far in this age of mass users, I just checked my exchange, its only 300m away

[gvataler]

First things first, get rid of the homehub - they're really shite. There's a lot more things that can effect your connection - comparing it to a mates is pointless. I'd also avoid all wireless connections for gaming, there's just too many unknowns with wireless for it to be reliable for low ping situations. Much better getting some Cat 5 and wiring it all up properly.

[arindiruppya]

Yeah my sister has the homehub and it's pretty crap.

As Lucky suggested, try using bethere. Mum's got that at home and it's absolutely awesome. And the router they supply works great. If the internet drops all I have to do is reset the modem and all is fine.

[Xewksghy]

that sounds a really terrible service you're getting there, but it sounds to me that many of the problems DO lay with the line, which is unfortunate, but sadly not much you can do about

i want to throw in my home hub experience - had it for ~2 years, and i think i've had to reset it maybe 2 or 3 times, always worked great from all aspects [wireless to 360, cat5 to pc] and rock-solid 8mb since the upgrade. could be cheaper tho


i guess i should add i live ~400yds from the exchange in a modern apartment [ie new wiring]

[CHEAPCIALISFORYOU]

I had a similar problem with BT lately where my line dropped from 3mb down to slower than 56k. It was really frustrating talking with the call centre as every half hour they would pass me onto another 'department' who would go through all the same crap over and over (check microfilters, position of router etc).

In the end someone finally confirmed that there was a physical fault with the line but would 'see what he could do' at their end. 5 mins later i was back up to around 2mb!

I think there's definitely something strange going on with the way they manage their speeds. I too am probably going to try out bethere but getting my dad to cancel with BT has taken 3 months so far and he still hasn't done it.

[Qualarrizab]

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php

Put your postcode in there and click locality.

How far are you from the exchange?

[smazibummigue]

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php

Put your postcode in there and click locality.

How far are you from the exchange?

You are approximately 2.55km from the exchange (straight line distance).

Quoted from their site. That's still not very far IMO - around a mile and a half?

As for connecting Xbox Live through my PC then to the router (bridged), there's not really much else I can do. I'm under my parents roof so I can't exactly run a wire through the house that easily. If I had my own place, the first thing i'd do is never go anywhere near BT again and wire it up directly.

[Qualarrizab]

You are approximately 2.55km from the exchange (straight line distance).

Quoted from their site. That's still not very far IMO - around a mile and a half?

As for connecting Xbox Live through my PC then to the router (bridged), there's not really much else I can do. I'm under my parents roof so I can't exactly run a wire through the house that easily. If I had my own place, the first thing i'd do is never go anywhere near BT again and wire it up directly.

That is actually quite bad in terms of what a low signal and high noise you'd get on the line. I'm surprised you've even got 1mb to be honest.

[smazibummigue]

That is actually quite bad in terms of what a low signal and high noise you'd get on the line. I'm surprised you've even got 1mb to be honest.

So changing provider isn't going to make much difference?

The connection did manage to reach 1.6Mbit last night, but I still lagged according to other players. [thumbdown] The upstream is really poor - 448kbits.

[Qualarrizab]

go into your router details page and look for things called line attenuation and noise margin. I think your problem has very little to do with who your ISP is and much more to do with your distance from the exchange and any excess noise on the line.

[EliteFranceska]

So changing provider isn't going to make much difference?

The connection did manage to reach 1.6Mbit last night, but I still lagged according to other players. [thumbdown] The upstream is really poor - 448kbits.

448Kbps is more than enough, I had 3 computers on CSS/WoW/DoTa in my house with 256Kbps upload.

the lag would be down to line quality/interference

[smazibummigue]

Ok, i've found some details on Line Attenuation, but unfortunately there's nothing on noise margin.

As for the line attenuation details:

31.5 (up) / 62.0 (down) (dB)

[Qualarrizab]

that downstream attenuation seems rather high, if you're syncing at 1.6mbs, then ask BT to cap you at 768kbps or 1mbps and that attenuation should come down.

Either way, it's not what you wanted to hear but it seems you're not going to ever have a great broadband connection at that location over a telephone line, you're too far from the exchange. Try cable or possibly an LLU ADSL2+ provider.

[smazibummigue]

that downstream attenuation seems rather high, if you're syncing at 1.6mbs, then ask BT to cap you at 768kbps or 1mbps and that attenuation should come down.

Either way, it's not what you wanted to hear but it seems you're not going to ever have a great broadband connection at that location over a telephone line, you're too far from the exchange. Try cable or possibly an LLU ADSL2+ provider.

Well i'm tempted to get a place of my own at some point. The sooner I can, the better I guess.

I will just say though that line attenuation is with the downstream at 1.2Mbit at the moment right now.

[lungumnentibe]

move to an area where you can get cable imo.

ive been with telewest blueyonder (now virgin media) for something like 5 years and in that time ive probably had less than a weeks worth of outages or problems.

if you live near an exchange adsl can be good but if you dont your only choice is really cable

[bestworkother]

I'm currently with Sky broadband and more than 3km from the exchange. My attenuation is 65.x, which apparently is the maximum that can be reported, so it's possibly higher, but I'm still managing to sync at ~2.5Mbps. Possibly because the (very helpful) 3rd tier support switched me to ADSL2 when I phoned up to complain.

Maybe you should try discussing a similar solution with the BT 3rd tier support guys?

[Qualarrizab]

I'm currently with Sky broadband and more than 3km from the exchange. My attenuation is 65.x, which apparently is the maximum that can be reported, so it's possibly higher, but I'm still managing to sync at ~2.5Mbps. Possibly because the (very helpful) 3rd tier support switched me to ADSL2 when I phoned up to complain.

Maybe you should try discussing a similar solution with the BT 3rd tier support guys?

Which is why I suggested he look into cable or ADSL2+, ADSL2+ sends a stronger signal down the line than standard ADSL, therefore enabling people further away to gain a better connection. It also doesn't suffer as much as normal ADSL to high attenuation, although it doesn't help.

BT as an ISP do not offer ADSL2+, they only offer ADSL MAX. Other ISPs can use the BT infrastructure to supply ADSL2+. In your case, Sky have installed their LLU kit into your exchange for ADSL2+ services to be available in the area.

[Seiblybiozy]

That is actually quite bad in terms of what a low signal and high noise you'd get on the line. I'm surprised you've even got 1mb to be honest.

I'm 2.76km away and usually Sync at 3mbps

[Qualarrizab]

I'm 2.76km away and usually Sync at 3mbps

ADSL, ADSL MAX or ADSL2+? it makes a difference. Being 3mbps, I pressume one of the latter two which would explain that. Increased power/signal is sent down the copper resulting in wider reaching and faster sync speeds.