BE Internet - A warning.
- Thread starter Hellsmk2
- Start date
Next house will be on the exchange 
in THEORY yes, my friend who live closer gets a proportionaly better speed to me...
if you have damaged/old cables leading to your house, this will hurt speed due to noise on the line, but that said we both live in old terraced houses and are ok.
When you ring BE to get set up, they will do a line test for you and give you an estimation of speed.
also, you should plug your modem into the master socket, not an extension, or better yet the BT test socket located behind the faceplate of the master socket, as this will cut out the surprising ammount of interference from your own internal phone wires.
alternatively you can buy a replacement master socket from somwhere like a competitor for about £12 which isolates your internet connection fron the rest of your phone system
if you have damaged/old cables leading to your house, this will hurt speed due to noise on the line, but that said we both live in old terraced houses and are ok.
When you ring BE to get set up, they will do a line test for you and give you an estimation of speed.
also, you should plug your modem into the master socket, not an extension, or better yet the BT test socket located behind the faceplate of the master socket, as this will cut out the surprising ammount of interference from your own internal phone wires.
alternatively you can buy a replacement master socket from somwhere like a competitor for about £12 which isolates your internet connection fron the rest of your phone system
you can do that, but you may lose some speed from your internal wires, youll just have to test it.
If you do lose a signifiant ammount of speed, you can try disconnecting the ring wire in your BT master socket, this wire is a "legacy" system thats designed to provide power to the ringers in oldskool dialer phones.
In modern terms, it just acts a a big antennae to pick up interference and slow down your internet.
http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/kb_vigor_linefaults.html
If you do lose a signifiant ammount of speed, you can try disconnecting the ring wire in your BT master socket, this wire is a "legacy" system thats designed to provide power to the ringers in oldskool dialer phones.
In modern terms, it just acts a a big antennae to pick up interference and slow down your internet.
http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/kb_vigor_linefaults.html
me personally, i took the arnold shwarzenegger approach and run some cat5 up the side of the house from the router downstairs which is connected directly to the test socket 
check out the speedtest pic (my actual connection is faster, but just an example as speedtest always under-reports speed )
my router consistenly has speeds of ~11meg download, ~1.2meg upload
check out the speedtest pic (my actual connection is faster, but just an example as speedtest always under-reports speed )
my router consistenly has speeds of ~11meg download, ~1.2meg upload
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Ive ben with BE now for about 4 months and if your into peer2peer they are as good as it gets....~2km from exhange at 11mb down, 1-1.2 up
router is a bit flakey, but i dosent bother me TBH.
Our router arrived today - the black branded SpeedTouch one. Did wonder what it's like - lots of prots on the back, and a power switch plus a button on the front...I assume it's a reset one? Not sure if we'll bother using it though, we've already got a Netgear DG834GT set up, and it seems decent enough.
We are with BE and have been for a few months now, service has been nothing but exceptional, got connected on the day they said, got my Be box on time, setup was a breeze for wired and wireless, no serious dropped conections. Speed for HTTP and BT are both fast, wouldn't change tbh. We've cancelled though but only cos I'm the only one that really uses it and am off to uni, cancelling was extremely easy too. What's happened to you is rather unfortunate.
The Be Bulgaria call center are pretty much head and shoulders above MOST UK ISP call centers, they have tools for the management of lines which most other UK ISPs don't have and they have excellent training and skillsets.
What you have to realise is, if you're recieving 8mb in a city center location, have you considered other factors such as the length of wiring to your premises, impulse noise/quiet line noise on your line that is counteracted by conservative noise margaining that is responsible for the simple fact that your line cannot cope with anything above 8mb?
When your line is provisioned, it is on the BLEEDING edge of what you can recieve, Be are not conservative in providing you with broadband, you are given the fastest you can possibly achieve based on the information passed to and from your router to the DSLAM.
Simple fact is, if they see that they can't bump down your noise margin to give you a higher sync, they cant, there is 101 ways of determining your line state and what it can support. Well, i lie, there is a handful, your line length, copper quality, bridge taps, impulse noise and quite line noise.
It obviously sucks that you dont think you are recieving the service you think you should have, but the problem is, a lot of customers dont realise that there is a lot more to getting 24mb than just having a BT line and being a certain length from the exchange.
What you have to realise is, if you're recieving 8mb in a city center location, have you considered other factors such as the length of wiring to your premises, impulse noise/quiet line noise on your line that is counteracted by conservative noise margaining that is responsible for the simple fact that your line cannot cope with anything above 8mb?
When your line is provisioned, it is on the BLEEDING edge of what you can recieve, Be are not conservative in providing you with broadband, you are given the fastest you can possibly achieve based on the information passed to and from your router to the DSLAM.
Simple fact is, if they see that they can't bump down your noise margin to give you a higher sync, they cant, there is 101 ways of determining your line state and what it can support. Well, i lie, there is a handful, your line length, copper quality, bridge taps, impulse noise and quite line noise.
It obviously sucks that you dont think you are recieving the service you think you should have, but the problem is, a lot of customers dont realise that there is a lot more to getting 24mb than just having a BT line and being a certain length from the exchange.
I signed up with Be 2 weeks ago, I was connected within 6 days, I had texts every step of the way explaining everything as it was processed, the router arrived 3 days before the line was activated and i've got a connection speed of 20meg, upload is 1.3meg, granted i'm 600m from the exchange as the crow flies but this is still much better than 1meg I had for the last 3 years.
Be are head and shoulders above the rest, fast reliable customer support, no shaping whatsoever, truly unlimited bandwidth, obviously this could change but happy for now.
I've been with many isps over the last 12 years due to moving house quite a lot and without doubt, they are the best i've had to date.
Be are head and shoulders above the rest, fast reliable customer support, no shaping whatsoever, truly unlimited bandwidth, obviously this could change but happy for now.
I've been with many isps over the last 12 years due to moving house quite a lot and without doubt, they are the best i've had to date.
Associate
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 1,894
- Location
- Bedfordshire
Been with BE for a year now. Never had any major outages (most scheduled work is done early early morning so i'm not using it then anyway.
Speeds have dropped a bit recently (was getting 6meg but down to about 4 now), but i'll do some testing as I think this is due to the extension cable i'm running off.
Never had any issues with them, you want problems try Bulldog, I have known 4 people with Bulldog and 4 people that have had issues (myself included)
Speeds have dropped a bit recently (was getting 6meg but down to about 4 now), but i'll do some testing as I think this is due to the extension cable i'm running off.
Never had any issues with them, you want problems try Bulldog, I have known 4 people with Bulldog and 4 people that have had issues (myself included)
Soldato
- Joined
- 5 Aug 2003
- Posts
- 8,535
- Location
- Essex
I've had no problems with BE, although my 24 meg connection was only getting about 12 meg so I've just changed to their value package which is unlimited usage, 8 meg down, 1.3 up, for £14 a month.
I'm using my own router with it
I'm using my own router with it