I’m putting this on here as I would love some input from people who know more about this sort of thing than I do.

I always had O2 as my ISP but when we moved they said the price was going up as I was outwith their normal service range, so they have to get it via BT (or something like that). I have stuck with it due to people’s feedback on their service.

However, I have never had decent enough speed to watch iplayer or the other channel equivalents without things sticking constantly throughout the things I watch.

This is doing my nuts in now and I think it’s time to move. I did a speed test which shows around 0.4mbps… on this basis, should I switch ISP? Who to?

Anything would be appreciated, thanks.

always been a big fan of PlusNet myself – never given me any trouble and always been fast enough for my needs (general interweb, iplayer and gaming)

Have you tried plugging the router into the test socket, inside the master linebox? Should rule out internal wiring issues.

Go to http://www.samknows.com, put in your details and find an LLU provider. I’m not sure that you’ll beat O2 though, maybe cable is the way forward for you.

Have you tried plugging the router into the test socket, inside the master linebox? Should rule out internal wiring issues.

I don’t even know what that means sorry!

are you a long way away from the exchange?

I don’t even know what that means sorry!

Right. You may have a number of phone sockets in your house. One is the master, the rest are extensions. You can identify the master a) by the fact that it’s where the external cable enters your house and b) the face plate is in two halves, a top BT-only bit and a lower bit you can fiddle with.

If you take the two screws out of the master faceplate and remove it, you’ll find another phone socket inside. Plug the router into this, and nothing else (other than the microfilter). See what speed it connects at. If it’s radically higher, you have an internal wiring issue (which we might be able to improve).

Theres a good chance that changing provider wont make any difference as they all use the same BT phone line. If like mine, you are a long way from an exchange then I only get around 3mbs.
Cable is probably your best bet.

It depends what the problem is. Non-LLU offerings are all the same product, BT Wholesale resold. LLU provisioning uses the ISP’s own equipment and upstream network at the exchange, so each is different. It can avoid things like contention issues.

(of course, yes, if you’re ten miles from your nearest exchange, you’re snookered regardless and need to look at other options such as cable)

Thanks for the info, I’ll look into it. I’m about 2 miles from the exchange, which hasn’t been upgraded from 8mp.

Ta
Dan

Also depends on how many other people are ‘sharing’ the line, and tbh it wasn’t that long ago that 8mb was something that wasn’t seen outside of an expensive internal network – and I’ve had many business running their entire operation on a lot less.

When you do a speed test what does it say?

0.44 download and 0.23 upload

Well I’m 9.84mbps download and 0.49mbps upload, but on cable 8) and I do pay for 10mbps.

I can see why you’ve a problem…, what do you actually pay for though?

I’m sure it’s 8 that I pay for. May look at cable then. So frustrating not being able to use iplayer and other channel’s versions.

**Edit, just did a search on cable.co.uk, not in my area I can’t! damn…

See my first post. (-:

Crow-flies distances to the exchange aren’t always a good indicator. You might be two miles away, but the cable from them to you might take a wiggly route and be four miles long.

sounds like our experience with Sky – if you’re not on an ‘unbundled’ exchange (or whatever the phrase is) you get stuck on a throttled service where peak-time connectivity is slowed to a crawl.

I’m with Namesco – a 50GB package with better contention ratios and no throttling. It’s a lot more expensive that Sky way (£20+ vs. £5) but i work from home at least 1 day a week at the moment so its a necessity…

0.4 Mbps is very slow for ADSL, worth calling your ISP about to have them check for issues and whether DACS is on your line. 2 miles should be plenty close enough, even if your cabling takes an indirect route (I’m 4 miles as the crow flies but can get 2.5 Mbps). If your ISP doesn’t give you any joy it might be worth switching to see if you can get better customer service (Zen are good in this regard but expensive) but as others have said you will probably only get a change at the exchange so if there’s an issue between your house and the exchange then changing ISP isn’t going to help.

Have a look on here to see whether BT Infinity is due in your area soon.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=29017&s_cid=con_ppc_maxus_vidZ59_Broadband&vendorid=Z59

Would it potentially be better using an ethernet cable rather than wireless adaptor?

I’d do a speed check with BT Total Broadband, my BT service is great, I had issues with wifi recently, it was due to too much traffic on a particular channel, BT talked me though changing and did some tests remotely, it worked a treat, I’ve also got a ps3 connected by ethernet via a powerline plug, works really well, it’s turns your electricity loop into a local network, very clever.