Received an e mail from Orange almost a week ago saying they are upgrading my service (alarm bells ring). Sure enough a couple of days later the internet goes off and comes back on, fearing the worst I take a peek inside the Livebox to fing AMAZING, 13 Mb/sec. Confrimed this with Speedtest, amazed Orange could get it right. Spoke too soon, a couple of hours later it goes off again and when it comes back on 2Mb/sec, thats more like Orange I thought. Called customer service, usual cr*p about 10 days for line to stabilise etc, however in deference I did move the Livebox and plug it into the master socket downstairs. Still on 2 Mb/sec (with a brief foray into 13 Mb/sec after the call to customer services.
So my Noise Margin is 9.1dB Attenuation is 18.5dB Attainable Download Rate 2478 Kb/sec Downstream 2452 Kb/sec Upstream 625 Kb/Sec. My question is: Is there any hope of getting the steady 6.9 Mb/sec I was getting on the LLU system? Or preferably even the 13Mb/Sec I have briefly seen or should I start talking to Virgin now???
Thanks
Shaun
You've been transferred to Orange's bought-in WBC service from BT, as Orange are decomissioning their LLU. (see my post on the up to 8 Meg thread). Assuming your exchange has BT's 21CN network then things should not worsen, the operative word being "shouldn't", although BT do operate an IP profile on your line which can restrict speeds to a margin below what LLU can achieve. If your exchange does not have 21CN, then you will be limited to an 8Mbps max speed, even if Orange's LLU gave you a higher speed: in this case I believe you should be able toleave without penalty as an adverse change to your contract, but you will need to convince Orange. I think a SamKnows or Kitz exchange search should show whether your exchange has 21CN.
If your Livebox readings are correct, then on WBC you could receive a download speed approaching the full 20Meg, and must be very close to the exchange!! But I have to say if speed matters, and you are in a Virgin cable area - why are you messing about with Orange/BT?
You can test the capacity of your line now at BT's speedtester, which will tell you their estimate of line speeds (conservative) and the IP profile and compare that to what the Livebox reported for LLU, or reports now: http://speedtester.BT.com/
(You only need to enter a telephone no). It might need a bit of perseverence. One thing to remember about the Livebox: mine (the old version 1) doesn't update its reported figures except on a reboot/reconnection. The so-called training period is to establish what is the stable speed i.e. that which can be maintained (usually the lowest if there are wide variations), although it does seem that uploads always start at 888 before they increase to 1Mbps+, closer to LLU speeds.
Hi Shaun, I regret to say I follow in your footsteps. I too received the terrible news on 8th April that Orange were going to improve my service (oh how my heart sank like a stone!). Yet another saga about to begin . . .
But wait! Several days later I saw an increase in speed to 14mbs (my usual being 8.4 to 11.2). Excitement . . . for approx 2 hours. Then dropped to 4mbs and then . . . . capped at 2.27 for the last week (speed won't change despite turning on and off and factory resetting).
Phoned Orange this morning. Got through immediately and told them I was capped. To my surprise the guy said he would check with another department to see if I was indeed capped and phone me back within half an hour - what no wait 10 days cobblers? No "I need 3 speedtest.net readings? What's going on?
Much to my surprise he DID phone me back within half an hour and confirmed I am INDEED CAPPED. So I am logged to have cap removed but of course Easter intrudes so it will be a few days before I'll know if I am at least back to my original position. Though I suspect like you I may see a brief reinstatement before being plunged back to stoneage speeds.
Why couldn't they just leave me alone?
Interestingly, the Orange person told me there had been a number of people experiencing "capping" in this latest sorry round of "improvements". Which might explain why I didn't get the usual helpdesk prevarication.
Well after 10 days my internet speeds are still all over the place, from 1 to 7 Mb/sec with frequent disconnection. Has anyone tried fitting new/better quality microfilters, does it improve the situation?
If this continues its time to move to a 30 Mb/sec Virgin package.
Shaun
Well after 10 days my internet speeds are still all over the place, from 1 to 7 Mb/sec with frequent disconnection. Has anyone tried fitting new/better quality microfilters, does it improve the situation?
If this continues its time to move to a 30 Mb/sec <a href="http://quadplay.at/theside">Virgin</a> package.
Shaun
I think all micro-filters do the same thing there aren't any better ones.
My connection has been changed to BT WBC without a warning letter!
For two days the connection was unusable (50Kb download) and now
the download speeds (11Mb) are about 2Mb worse than on Orange.
BT speedtest gives the IP profile for my line as 12Mb and the maximum achievable speed as 21Mb.The DSL connection rate is 16.5Mb which I think is lower than before. Can anyone tell me if the IP profile and download speeds are likely to increase.
Here are the router stats.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Link Information
Uptime: 2 days, 11:28:51
Modulation: G.992.5 Annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,064 / 16,459
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 31.60 / 237.32
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 18.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 9.5 / 19.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.0 / 7.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / µ
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 554 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 5,456 / 0
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 107,826 / 792
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 66,065 / 637
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had set the S/N margin at 7.5db to 'pinch' a bit on Oranges's limit of 10db although I know the line is still rock solid when set at 6db. What is the S/N margin on the BT equipment now manageing the line?
Those Error Seconds need watching, at 2.5 days uptime 554 is not a massive figure but there shouldn't be any Error Seconds.
Looking at those CRC errors there does seem to be a possible problem with the connection also the sync of 16459kbps is down on what I would expect for an attenuation of 19.5dB.....you should be closer to 20000kbps than that.
Monitor www.speedtester.BT.com for a few days and I reckon things will improve because if you changed from 0range LLU then there is a 10 day training period on the BT DLM from the day that you were switched.
My recollection when they announced the BT maintenance contract was that they said they had no plans to offer an FTTC service. My guess would be any new strategy might have to wait until 2014 when I think they hope to pay off their debts to the parent companies: FT and DT, which is the state of a lot of businesses at the moment, and sensible too. FTTC is between a rock and a hard place: I can't see BT with a need for ROI as a commercial company underselling to Orange to undercut their own price (which is anyway probably underpriced on the margin over ADSL) and look at the prices charged by others (except PlusNet owned by BT, and TalkTalk who have scale) and they are well over BT's, and Orange aren't flush with cash. They are stripping out costs: e.g. mast decommissioning and customer services and management reductions (though CS has improved by bringing it back from India, I agree, script monkeys are costly 'cause nothing gets sorted); so I don't see them throwing money at their declining customer base (lost 10% again in the last year) of home broadband. And seriously if your speeds are in excess of 10Mbps what are you going to do with the extra speed that you can't at the moment? I have a 10Mbps wireless service, and a fibred cabinet due RFS imminently, but (disappointedly) can't think of a rational reason to upgrade, even HDTV works satisfactorily via internet. BT appear to be saying the take up of fibre is not as great as they expected.
Tiny Tim: Unless I've misunderstood I think there is some BT tech that allows up to 20Mbps speeds even on 20CN exchanges which hopefully you will benefit from.
EDIT: I also think the BT contract is cost-driven: certainly when I had LLU problems their contracted engineers had to come out from London, which took 1-2 weeks on their schedules, whereas BT wholesale engineers are more locally based. And isn't it more efficient = cheaper for BT to maintain their standard equipment rather than some-one else's (Orange LLU) even when the latter works perfectly OK for many customers?
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