talkmagic.co.uk

So BT laid new cables, they replaced the master socket and installed an adsl only extension socket. They tested the line and said up to 6mb Mr Chambers.

They left.... internet worked for 2 days then bang....... said I have a signal but the exchange wouldnt accept any requests thinking I shouldnt have a signal.

Ended up finding the address and then emailing the chief executive at Tiscali who responded personally and passed the case to high level complaints executive.

More weeks of non connection.... three way phone calls with tiscali and BT engineers resulting in lots of scratched heads and remarks like "why are you sync'd? you shouldnt be sync'd I just disconnected you!" etc etc etc

Then yday a newly trained engineer comes out.... starts trying to fob me off with the "it's your equipment sir" lines until I pull out TWO USB modems and a Router (obtained free from Tiscali as a goodwill gesture) and demand she tries them in her poxy laptop. Lo and behold - no internet for her either!!

Well then ensues a debate over it being my problem as it's wiring in the house so I prove her wrong yet again and evntually she goes down to the exchnage and confirms I should not be connected - at last, the truth starts to come clear.

Now sir you should be connected..... er no, you've also managed to knock out my landline too as theres no dial tone.......Really sir, now that is strange!!

Anyway, 3 and a half hours later between Tisc, the engineer and the head engineer at BT they finally admit they dont have aclue why it's not working and have to manually lift all my wiring and rewire into a different part of the exchange.

An hour or so later and finally I have internet.... initially good too at 6mb down and 378 up....

BUT WITHIN AN HOUR AND SINCE THEN I can get no faster than 1MB.....

ARRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH

But still it's better than no net - touch wood!!

OOh OOOOh OOOOOOOOOhhhhh

My last 2 speedtests have revealed 4.9 mb and 5.6mb

Could we finally be in the dawning of a new era regards my internet....?

Well I've got the next 4 months for free so lets see shall we LOL!!

BTW.... did anyone see THE GADGET SHOW on CH5? They have a broadbnad truth campaign going.

See it's amazing how many people think they are getting whatever their modem says it syncs at but your true speed is somewhat different as I have argued with friends time and time and time again about and always won hands down.

If you want to know your true speed go to SPEEDTEST NET click on the yellow pyramid as this is what it thinks is the best one for you to test at.

I'd be interested to know what everyone is getting compared to what you THINK you are getting!!

GADGET SHOW BROADBAND CAMPAIGN

Well, if it makes you feel better, we are on a business contract at home, and get 512k down and 128k up at BEST.

One of the negative joys of rural living.

Actually Seige... is there any chance this can be branched into it's own thread regarding the gadgets shows campaign?

Did 2 tests:

Download 1800 kb/s & 1953 kb/s
Upload 164 kb/s & 156 kb/s

Dunno why the big difference in upload and download - I'm no good on pewters so I'm sure someone can explain

Well I think I'm on 2 Meg connection, so I'm assuming that 1800 and 1953 is about right (ish)

Jordan C wrote:See it's amazing how many people think they are getting whatever their modem says it syncs at but your true speed is somewhat different as I have argued with friends time and time and time again about and always won hands down.

Ah, well you see, there's a difference between the line speed and the data throughput. Yer actual internet is up to 75% inefficient. I have an old 800Kb line, but my sustained data throughput usually tops out at about 63kb/s sustained.

Each packet sent from the server is acknowledged by your machine. If these ACK packets get lost, the server unintelligently doubles the delay between sending subsequent data. This is why you see the data rate drop like a stone after you start a download. The real kicker is that the data transmission rate only creeps back up. I had to write about a new standard a couple of years ago that ignores low levels of errors and keeps blasting data at you. It's much faster and only needs a new protocol stack on the server end.

I'm on my work internet and thought I'd test it out....it went off the scale

Download: 32378kb/s
Upload: 31556kb/s

A bit more than my 4 mb at home although last time I tested it in the evening it was down to 0.5. I've sent my results to the gadget show

sounds like they have a t1 or t3 connection or something like that

Jordan I work for a cable company here in the States. It sounds like you are having a signal loss problem, we call it Ingress. Are you in a building with other tennants? Are they experiencing the same thing? A signal loss often happens just the way you described in your first post. First there is a lot of signal getting good levels everything is golden, then wham, you slow way the heck down. signal leakage can be tricky. Here, if there is too much and we can't get access into the customers home we have to shut them down because it can interfere with other customers in the area as well as emergency communication with fire and police. Do you use cable for your television? If so are there lines in the picture. Again the systems in the States is probably different so I may not even be close.

I recently got BT broadband through their home hub package/service and it was DOG slow until I read that they automatically enroll you onto their broadband Anywhere service which means that you can surf hotspots etc. free of charge in return for letting people piggy back onto your Broadband connection.

I read that turning this off made a significant speed difference and low and behold, I switched it off and enjoyed an almost instant improvement.

yeah, to piggy back is actually really frowned upon here. It takes up a huge amount of bandwith. But you can actually download programs that will enable you to use other people's modems to increase your download speed. So if you have say 30 modems on a node and you want to download something really quick. You set up this program and it uses all the modems that are on your node to download. (not that I've ever had problems downloading, but then I live out in the woods and there are only 10 other modems on my node) of course everyone elses speed goes way down during the process. I'm pretty sure it is against the law but unsure. It is also why I don't like Satalite hookups to easy for somebody to steal signal. so my speed and quality goes down while my neighbour is enjoying their stuff off of my bill.

I get my internet thru ADSL signal down the phone line. Apparently my exchange is congested so the more people that are on the slower I go. It doesn't help having a 50:1 contention ratio either!!