Rural broadband - please help!

Pengwern16

I will shortly be moving from a small town to a farm on the outskirts of this town. I'm taking my existing number (installing and extra line) and broadband account with me. At the moment there's only dial-up at the farm and I need broadband for my self-employed work (and how difficult would it be go back to dial-up after wireless broadband?!)
Have spoken to BT today about arranging the extra line and moving my number - no problem. But he couldn't tell me whether broadband would work!! The exchange is broadband enabled, it was the same exchange at my old property, but the telephone line goes to lots of other houses first and the farm is the last on the line. Next door have recently had broadband (although, as you can probably guess, it's not literally next door, try next few fields along!)
So I'm looking for some advice really as to what I can realistically expect. I've been on samknow.com, which gave the following:

ADSL is available in your area

Your exchange is also enabled for ADSL Max services
According to BT Wholesale, your line is very unlikely to be able to support ADSL, although a 256kbps service may be available.


Standard ADSL RAG results

You cannot receive 2Mbps ADSL
You cannot receive 1Mbps ADSL
You may be able to receive 512kbps ADSL
(Engineer visit likely)
You may be able to receive 256kbps ADSL
(Engineer visit likely)

You are approximately 4.26km from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longer!

DatabaseError

^ that looks like your answer, but you could always ask your neighbour to confirm

Pengwern16

Thanks for your reply.
Does it mean that I will be able to get broadband but it will be quite slow? Or will I not be able to get it at all :eek: ?

DatabaseError

you may get 512kbs....that's slow, but better than dialup (by a long way )
really, introduce yourself to your neighbours and ask for their experience.
Have a look at the i-plate thread and follow the advice hidden in there to get the most from your line (basically undo the ring wire and ensure your modem is plugged into the master socket not via an extension)
Consider buying a decent modem rather than relying on the free one from your ISP, some modem/routers are much better on a long line than others.
Consider buying a filtered faceplate from adslnation for the master socket.
I know this is a moneysaving forum, and I am suggesting that you may have to spend money, but if it can lift your line from 256k to 512k, or from 512 to 1meg, then it can be considered an investment.

Just noticed...BT broadband....if you have business broadband (you use the connection for work so should have) then BT supply(ed) the 2-wire 2700HGV modem/router, which is superb.

lamplighter2

hi i live 6km from my exchange and i was getting no better than dial up and it was costing me £25 per month i switched to Sky and my broadband is better its only costs me £10 per month including telephone rental and free calls exept mobiles, you could go to one of the mobile providers and have a usb dongle but worth checking if you are within the area covered by there service they are aprox £10.

Networkguy

As Lamplighter points out with the Sky example, not all ADSL providers are made equal.

For 2 years after moving into my new home, BT struggled to get me much more than 1mbit/s over ADSL and blamed it on a whole list of reasons, the main one being the distance from the Exchange.

Be* then unbundled my local exchange and as they were half the price of BT I made the move. But because they are using ADSL2, I am now getting just over 8mbit (the Be* product is "up to" 24mbits) as I sit here right now.

It might be worth checking over at http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ to see if there are any other providers in your area.

rsvtoddy

Pretty much the same as my expected speeds according to the information. It varies between 128k and 2mb - unfortunately normally towards the bottom of the scale!

It's fine for browsing but I will only try to download music or large files when it's above 500k.

AHAR

Mobile broadband would be another option depending on coverage in your area. My Dad is stuck at 512kbps so I looked into the deals on offer to see what it would cost if he wanted to go faster. It's more expensive than fixed-line broadband and the usage limits are lower but didn't seem too bad in terms of price. He's happy to plod along as he is so I've no experience of the actual real-world speed of mobile broadband. You could go PAYG to see if it's any good in your area before committing to a contract.

I've heard of wireless routers that can share a 3G mobile broadband link so you could still have that kind of setup.

DatabaseError

Networkguy wrote: »

....BT struggled to get me much more than 1mbit/s ...I am now getting just over 8mbit...

That's quite a jump....especially as adsl2+ is more sensitive over longer lines, and suggests there was an initial fault, possibly something as simple as a bad connection at the exchange, which moving the wires to the BE kit fixed (or a stuck profile?!)

I did come across some lovely graphs showing the expected sync/attenuatation, with the adsl2+ line dropping quite sharply around 30db (I think), but, either I didn't bookmark it...or it's got lost among the once I have (time for a tidy up, 200+ bookmarks is getting silly )

I suppose another explanation would be that the BT profiling system is...er...pants, very slow to respond to rises in sync, quick to respond to drops, so if your line was unstable, maybe keeping high sync for a couple or 3 days then losing it and syncing a 2mbit or so then your profile would be kept low, never taking advantage of the higher sync. The rate adaptive sync which you now have with be responds pretty much instantly, so with the same instability you could still experience high sync most of the time.
?

Pengwern16

Thanks for your replies.
DatabaseError - I'm afraid I'm not able to understand all of you message re syncs - sorry, showing how little I know about something I use every day!
rsvtoddy - do you mean that the information I posted from samknows.com was the same for you, but you're getting between 128k and 2mb?
As long as I can get any speed of broadband connection I'll be happy, there's always room to improve once it works isn't there?
I'm really worried about this, and they're not installing the new line until the 27th!! So won't know if BB works until the 3rd of Feb.
By the way, should I be checking or requesting anything in terms of the new line to try to help the BB issue? EG my boyfriends parents have a new build bungalow and for their phone line BT have just split one of the other lines so they'll never be able to get BB, even though when I checked their number on one of the checker sites it said 3mb was possible.

DatabaseError

not a lot you can do...are you getting home or business broadband? With a new line you should start off with good wiring, so it's all down to BT and your router