BT Wholesale tolerances

[CurlyWhirly]

I know that broadband is a contended service but does anyone think that the following tolerances are a bit on the low side?

BT would regard the speed ranges shown below as normal service:

For 250kbps End Users speeds between 50 - 250kbps.
For 500kbps End Users speeds between 100 - 500kbps.
For 1000kbps End Users speeds between 200 - 1000kbps.
For 2000kbps End Users speeds between 400 - 2000kbps.

As I am currently on a 1 Mb service then my connection speed can go down to as low as 200 Kb before BT would class this as a fault

If this happened then I would only be getting 20% of the speed that I am paying for but I must admit that my connection speed has never gone to below 900 Kb.

However, with increasing speeds becoming available with the launch of Max DSL (and the scrapping of the 50:1 home and 20:1 business contention ratios) does anyone know at what tolerance level you can now go down to before BT will call it a fault?

I am soon going to be on Max DSL and so I was wondering!

 

[Psymonkee]

well I can barely get d/l's above 10KB/s during peak time from my ISP

However during this peak time I can max out the connection on a torrent without trouble

 

[tolien]

As I am currently on a 1 Mb service then my connection speed can go down to as low as 200 Kb before BT would class this as a fault

Versus 50:1, where it could happily drop to 20kbps before BT would care...

 

[CurlyWhirly]

Crikey, that's an extreme situation from very fast to very slow depending on whether you are using your connection at peak time or not

As I am using a conventional ADSL service, I don't experience those extremes so I am wondering whether this is going to be the 'norm' with Max DSL?

If so I don't know whether to stay put and wait for the dust to settle

 

[tolien]

http://www.zensupport.co.uk/knowledgebase/article.aspx?id=10537

IPStream Max (Zen 8000 Pro and Active):

Line Rate Performance Threshold
288Kbit/s 50-250kbit/s
from 288Kbit/s to 576Kbit/s 50-500kbit/s
from 576Kbit/s to 1152Kbit/s 100-1000kbit/s
from 1152Kbit/s to 2272Kbit/s 200-2000kbit/s
from 2272Kbit/s to 8128Kbit/s 400-7150kbit/s

IPStream Max Premium (Zen Office 8000 Max):

Line Rate Performance Threshold
288Kbit/s 100-250kbit/s
from 288Kbit/s to 576Kbit/s 100-500kbit/s
from 576Kbit/s to 1152Kbit/s 200-1000kbit/s
from 1152Kbit/s to 2272Kbit/s 400-2000kbit/s
from 2272Kbit/s to 8128Kbit/s 800-7150kbit/s

As I am using a conventional ADSL service, I don't experience those extremes so I am wondering whether this is going to be the 'norm' with Max DSL?

Removing the rate adaption doesn't stop congestion getting you...

 

[CurlyWhirly]

Versus 50:1, where it could happily drop to 20kbps before BT would care...

Yes I see what you mean now

So what I think is happening is that using conventional broadband, people rarely notice the contention ratio but with Max DSL you can get a faster speed for most of the day and then at peak times your connection can slow to a crawl.

If this is the case I wonder if BT are going to do anything to solve this contention problem but I doubt it as it probably wouldn't be in their business interest to do so assuming that anything can be done in the first place

 

[tolien]

It's nothing to do with "conventional broadband" vs MaxDSL.

It's pretty normal that as the headline speed goes up the variation goes up with it.
BT'll deal with the exchanges that are outside thresholds, but there's regulatory issues to deal with too. Of course some issues are related to the BRAS bugs too.

 

[CurlyWhirly]

Removing the rate adaption doesn't stop congestion getting you...

Mmm... In that case I have no idea why I have never experienced a really slow connection like Psymonkee does?

I guess that I am just fortunate!

I must admit that I thought that you were more likely to get congestion using Max DSL but obviously I am wrong