Simon01
0
A couple of weeks ago, my 12 month contract with Pipex was coming up for renewal. I decided to call Pipex to see what they could offer, to keep me as a customer, given that £23.99 for a 1Mbps is no longer a competitive deal. They offered me two options, one was to stay on the 1Mbps service and they would reduce the charge to £14.99 per month, the other option was to be upgraded to Pipex Max. The guy checked my line, and stated that preliminary test showed that I could receive up to the max 8Mbps line speed, so, of course, I opted for the upgrade.
After about a week, I switched on the PC, and up popped the connection balloon, showing a connection speed of 5.8Mbps. I wasn't really expecting to be lucky enough to receive the full 8Mbps, due to my distance from the BT exchange, so I was quite pleased to be getting nearly 6Mbps. However, as the guy had warned me, I then experienced a morning of constant dropped connections (while BT "sorted things out" on the line). I launched a torrent download, so as to keep the connection active, and to automatically redial when dropped, and after a couple of hours, the connection seemed to stabilise at around 4.1Mbps. OK, not quite what I had hoped for, but if that's it, then I suppose it's acceptable.
Over the next few days, my connection speed has gradually reduced, according to the Windows connection pop up balloon, and is now showing anything from 3.1 to 3.7Mbps. I have also tried the speeds tests on http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp and http://www.speedguide.net/ which produce results of between 1.9 and 2.2Mbps. My surfing experience does not seem to be that much faster, and downloads only seem marginally quicker. How accurate are these speed tests, and why is there such a difference between the speed reported by the online tests, and with what Windows reports the speed to be connected at?
Does anyone else have Pipex Max, and what sort of speeds are you getting? Should I be thinking of contacting them? We all know what a drama this can be. The fact that Pipex Max (and other ISP 'Max' packages) claims to deliver up to 8Mbps, is quite ambiguous, as it really leaves the customer with no leg to stand on, if they are not receiving the full speed. My problem is that if I am realistically only receiving around 2.2Mbps, I could get a much cheaper deal at this level of service. Do I have any comeback on Pipex, who will stringently adhere to their 12 month minimum term, if I am not getting the line speed they claimed I could receive?
Any thoughts appreciated.
After about a week, I switched on the PC, and up popped the connection balloon, showing a connection speed of 5.8Mbps. I wasn't really expecting to be lucky enough to receive the full 8Mbps, due to my distance from the BT exchange, so I was quite pleased to be getting nearly 6Mbps. However, as the guy had warned me, I then experienced a morning of constant dropped connections (while BT "sorted things out" on the line). I launched a torrent download, so as to keep the connection active, and to automatically redial when dropped, and after a couple of hours, the connection seemed to stabilise at around 4.1Mbps. OK, not quite what I had hoped for, but if that's it, then I suppose it's acceptable.
Over the next few days, my connection speed has gradually reduced, according to the Windows connection pop up balloon, and is now showing anything from 3.1 to 3.7Mbps. I have also tried the speeds tests on http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp and http://www.speedguide.net/ which produce results of between 1.9 and 2.2Mbps. My surfing experience does not seem to be that much faster, and downloads only seem marginally quicker. How accurate are these speed tests, and why is there such a difference between the speed reported by the online tests, and with what Windows reports the speed to be connected at?
Does anyone else have Pipex Max, and what sort of speeds are you getting? Should I be thinking of contacting them? We all know what a drama this can be. The fact that Pipex Max (and other ISP 'Max' packages) claims to deliver up to 8Mbps, is quite ambiguous, as it really leaves the customer with no leg to stand on, if they are not receiving the full speed. My problem is that if I am realistically only receiving around 2.2Mbps, I could get a much cheaper deal at this level of service. Do I have any comeback on Pipex, who will stringently adhere to their 12 month minimum term, if I am not getting the line speed they claimed I could receive?
Any thoughts appreciated.























