[Gllug] BE Broadband (was Off Topic: Backup ISP)

[Christopher Hunter]

On Sun, 2011-03-27 at 23:02 +0100, damion.yates at gmail.com wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Mar 2011, John Edwards wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 08:01:11PM +0100, Mick Farmer wrote:
> > > One thing puzzles me though.  Our current ISP, Plusnet, say that 6
> > > MBps is the best our line will support.  BE say that we should
> > > expect 11 MBps.
> > 
> > I would guess that Plus is using ADSL Max ("up to 8 Mbit/s") and the
> > Be is using ADSL 2+ ("up to 20 Mbit/s").
> > 
> > ADSL 2+ can get a bit more speed on the same bit of copper, but I
> > would be surprised at 11Mbit/s as that is almost double.
> 
> My ISP (Bogons) used something like Entanet?  Which I think is what all
> BT reseller providers went over.  However they were soon glad to have
> the chance to resell Be's offering when Be started to permit that a year
> or two ago.
> 
> I had 7Mb/s (900 or so kb/s up) on ADSL Max, but ADSL2+ got that up to
> 14Mb/s (2.2 up!).  Your figures line up with my experience.  I was
> really skeptical that I'd see a difference but sure enough I had a more
> than double speed increase.
> 
>  - Damion

We were beset with the inept Virgin Media - only because we were too
lazy to move, and had had the cable service for 15 years.  They claimed
20 Mbs which I was paying for, but seldom got anything more than 1 Mbs.
Despite innumerable visits from their "engineers" (who knew about as
much about their subject as my cat), and their protestations that
"there's nothing wrong with it", the randomly missing TV channels, and
the periodic complete losses of service.

I had Sky install a dish on the roof, and supply one of their "HD+"
boxes.  I transferred the telephone line back to BT (Virgin had offered
a "free" phone service which turned out to be anything but), and went
with BE for their ADSL service.  My web connection was consistently
around 19 Mbs, the phone remained connected, and the TV picture quality
was a pleasure!  My monthly bills have been reduced by £28 for much the
same range of TV channels (actually a few more now) a non-crackling
telephone line that stays connected, and roughly 20 times faster 'net
connection!

I've recently gone to the dual-line ADSL and get ~40 Mbs!  My costs have
increased a bit, but I wanted to see what it was like.

C.



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