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Virgin's promised improvement?

Hi folks,

Thanks for reading firstly.

I am situated a hairs bredth short of 6 miles from my local exchange (Metheringham, Lincolnshire) and am currently getting a pretty poor line performance through Sky (via BT Wholesale). All the info I have been able to find out relating to this exchange suggests that it's BT only and they sublet via the wholesale product to alternative providers.

This morning I decided to call Virgin to see if they had a timescale for installation in my area ("We're talking years not months" was the helpful answer). The guy then told me that Virgin may be "co-located" at the exchange and said they could improve the speeds against the BT (Sky) product which is listed as "Estimated Best Speed (Kbps): 256". Virgin are quoting me 512kbps - 1Mb.

Is this possible, or are Virgin feeding me a line on this in order to get the £15/month out of my pocket? At this moment in time I am willing to try the switch if its possible as anything in the range of 512-1Mb would seem like a vast improvement currently!

Also, if anyone has any tips on ways to improve, or alternatives to poor Broadband coverage (other than moving house ;) ) I would be enternally grateful.

Thanks again for looking.

mr8kc
 
VM ADSL is like all others if the exchange is only BT supplied then they buy from BT what is next is the VP (virtual path) some VP could be short on bandwidth and this is causing issues.

To recommend things first we would need a little more info like setup within the home distance from master socket, type of cable joining router to master.


If a long line have you considered adding the Iplate in the master this has for some improved their speeds.

But if you post the router stats and idea of internal wiring we can try to help.
 
Thanks Kits.

I installed a BT NTE2000 Faceplate filter as was recommended by a few people I work with and this improved things marginally. I managed to get up to around 330k which was about a 35k improvement.

There are no extensions in place, and the router sits right next to the master socket, which now has this ADSL filter faceplate.

I am using Sky's NETGEAR DG834G router and here are the stats from the Router Status screen.

Code:
Port  	Status  	TxPkts  	RxPkts  	Collisions  	Tx B/s  	Rx B/s  	Up Time
WAN 	PPPoA 	1487 	862 	0 	878 	1408 	00:04:08
LAN 	100M/Full 	1360 	0 	0 	6 	0 	06:42:48
WLAN 	11M/54M 	233956 	213943 	0 	8893 	2470 	06:42:36
ADSL Link 	Downstream 	Upstream
Connection Speed 	416 kbps 	448 kbps
Line Attenuation 	63 db 	31 db
Noise Margin 	6 db 	6 db

If so, what do you need?

Interestingly, these stats look better than the last time i looked at them, which would have been last month, when they were showing approx 330k.

Thanks,
mr8kc
 
Last edited by a moderator:
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It looks like you are at the limits of how far ADSL broadband can reach, though as Kits suggests an Attenuation of 63 is likely to net you about 1Mbps. However there are other factors to consider here, most crucially the SNR 'Noise Margin' you have is a bit low at 6db and suggests that your line would probably have trouble going much beyond maybe 500Kbps at best.. just a guesstimate.

So I fear that the amount of improvement you might receive from changing ISP would be almost not worth the money.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I used the Kitz test and it estimated speeds at 1952kbps. This is much higher than I currently am getting. The physical wiring for the line is pretty old an I am wondering if this may in fact be the cause here.

Do you think it's going to be possible to get any more performance out of setup? If so, what kind of settings should I be looking at to get that edge.
 
Old lines tend to have/create more noise, wonderful BT in all their wisdom are useless at sdorting this out unless it stops voice from working. Sadly they are not forced to supply lines good enough to give internet, even paying for a new line to your home will achieve nothing more if it isn't an additional line as they tend to patch the missing areas.


Your BT master socket have you tested from that to see if you get more speed?
Do you have a filtered faceplate on the master socket?
Have you any fixed extensions and is the bell wire disconnected?
 
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He has the "BT NTE2000 Faceplate filter" already.

I must admit I have no idea why that Kitz site test would give a result of 1952Kbps for your router stats, I can't see you gaining anything like that unless aliens were to somehow upgrade your line with magical powers.

On the other hand Sky's 'Connect' (BT Wholesale based) package is still using the older up to 8Mbps ADSL tech, so you might get a boost of +256Kbps extra on your line by picking an up to 16 to 24Mbps ADSL2+ based service. Typically that would depend upon whether any such services cover your exchange or not, what does our checker report say if you put just your phone number in?

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/checker/
 
Hi folks,

Thanks for reading firstly.

I am situated a hairs bredth short of 6 miles from my local exchange (Metheringham, Lincolnshire) and am currently getting a pretty poor line performance through Sky (via BT Wholesale). All the info I have been able to find out relating to this exchange suggests that it's BT only and they sublet via the wholesale product to alternative providers.

This morning I decided to call Virgin to see if they had a timescale for installation in my area ("We're talking years not months" was the helpful answer). The guy then told me that Virgin may be "co-located" at the exchange and said they could improve the speeds against the BT (Sky) product which is listed as "Estimated Best Speed (Kbps): 256". Virgin are quoting me 512kbps - 1Mb.

Is this possible, or are Virgin feeding me a line on this in order to get the £15/month out of my pocket? At this moment in time I am willing to try the switch if its possible as anything in the range of 512-1Mb would seem like a vast improvement currently!

Also, if anyone has any tips on ways to improve, or alternatives to poor Broadband coverage (other than moving house ;) ) I would be enternally grateful.

Thanks again for looking.

mr8kc


mr8kc;

I too live in rural area - but please tread cautiously if moving to virgin - take care not toget locked into 12 month/long term contracts with them like I did - I innocently 'upgraded' my package and when the service became so poor I tried to move isp but virgin told me I was stuck with them for 12 months from date of upgrade, not from date of joining - nothing was said to me at time of upgrade etc - so with poor service, poor speeds, poor reliability and high costs I will have no choice but to stay with them until my 12 month is over from date of upgrade - just be careful and get written guarantees from them - the easiest thing is to join an isp but as i have found to my cost once there you can find yourself trapped and have no way out. calling them is a nightmare and I just loathe the whole experience.

magnum
 
Yes, avoid Virgin like the plague, their network is terrible, luckily I've been with them for over a year now so I'm off to ADSL24 soon, but they restrict so much and give as little as possible, they only want your money. Oh, and the customer service is ridiculously bad, so if you have an intermittent line, do not sign with Virgin.
 
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He has the "BT NTE2000 Faceplate filter" already.

I must admit I have no idea why that Kitz site test would give a result of 1952Kbps for your router stats, I can't see you gaining anything like that unless aliens were to somehow upgrade your line with magical powers.

On the other hand Sky's 'Connect' (BT Wholesale based) package is still using the older up to 8Mbps ADSL tech, so you might get a boost of +256Kbps extra on your line by picking an up to 16 to 24Mbps ADSL2+ based service. Typically that would depend upon whether any such services cover your exchange or not, what does our checker report say if you put just your phone number in?

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/checker/

Hi folks,

Have been away so not had chance to check back.

Thanks for the input from everyone. I think I am not going to gain an awful lot of speed whichever avenue I choose. The exchange is BT only currently and all ISP's offering services locally therefore buy from the BT Wholesale package.

The XTE-2005 faceplate may be worthwhile. Is this faceplate a marked improvement on a BT one?

Looking at the replies regarding Virgin, I would definitely only switch if they brought cable to the area. At least with Sky I have someone I can call to moan about the poor BT service :laugh:

I think my fastest / best / most-likely-to-happen solution is going to be a move to a better exchange area :(

Thanks again!

mr8kc
 
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