BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

My PC has an old wireless card - Linksys Wireless-G PCI Adapter WMP54G. Apparently it works at 54mb. On speedtests I get around 20mb but with ethernet I get just under 40mb. What is the bottleneck here with the wireless? Is it the router itself, the BT Home Hub Manager states this "Actual data transfer speed: 130 Mbps" or the wireless card?

I was thinking of buying one of these - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-057-TP but there's no point if it's the router which is causing the bottleneck.
 
Look who got on the 80/20 trial this morning



Having trouble finding a Speedtest server that can do it justice, they all give back different results even on ethernet. More testing later!
 
The service is great, but BT's Indian Call centre can be extremely frustrating. Still haven't been moved to Option 2 despite receiving confirmation mails! :/
 
~TB~ said:
Nice :)

Have you tried one of the Dutch servers?
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I'm out of the house today so I can do wget and such, and I've only managed to push it up to 45mbit even with multiple downloads :/ Looks like I might need to unlock my Openreach modem later then to see what it's synced at. When it was installed it was something like 93mbit attainable.

Did your 2850 come yet?

Are there any downsides of unlocking the modem? I heard they can update over the "air" (auto update themselves) and presumably putting different software on there stops BT from doing that.
 
lozzd said:
Look who got on the 80/20 trial this morning



Having trouble finding a Speedtest server that can do it justice, they all give back different results even on ethernet. More testing later!
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Do you happen to use newsgroups? That might push it up to maximum.
 
PianoBasher said:
The service is great, but BT's Indian Call centre can be extremely frustrating. Still haven't been moved to Option 2 despite receiving confirmation mails! :/
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Tell me about it I used to have to ring them every day as a business customer. Its so obvious they use a script.

Quite often they would ask you where abouts in the UK you are from and whatever you said the reply was always "thats near that London is it not?" Or you would say I come from Yorkshire and they would answer "do you get to London a lot, its really nice there".

Also if we got a call centre person who spoke poor english we would keep ringing back until we got one we could understand.

Best thing too was if you throw a curve ball and ask them a question not covered by their script. My colleague asked one female call centre person what she was doing that night, what she looked like, does she want to meet up for a drink etc and it was met with a lot of silence till they hung up.

You can have a lot of fun !

Although it was always best when India was unavailable and you got the Welsh Call centre, that was like winning the lottery, well not really but someone who can speak properly.
 
varkanoid said:
Although it was always best when India was unavailable and you got the Welsh Call centre, that was like winning the lottery, well not really but someone who can speak properly.
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I wonder if I put on a Scottish accent, will they fail to understand me and pass me on to Wales? :p

BTW must say that I enjoy talking to Welsh girls on the phone, very soothing accent. I've learned from experience that nice voice =/= pretty girl though! :p
 
lozzd said:
Did your 2850 come yet?
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Place I ordered the router from said:
Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately we are still awaiting stock of the item and are unsure of an ETA as to when this will be arriving into us. If you would like to cancel or arrange an alternative please advise.

I apologize for any inconvenience caused.
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and

Place I ordered the router from said:
Thank you for your e-mail. We are currently chasing our suppliers and we hope to have a more definite ETA on this product within the next couple of days for you.
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:(
 
Got mine done

Being able to use the internet in the evening has been total bliss :D :D

Apparently the maximum speed my line can support is 105/41

I live opposite the cabinet pretty much so that's awesome :D
 
Who's a good ISP to go with for fibre? I'm on Aquiss atm and the bandwidth caps are ridiculous. Preferably not one with a 12 month contract
 
tang0 said:
Who's a good ISP to go with for fibre? I'm on Aquiss atm and the bandwidth caps are ridiculous. Preferably not one with a 12 month contract
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BT Openreach enforce a 12 month contract on the ISPs, I don't believe there is a FTTC service that doesn't have a 12 month contract.

You get what you pay for:

BT seems to be work and people are happy and it's unlimited, but you could get rate limited/throttled, you're subject to BT blocking whatever the government/whoever fancy at any given point, and you get to call India if something goes wrong.

I pay over twice as much with Zen and I have a cap (albeit it 500GB download only so I never hit it) but I get to call up some smart person in England with no waiting, 8 IPs, no rate limiting, or throttling of any kind. Oh, and I sent them an email and they put me on the 80/20 trial for free. (until it ends)
 
lozzd said:
BT Openreach enforce a 12 month contract on the ISPs, I don't believe there is a FTTC service that doesn't have a 12 month contract.

You get what you pay for:

BT seems to be work and people are happy and it's unlimited, but you could get rate limited/throttled, you're subject to BT blocking whatever the government/whoever fancy at any given point, and you get to call India if something goes wrong.

I pay over twice as much with Zen and I have a cap (albeit it 500GB download only so I never hit it) but I get to call up some smart person in England with no waiting, 8 IPs, no rate limiting, or throttling of any kind. Oh, and I sent them an email and they put me on the 80/20 trial for free. (until it ends)
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lol seriously who wants to pay £70 a month though for zen (with VAT and installation fee added on). BT Infinity is fine for me full 40/10 and I've had no issues since installation. I rarely use torrents and if I do they work full speed anyway from a private torrent site and specific uTorrent settings. Unless I was on a exceedingly good salary and had money to waste would I pay for zen (which I still wouldn't as there are better fibre providers available for around the same cost without the 500gb cap)
 
Spenty said:
lol seriously who wants to pay £70 a month though for zen (with VAT and installation fee added on).
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Me?

BT Infinity is fine for me full 40/10 and I've had no issues since installation. I rarely use torrents and if I do they work full speed anyway from a private torrent site and specific uTorrent settings.
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Well, I'm happy for you, that's why you're free to make a choice, like I did with Zen.
Are you on the 80/20 trial? Do you have 8 IPs? Do you have good support? Maybe you don't care about those things, but I do so I'm on Zen.

Unless I was on a exceedingly good salary and had money to waste would I pay for zen (which I still wouldn't as there are better fibre providers available for around the same cost without the 500gb cap)
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Like who?
I've had years of experience with Zen and they're excellent, so they were the obvious choice, but at the same time I couldn't see any better offers, so I'd love to know.

EDIT: Also, I use my connection all day every day for working from, and I'm uncomfortable with any ISP that uses any form of shaping, which BT evidently do. I get a guaranteed minimum bandwidth from Zen, and they don't filter or throttle their traffic in any way, pretty important for my job.
 
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lozzd said:
Me?



Well, I'm happy for you, that's why you're free to make a choice, like I did with Zen.
Are you on the 80/20 trial? Do you have 8 IPs? Do you have good support? Maybe you don't care about those things, but I do so I'm on Zen.



Like who?
I've had years of experience with Zen and they're excellent, so they were the obvious choice, but at the same time I couldn't see any better offers, so I'd love to know.
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I don't need 80/20 at this current moment but will soon get it when BT do the official uplift. I don't need 8 IP's and I would use the BT forums for support that is handled by a team in Ireland so the support would be fine, so far I haven't needed to call support once. And there are many small specialist companies available in different area's who I'm sure would have struck you up a better deal than that. Insane price to pay I think.

I use BT Infinity for working from home as well, and in 3 months haven't came across any kind of throttling when uploading and downloading work files or any files for the matter. The only thing BT throttle is p2p and I haven't came across that yet either...
 
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