Talktalk rubbish - Plusnet decent?

ringo747 · 31 Mar 2011 at 22:10

fluff said:
Yes. You might be able to squeeze a little more downstream speed out of the line if you force the SNR to 6. You should be able to do it as you have a Netgear router.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/routers/dg834GT_targetsnr.htm

The article refers to the DG83G but it might work with other models of Netgear routers.

I've tried this but my connection speed now lowers. Is that expected?

cymatty · 1 Apr 2011 at 00:27

My plusnet speed on standard adsl, not bad if I do say so myself.

Sunbed · 1 Apr 2011 at 10:03

Really don't get why people bash plusnet. I've been with them for almost a year now and had no problems.

- Customer service is awesome. Example up there ^^^ go on their forums and they'll sort stuff out.
- They restrict p2p and usenet... this is good. I don't want people downloading junk films slowing down my internet.
- Monthly contract. If I'm fed up, I can just leave.
- Cheap
- Usage limits are obvious. No "fair usage policy" bull****

my speeds are that of cymatty above ^. No other company including sky or BT predicted that speed. They just said 8mb max. Plusnet estimated it right from the start.. and got it spot on.

KIA · 1 Apr 2011 at 11:07

ringo747 said:
I've tried this but my connection speed now lowers. Is that expected?

Post before and after screenshots.

bobpullen · 6 Apr 2011 at 15:34

ringo747 said:
This is the end result. Could someone explain how it is possible? Zen mentioned that an engineer would maybe have been involved in the migration. Below are the stats:

OLD

NEW

So my connection speed is now 3392 compared to 2272 - why would this be?

The first set of stats are from a fixed 2Mbps 'IPStream' circuit.
The second set of stats are from a rate adaptive 'Up to 8Mbps' IPStream Max' circuit.

You were moved to a different wholesale product as part of the migration.

Rgds,

Evil-I · 6 Apr 2011 at 16:29

I used to be with Force 9 who were bought out/ amalgamated with Plusnet and the service went down hill. Them becoming part of BT was the final straw for me.

I now use IDNET, not cheap, but you get what you pay for. Very reliable and when you call them, there's an expert on the end of the line not a trained monkey reading from a script.

E-I

panyan · 6 Apr 2011 at 16:43

Evil-I said:
I used to be with Force 9 who were bought out/ amalgamated with Plusnet and the service went down hill. Them becoming part of BT was the final straw for me.

I now use IDNET, not cheap, but you get what you pay for. Very reliable and when you call them, there's an expert on the end of the line not a trained monkey reading from a script.

E-I

thats very intersting because i joined the internet will wanadoo, which was bought out by Orange (you know, the phone people) and becuase we are such an old customer, we get fantastic deals, like the one i am on now:

£9.99, 20mb/second (i acutally get 12mb/second due to old phone line

) and the speed is NEVER capped or shaped and the service is decent, i;ve only had to phone them once when they upgraded the line for half a morning and i was without net

Monster ninja · 7 Apr 2011 at 16:23

dont go with sky... they have so many stupid rules like you cant use your own router... i would highly recomand o2 great speeds, great customer service or BT fiber optic

ringo747 · 7 Apr 2011 at 19:25

ringo747 said:
NEW

So my connection speed is now 3392 compared to 2272 - why would this be? Is this a 3Mbps connection now? My download speeds are now a fair bit better so it's all good. Looking forward to using this new service.

For some reason my connection now only connects at 2080kbps so it's slower than it was before. How can this be? Router settings haven't changed at all.

bobpullen · 7 Apr 2011 at 20:44

Post your stats again.

At a guess I would say that your downstream SNR margin has increased to 12-15db.

If it has then it will be because your line has dropped and been subjected to the actions of BT Wholesale's Dynamic Line Management systems.

Rgds,

Sparx · 7 Apr 2011 at 21:20

ringo747 said:
Just an update on this. In the end I moved everything away from TT Onetel and moved the broadband to zen. Today was my activation date and I noticed on speedtest.net that my ISP was still onetel but noticed speed differences.

This is the end result. Could someone explain how it is possible? Zen mentioned that an engineer would maybe have been involved in the migration. Below are the stats:

OLD

NEW

So my connection speed is now 3392 compared to 2272 - why would this be? Is this a 3Mbps connection now? My download speeds are now a fair bit better so it's all good. Looking forward to using this new service.

For a downstream line attenuation of 44db you should really be getting a few meg higher!

You should definately give the below a go and remove the bell wire on your phone socket then powercycle your router and check your stats again - trust me.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html#235

ringo747 · 7 Apr 2011 at 22:02

Sparx said:
For a downstream line attenuation of 44db you should really be getting a few meg higher!

You should definately give the below a go and remove the bell wire on your phone socket then powercycle your router and check your stats again - trust me.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html#235

I will give that a go. We are miles from the exchange. Is it likely to make that much difference?

bobpullen · 7 Apr 2011 at 22:04

If your SNR has increased like I suspect it may have, then asking your ISP to reset it might help too.

w3bbo · 7 Apr 2011 at 22:10

My talk talk (8mb):

Live about a mile from the exchange though.

ringo747 · 7 Apr 2011 at 22:20

Here is my latest stats from tonight - notice the connection speed is dropped lower again.

Edit: o and I've found out that we have a temporary line coming in from the outside which is connected to the same point as the old bell used to be. Once we get new cable in it will hopefully get better.

bobpullen · 8 Apr 2011 at 07:39

w3bbo said:
My talk talk (8mb):

8mbps? You're line rate is 11mbps+ according to those stats?

bobpullen · 8 Apr 2011 at 09:27

ringo747 said:
Here is my latest stats from tonight - notice the connection speed is dropped lower again.

As I suspected, your downstream SNR has risen. For each rise of 3db you'll typically see your downstream connection rate drop by 800kbps or so.

You can try asking your ISP to reset your SNR, which would increase your downstream connection speed.

You have to ask why it was increased in the first place though. It could be that you have a stability/intermittent connectivity problem that's causing it. Do you leave your router powered up, or do you switch it on and off throughout the day?

Rgds,

ringo747 · 8 Apr 2011 at 09:52

I will try to find out from the ISP. I have rebooted the router a few times as it was behaving funny.

Hagar · 8 Apr 2011 at 14:42

bobpullen said:
8mbps? You're line rate is 11mbps+ according to those stats?

A friend of mine on TalkTalk 'up to 8Mbs' gets nearly 12Mbps due to distance from the exchange, I get 7.5Mbps at nearly a mile, reported at 6Mbps max on the 'check your phone number' web page.

TalkTalk is not nearly so bad as many make out and you can ask them to 'tune' your line for the fastest connection possible.

opethdisciple · 8 Apr 2011 at 16:18

For ADSL ie not cable etc.. go Be there.

As fast as your line can go up to 24megs.

No traffic shaping, great customer service and no download limits.