BT Speed Checker claims the best I can hope for is 4MB!

jonathandaws

Hi

I'm buying my first house and so started to research my broadband options.

Did a BT speedchecker test for the property and came back as a max of 4mb.

Now is this really the max I can get or would I get more going with O2 etc.

I realise it is the same phoneline to my house but don't broadband providers have different limits they place on the bandwith?

Any advice would be great.

Best option is looking to be O2 8mb at £7.50 a month with first 3 months free.

mk-donald

Well assuming that o2 are offering you their o2 Standard LLU package at £12.50/m less £5/m for being an o2 mobile user too (ie NOT just o2 Access which isn't to be wholeheartedly recommended at all) then you won't get WORSE with o2.

What speed will mostly depend on the length and quality of the phoneline - ie the 'attenuation' experienced at the modem. Those predictions are based on a single (old/eternal) database of the phonelines and are not necessarily 100% accurate. If you are on friendly terms with any of your new neighbours you could ask them what modem synch speeds they are achieving (or if really lucky even get their actual modem stats to give more of a speed "quotation" than speed "estimate").

o2 Std is an ADSL2+ Annex A based service which technically can go up to 24Mbps down/1.3Mbps up - though Std gets modem speed capped at 8Mbps.

It's really at shorter distances/lower attenuation lines that ADSL2+ Annex A improves on the normal ADSLmax speeds (though UPspeed on ADSL2+ is upto 1.3Mbps rather than capped at 0.448Mbps as it is with ADSLmax), see this graph that illustrates the concept:
http://surispace.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/internode-adsl2-distance1.jpg

I've a c5kms line of not-high quality (line attenuation c56dB), and my BT estimate is 3.0-3.5Mbps, but I got c3.7-4.1Mbps with o2 Standard, and since tweaking the type of ADSL from the default am now on 4.1-4.7Mbps; both with c0.9Mbps UP.

Given that o2 Std is even better value than you thought as you can not only get the 3m free but ALSO get £70 currently as cashback from Quidco/TopCashBack, that means the first year (your contract commitment, once you pass the 30-day moneyback guarantee period) can be either £2.50 net PAID TO YOU, or at most (if you take against getting an o2 PAYG) £42.50 paid by you, ie only £3.54 net a month, I doubt if you BT would be anywhere near as cheap, or as well liked!

See my features/net-cost computations/mobile phone tips at:
http://cid-99aa6cf1226facfe.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/o2%20Broadband%20-v-%20Be%20There%20Broadband

MKD
a 2.5yr o2 Standard subscriber

G_M

Be grateful. I live 12 miles from the Exchange and my max speed is 1MB!

gazfocus

It appears my maximum is 1.5Mb and I only live 2 miles from the exchange

web_ferret

I get 6meg and my neighbour gets 4meg. He is with talk talk and I pay £18 a month with nildram. No idea why unless its you get what you pay for.

mk-donald

web_ferret wrote: »

I get 6meg and my neighbour gets 4meg. He is with talk talk and I pay £18 a month with nildram. No idea why unless its you get what you pay for.

Could well be he's stuck on ADSLmax (ie synch gets rounded down, but more of it is usable for data) and you're on ADSL2+ (ie synch totally flexible, but c15% overhead to be deduced before data); or maybe one of you is measuring throughput rather than modem synch?

If you can get o2 home broadband's LLU packages (eg o2 Standard) at your exchange now is a very good time to CONSIDER jumping ship to it - as you can get their o2 Standard for between (best) paying YOU £2.50, to you (worst) paying them £42.50 (if you refuse to have anything to do with an o2 mobile #) for an entire YEAR of usage, ie at least 75% saved over your next year - see my other postings for more info !

MKD

appleblossom

I live under a mile away from our exchange and I get 1mb tops - usually less then that it's because we have old phone lines here and BT will only change them if we pay a ridiculous amount of money.

Given that Tiscali have just increased my rental to £19.99 a month I'm looking elsewhere as I'm not paying that when I can get it a lot less just for 1MB.

iceblue24

when i signed up to O2 last week, they estimated my line speed would be 2Mb. Having been with O2 for 2 days now, my maximum speed is touching 6Mb and im about 2.5 miles from the exchange

moonrakerz

According to Samknows I am 750M from the exchange. I get (consistently) 13 - 14mbs down, and .75 - 1mbs up. I am on o2's 16mbs package, for a tenner a month - very happy customer !

mk-donald

iceblue24 wrote: »

when i signed up to O2 last week, they estimated my line speed would be 2Mb. Having been with O2 for 2 days now, my maximum speed is touching 6Mb and im about 2.5 miles from the exchange

All ISPs are in the same boat, industry codes say they should base their estimate on the old/eternal BT database, which isn't always 100.00% accurate, and hence the estimates are closer to "guestimates" than "quotations".

Anyone with an existing landline ADSL broadband service would be best to get the full stats from their current modem (ie real life achieved service stats) and plug the key figures into the various online estimators to get a far better estimate. There's links to how & where in my online docs - see above.

MKD
a 2.5yr o2 Standard subscriber, 5kms 58dB line @ 4.1Mbps as I type, 4.7Mbps when the 'conditions are right'

forgotmyname

I was with AOL who got taken over by CPW & talktalk, since the takeover my connection speed got worse and worse, droppnig connections often.

Tech support was useless, Got asked what colour wire my wireless router uses to connect to the PC? errr its invisible.
Got told my maximum speed was 0.5mb, Despite being connected at 2mb during the call and had hit highs of 4mb but unstable at that speed. Tech seemed suprised that i knew howto check my speeds & line info. Obviously the blame the user & line etc was not going to work. So they cut me off, Several times.

Got fed up and moved to O2 speed started off at 3.5mb but has now risen to 5mb, Better than expected.