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Dispelling some misleading BT marketing claims - Wireless N and Broadband Accelerator

aardware
Posts: 45 Forumite
Hi,
After a recent twitter *conversation* with BT, I think that I should share some information with you. I have recently been very displeased with the way they are marketing their broadband product as they are intentionally misleading current and potential customers by feeding them misinformation or being economical with the truth.
You may have recently seen a BT Internet advert telling you that by subscribing to BT Internet, you are entitled to a Broadband Accelerator, and indeed, you should get one in order to benefit from 20Meg line speeds. This is worded in the advert as if it is a unique selling point of BT Internet.
Whilst the entitlement to a Broadband Accelerator is true, the inference that it is a unique selling point, or that one is required for 20Meg speeds is not.
If your main socket says ADSL v1.0, you do not need one at all. If it says BT Openreach on it, your line is already interference filtered and it will make very little difference to you. If you have a solid faceplate, then you're socket is unsuitable. You should really get the socket replaced, but of course BT will charge you a hefty fee for doing so.
Everyone is entitled to a Broadband Accelerator. BT Broadband customers are entitled to one "free" (well, you didn't think they'd POST it to you free did you?). For the majority of other people (you need to check here: on the shop.bt.com website) it is available from the BT shop
If you DO NOT have BT Broadband, you can still get one of these for a fee of £7.99 inc delivery and VAT from the BT shop
In my opinion, these iplates/broadband accelerators should be available for ALL BT Customers free of charge, not just those on BT Broadband. I mean, lets face it, we pay them enough money a month, and they are under pressure from the government to improve the national broadband infrastructure, but as well all know, customer service is not their strong point.
My second point to mention is BT's inference that their Wireless N homehub will improve your broadband connection.
This is quite frankly misleading and not true.
Let me be straight with you. The wireless standard produced by your router has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on the quality of your broadband connection.
Wireless N improves the signal strength and range within your property. This has no relevance to your broadband connection and it is still possible for it to get interference (and cause it for) from other products which use the 2.4Ghz radio band (bluetooth and wireless telephones are two examples) or microwave ovens. You may also find that wireless N receivers make it more difficult for wireless b/g receivers to pick up a signal due to wireless N reducing the amount of "clean" channels. This is particularly pertinent if you live in a block of flats.
The long and short of that is, if there is already an underlying signal interference problem in your property, a wireless N router may not actually solve your problem.
Anyway, rant over:D
After a recent twitter *conversation* with BT, I think that I should share some information with you. I have recently been very displeased with the way they are marketing their broadband product as they are intentionally misleading current and potential customers by feeding them misinformation or being economical with the truth.
You may have recently seen a BT Internet advert telling you that by subscribing to BT Internet, you are entitled to a Broadband Accelerator, and indeed, you should get one in order to benefit from 20Meg line speeds. This is worded in the advert as if it is a unique selling point of BT Internet.
Whilst the entitlement to a Broadband Accelerator is true, the inference that it is a unique selling point, or that one is required for 20Meg speeds is not.
If your main socket says ADSL v1.0, you do not need one at all. If it says BT Openreach on it, your line is already interference filtered and it will make very little difference to you. If you have a solid faceplate, then you're socket is unsuitable. You should really get the socket replaced, but of course BT will charge you a hefty fee for doing so.
Everyone is entitled to a Broadband Accelerator. BT Broadband customers are entitled to one "free" (well, you didn't think they'd POST it to you free did you?). For the majority of other people (you need to check here: on the shop.bt.com website) it is available from the BT shop
If you DO NOT have BT Broadband, you can still get one of these for a fee of £7.99 inc delivery and VAT from the BT shop
In my opinion, these iplates/broadband accelerators should be available for ALL BT Customers free of charge, not just those on BT Broadband. I mean, lets face it, we pay them enough money a month, and they are under pressure from the government to improve the national broadband infrastructure, but as well all know, customer service is not their strong point.
My second point to mention is BT's inference that their Wireless N homehub will improve your broadband connection.
This is quite frankly misleading and not true.
Let me be straight with you. The wireless standard produced by your router has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on the quality of your broadband connection.
Wireless N improves the signal strength and range within your property. This has no relevance to your broadband connection and it is still possible for it to get interference (and cause it for) from other products which use the 2.4Ghz radio band (bluetooth and wireless telephones are two examples) or microwave ovens. You may also find that wireless N receivers make it more difficult for wireless b/g receivers to pick up a signal due to wireless N reducing the amount of "clean" channels. This is particularly pertinent if you live in a block of flats.
The long and short of that is, if there is already an underlying signal interference problem in your property, a wireless N router may not actually solve your problem.
Anyway, rant over:D
Microsoft Certified IT Professional x 3 (Vista - Enterprise and Consumer, Server 2008)
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist x 5 (Vista, Windows Mobile, Windows Server 2008)
Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (XP).
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist x 5 (Vista, Windows Mobile, Windows Server 2008)
Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (XP).
0
Comments
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You make some good points.
My view is, don't believe the hype, the i-plate is a waste of money.
The same effect can be achieved by simply removing the bell wire connection from your extension wiring.
If you have money to spare buy an ADSL faceplate.
http://www.adslnation.com/products/xte2005.php
Read this:-
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htmThat gum you like is coming back in style.0 -
My two penneth....
I'm already a customer of BT - but it wasn't all due my choice as I had limited options when I tried to get broad band a few years back..... it's a long story.
However, your point about the Wireless N Hub aka home Hub v2 is slightly debatable as whilst the wireless part of the hub has no bearing on the broadband quality it can be argued that it could provide an improved connection back to your exchange on it's other function of being the ADSL modem.
That said, I found in my experience that the home hub v2 is less reliable on the ADSL front as it's tolerance level to SNR is poor and it tends to drop the connection more often than not in it's quest to attain higher sync rates. This of course has a downward spiral effect as the more the hub disconnects and reconnects the more the exchange is likely to think that your line is unstable. This then causes the downgrading of ones IP profile (aka BRAS profile) to lower rates in order to "stabilise" the line.
On the face plate issue, initially I had the i-plate installed (bought not FOC) on my main socket but it did not have any improvement what so ever (I'm about 4000m on the loop length). But when all things came to head a few months back, BT eventually replaced the master socket with the open reach plus socket (it filters the data from voice at the NT point and presents them via two separate ports so that the modem can plug straight into the main socket with the need for external filter). Since then, it's been quite good, the down link sync/line rate has gone from 128k to the dizzy (!!) heights of 2.9Mb with the BRAS of 2250k.0 -
You make some good points.
My view is, don't believe the hype, the i-plate is a waste of money.
The same effect can be achieved by simply removing the bell wire connection from your extension wiring.
If you have money to spare buy an ADSL faceplate.
http://www.adslnation.com/products/xte2005.php
Read this:-
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm
I agree,I had no end of problems with the BT Hub before I got O2 in,now no problems whatsoever.
When I moved into my apartment,one of the first things I did was rip out all the TV & Phone points & cabling & re-route & replace everything,The phone point was in a really stupid place with the terminus in the hall next to the front door.
So I ran all the new TV & phone lines thru the attic to the living room with the NTE5 relocated to the best place in the apartment.
Advantage to me is I know that,as a telecomms engineer,all the work is rock solid & future proofed,hell even if Cable ever get's down where I live,it's already in,all the engineers have to do is run the drop into the attic & connect up!
Simples!0 -
You make some good points.
My view is, don't believe the hype, the i-plate is a waste of money.
The same effect can be achieved by simply removing the bell wire connection from your extension wiring.
If you have money to spare buy an ADSL faceplate.
http://www.adslnation.com/products/xte2005.php
Read this:-
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm
Of course the real answer is to not use plug in extensions but people do because they are cheap and easy to fit. Some even run their routers on them.
So long as a plugin extension isn't being used for the router it should always be filtered at the master socket end to isolate the dratted ring wire in it.0 -
Good point but I'm worried about your monkey, smoking can't be good for him!That gum you like is coming back in style.0
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I completely agree with aardware on these points.
Also, it's worth mentioning that the i plate has very little to do with the 20MBit speed BT seem so proud about.
They fail to mention that to get that speed you need to be connected to an ADSL2+ enabled exchange (about 5% of the country) and you also need to be living next door to said exchange to get the full benefit.
It doesn't matter what their systems can potentially deliver when most of the country is crippled by the appalling copper wires running into their houses.
I wonder what percentage of the houses in the UK could achieve ADSL sync rates of more than 18MBits? I'll bet it's a very small figure...0 -
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