BT and ADSL

*grumble* My ADSL has been down all day because of some unspecified problem at BT. According to ADSL Guide it's knocked out around 200 exchanges in London and it's surrounding area!

I'm using my 56k dialup account and it's painful! (Apologies to anybody actually stuck on a 56k dialup still...)

- Trevor

I am sooooo jealous. My exchange is broadband enabled, but I live 200m too far away from it! Akkkk! And the lines to my area are so crap I get a max of 32kbaud. And to top it off, all my brothers have 2meg pipes (or greater) - this makes UT2003 very difficult. What a superb handicap system - my ping times are around 400 higher than theirs.

Time to move house - am browsing espc.co.uk now!

My exchange is broadband enabled, but I live 200m too far away from it! Akkkk! And the lines to my area are so crap I get a max of 32kbaud.

I feel for you....

I was at someone's house over the weekend when I saw something funny. I noticed that they had connected they PC to the phone line in a very odd way.

Both ends were normal, but two feet from the PC the modem cable dissappeared into a plastic terminal block, out of the other side came a two core mains cable. The mains cable then ran for 40 feet or so to the phone socket where there was another plastic terminal block connecting the mains cable to the other end of the modem cable.

You'll never guess what speed connection they were managing...

...a steady 45k on every connection. Before I got ADSL I never, ever, managed more that 38k on a modem connection. I obviously wasn't using enough mains lead !

Odd. I've been having problems with my ADSL connection here in Melbourne too.

Aside: what do other people pay for their ADSL? I pay AUD$50 per month for 256/64 and 2GB transfer. I know Australia is usually one of the more expensive places to get connected, but I'd like to actually know how much pain I'm suffering

Have fun,

Paul

I pay £21.99 for BTOpenworld 512/256 with no download limit currently here in the UK. It should be £29.99 but I get staff discount.

I have to supply my own modem though, but thats OK I have a Van full as I install and repair broadband. ;-)

Cheers

Cris

I have to supply my own modem though

When I installed ADSL at my g/f's flat last month, I used a D-Link DI-614+ combined DSL modem/router/firewall/wireless AP box.

It's sweet.

ObDSLCost: It costs £23.44 a month (inc VAT) for Pipex DSL.

I pay about £26.75 a month for 512/256 without a download limit. That's about AUD$74 according to a currency converter.
I'm actually close enough to the exchange to get the 2048/256 service but I don't really want to pay the £140 a month for that considering I could just walk over to my office and use the internet connection there!

- Trevor

I've got 1024/256 20:1 from Easynet that I pay £116 a month for. I will be switching to a £30 a month 512/256 50:1 line later this year and spending £60 a month on 1U of colo space instead.

I was paying US$50/month for 608/128, but right now I'm paying US$50 for 0/0 in hopes of soon paying US$50 for 1500/768. I have a transfer limit on my Usenet bandwidth, but I doubt that's what you're talking about. If it is, mine's 1GB/month.

Edit: I should point out that I could get it cheaper, but my ISP (Speakeasy) is very cool to deal with -- very geek-friendly -- so I don't mind paying a little more, and I get a static IP, which is vaguely hard to come by in the US.

You probably shouldn't of told us that.


But can you find out when an area is going to get broadband as my new house in aberdeen ain't got it.

Have you got little grey boxes all over the place in the street ???

Cheers

Cris.

US $79.95 for 1500/256 (business acct. pricing) with bellsouth. Same plan is $55/mo with residential pricing.

Hang in there for the 1.5/768. I just got it last month, and the connection is great. So, 1.5/768 for $50, it's a great deal untill worldcom goes tits-up.

Matthew

Also in Melbourne, I'm paying AUD60 per month, for 512/128 and a 500MB download limit (no upload limit). Occasionally the link goes down for a couple of hours or so. I've had to reboot my modem now and then as well, but I don't know whose fault that is. Other than that it's been pretty good though. It may be expensive, but it's cheaper and a lot faster than the dialup that I had previously.

Richard.

ok, i'm curious about the 1.5/768 for $50 deal. looking at speakeasy, it looks like it's $100 for that package. is this a targeted promotion, or am i just looking in the wrong place?

--dan.

It's a targeted promotion. I had $50 for 608/128 and they wanted to move me to a new pop and the increased speed was the benefit. Pretty remarkable benefit. I'm having to remember that during this outage.

ah, dang. i was looking for the last straw to make me cancel AT&T/comcast cable service.

thanks,
--dan.

It may be targeted with speakeasy, but Cyberonic has it for anyone, with a $100 activation fee. I managed to get around that by signing up with a bunch of directv refugees, but you might just want to bite the bullet and pay it. it's $40 a month if you're willing to prepay 18 months, but that's betting your isp will be around for a bit longer than I'm willing to bet.

Cyberonic isn't that great support wise, but I think a lot of that stems from the hundreds (thousands?) of directv people that were trying to sign up at the same time. It comes with one real IP, and you can get more if you really want. Current speed test @4pm:
download «1244 kbps
upload «601 kbps

Matthew

ooooo.... tempting. anyone else have an experience (good or bad) with cyberonic?

--dan.

Describe these wee square boxes

Small grey boxes with white numbers on every 100yards or so. If you have these then you are on TPON. It means you have fibre to the end of your street and only the last few meters is copper, this means ADSL is a while off for you yet. BT have been trying this sort of stuff on new housing estates that are quite far from the exchange.

If you don't the only thing you can do is head on over to http://www.bt.com/braodband and check the interest in your area.

Cheers

Cris.

No, I tell a lie, it was a DI-604+. Sorry.

might have a look next time i am there but seeing my new house is 200 miles away not going to look tonight