Has anyone changed phone+Web suppliers during the cooling off period please?

penrhyn

Where the idea that BT will give you a faster service?
If you are on Virgin National for your broadband it is a rebadged BT product and your download speed, throttling at peak times etc will be the same with BT.
The only difference would be if you were to get BT Infinity FTTC.
All ISPs offer an up to service usually around 20Mbps with ADSL.
The only way you'll get a faster service is by moving nearer to the exchange.

bundance

penrhyn wrote: »

Where the idea that BT will give you a faster service?
If you are on Virgin National for your broadband it is a rebadged BT product and your download speed, throttling at peak times etc will be the same with BT.
The only difference would be if you were to get BT Infinity FTTC.
All ISPs offer an up to service usually around 20Mbps with ADSL.
The only way you'll get a faster service is by moving nearer to the exchange.

Thanks

What does "throttled" mean please?

I cannot get fibre-optic from virgin as they advised me it is not in their area.
I have heard that they have got a good reputation for speed from reviews though.
Virgin said that while they could not offer me fibre-optic, they could offer broadband down my phone line.
What restrictions does broadband down the phone line have please?
When I looked at the BT page, the upto 20mb was obviously the cheaperst, but as the other, more expensive deals on that page say upto 38mb and 76mb and 100mb, does that not mean these slighly dearer services are faster?
I thought it did, or is it just a gimmick?

penrhyn

BT's broadband network gets overloaded. To mitigate this connection speeds are reduced at peak times i.e throttled.
I was not referring to Virgin Cable broadband, I was referring to BT Infinity Fibreoptic broadband which is being rolled out at certain exchanges.

bundance

penrhyn wrote: »

BT's broadband network gets overloaded. To mitigate this connection speeds are reduced at peak times i.e throttled.
I was not referring to Virgin Cable broadband, I was referring to BT Infinity Fibreoptic broadband which is being rolled out at certain exchanges.

Thanks for explaining what throttled means.
Sky dont throttle their traffic.
But surely any ISP's slightly dearer packages which offer up to more than 20mb are going to be faster than the cheap bargain bucket "up to 20mb offers"?

penrhyn

No they won't, with ADSLthe limitation is the length of the cable between the exchange and your home.
What BT are doing is extending the optical network to street end cabinets, thus reducing the length of the copper cables and giving an improved performance. Its called Fibre to the Cabinet, and BT has the BT Infinity product.
Virgin Cable works in a similar way.

bundance

penrhyn wrote: »

No they won't, with ADSLthe limitation is the length of the cable between the exchange and your home.
What BT are doing is extending the optical network to street end cabinets, thus reducing the length of the copper cables and giving an improved performance. Its called Fibre to the Cabinet, and BT has the BT Infinity product.
Virgin Cable works in a similar way.

Thanks.

So, why are the deals with higher speeds generally more expensive?

I checked online and my neaest exhange is only a ten minute walk away from my flat. I guess this is pretty close. Would this have a positive influence on my speed, or would this only apply to the residents who live next to the exchange?

Thanks

penrhyn

Because they use a different technology.

Log on to your router and post your router's line statistics, and I'll tell you what speed you can expect.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

bundance

penrhyn wrote: »

Because they use a different technology.

Log on to your router and post your router's line statistics, and I'll tell you what speed you can expect.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

Hi Penrhyn

I am on an old fashioned adsl modem like this one.
http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee447/starfish53/?action=view&current=speedtouch.jpg

I still followed the link above and was instructed to download Dr Speedtouch from a site they directed me to.

I downloaded it and ran the test.
Microsoft security Essentials asked me if I wanted to block it and I said no.
I ran the test and it said "no device found" :shrugs:
I dunno why Dr speedtouch cannot detect my modem.

Can you help please?

penrhyn

Goodness, I did not realise such things were still in use.
I've still got one in a cupboard somewhere, unfortunately I can't really advise on why Dr Speedtouch is not working, maybe rebooting the PC might help.
I seem to recall that there was some limitation in speed with the old frog modem, so when you get a modern router your speed may improve.