Thanks. I was having a look at the OFCOM Code of Practice. This looks like a Code that was originally intended to support the consumer, but at some stage a couple of extra paragraphs got inserted (lobbying by the industry?) that dilute it to the point that if anything it works in favour of the ISP.
For example - I'd have thought it would read: for fixed line -
- Customer to be given two guaranteed speeds at sign up: out of peak hours, and peak hours.
- Customer to be told what peak hours are.
- If the throughput falls below those rates, customer may raise fault with ISP.
- After three successive fault reports, customer may leave without penalty
- If that happens in the first 3 months, customer is due a full refund of all money paid
This would enable the better ISPs - those which provide adequate capacity - to "shine" and show the customer what the difference might be between the cheap ones and the more expensive ones. In this respect it also protects the better ISPs. The "cheap" ones could either display "honest" peak time speeds, or, lie, and see their customer churn and losses skyrocket.
How it actually reads is:
- Customer to be given an estimate
- If following activation speed is not as estimate customer contacts ISP
- ISP may or may not act on this depending on their interpretation of some very vague wording in the Code about percentiles
- ISP is not bound to deliver what was estimated at any point
- ISP has up to 3 months to deliver or gets to cancel the contract and keep all the customer's money
What this actually does is force the entire industry to the lowest common denominator - price.
Does anyone know of any sites which show the D-side cable length?
Edit: I'd believed previously - E = 2500, D = 1286 = 3786m total, ADSL Max line sync 2,048kbps when we had it, neighbours (same pole, similar drop lengths) have ADSL2+ one at 1.6Mbps down and the other at 2.9Mbps down.
Looking now the AA website returns "Approximate line length 3556m" based on postcode alone (edge of postcode nearer exchange), so the figures above seem reasonable I guess.
Those appear to be what are driving the upstream figures as they're about right for the line length. The Range A top speed looks as if it takes the corresponding likely downstream rate and multiplies it by 2 in case the line is 1mm copper not 0.5
