AOL Silver Vs AOL Wireless...

south_paw

I am an AOL (don't boo me LOL) Silver customer. I pay £14.99pm. The Service was originally 1meg. Most AOL customers on this tariff got the emaila few months ago stating the service was 'upgraded' to 2megs maximum.

Now along trots 'AOL Wireless' @£14.99 at 'up to' 8megs.
Here's the thing. My exchnage has ADSL1, ADSL2 / MAX & LLU enabled. My line is fault free according to BT. They also told me my line supports up to 2megs max.

Now seeing since I get barely 440kbps all day and night. Yup...even at 4 & 6am...hardly peak-time is it? BT waffle on about 'peak-time traffic' is kinda patronising. And seeing as I NEVER see 1meg speeds let alone 2megs. And seeing as my exchange ADMITTED that it GENERALLY only gives everyone (?) 2megs max (according to a rep).

How is AOL going to give me 8megs? Do they do something with BT to open up the line for faster speeds? I know 8megs is the maximum. It's an 'up to' service after all.
I've heard the scary stories of people upgrading 'up to' 8megs and getting weaker more unstable speeds than what they got before. And other stories or people who similarly told they got 2meg on their landline by BT. But when they upgraded with thier provider the speeds went to 3 or 4megs. An improvement, yes. But can AOL promise me an improvement.

If I sign up for 8megs....is there a chance my 2meg line will stay as it is with still 44kbps average never rising?

AOL don't gain anything as the two packages are the same price. But be warned you enter into a new 18 month contract and the 40-60gb limit drops to 10gb per month.

Have any other AOL customers pondered over this predicament?

penrhyn

If they upgrade you to ADSL max then you could get up to 8mbps.
All depends on how far from the exchange you are, i.e your line attenuation, and also line noise, lastly your internal telephone wiring will have an effect.
Do you happen to know what your line statistics are?

south_paw

No I dont. I guess I will find those things via the router set-up. Am I guessing right? I usually go into my Netgear router to see what broadband speed it's at.

Last looked at it when upgrading the firmware for the model of router I have.

What exact things am I looking for in Line statistics? Is it just one thing?
I will go off for a bit & check.

south_paw

Right so I checked the line stats...watched it for about a minute because it updated every five seconds.

Line Attenuation: Down: 14db

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Up: 3db
Noise Margin: Down: 31db

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Up: 31db

What exactly does that mean? And what should I be expecting?
I've been starting to try and understand SNR also. Where the average to expect is 6 db? Or I have that wrong?:rolleyes:

south_paw

My straight line distance to the exchange is 1.8 miles. But that means nothing according to BT.

My build is fairly new and there is a change my connection to the exchange goes round quite a few other houses before it enters the exchange.

I'm currently renting do I don't want to try another home move. But if I move into a more permanent residence...then I might think of upgrading my AOL and start a fresh AOL contract. But not before doing my research first. No point signing up right at this moment if I might up & move.:p