Ace Internet - honest opinions please

Hello,

I'm currently with Eclipse internet. I'm not a heavy downloader
(around 10GB/month) but I run a number of "hobby" websites (all legal
and clean). I do a lot of teleworking via VPN and Remote Desktop.

I am currently with Eclipse's "Broadband 3" package, as this is the
only one which offers the 832Kb upspeed which I want for my
webhosting.

Speeds with Eclipse are all over the place - today I'm managing
between 2 and 3 Mb/s download, and around 0.6Mb/s upload.

The best download speed I have EVER got from Eclipse is around
550KB/s, yet I synchronise at a solid 8128000/832000 rate (and have
never faltered from that rate).

I'm interested in the ADSLMAX8000 Biz package.

If I migrate from Eclipse to Ace, am I likely to see improvements to
my download speed? Synchronising at 8128000 but never exceeding
550KB/s second seems odd, when I should (in theory) be capable of
about 715KB/s. Is this an issue with my telephone exchange? I'm in a
rural area (Exchange is BRACO / ESBRA), but I'll be very surprised if
exchange contention is the cause.

One final question: will there be any restrictions if I move to Ace? I
currently webhost and mailhost, and I send mail directly from my
(secured)SMTP server. Therefore I'll need the usual ports, and I'll
also need a reverse-DNS entry.

Many thanks for your time. Apologies if some of the Ace Internet
techies are getting deja-vu reading this, but I've sent this same
email to their sales address.



Jim Willsher

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Joe Bloggs
says...
> If I migrate from Eclipse to Ace, am I likely to see improvements to
> my download speed? Synchronising at 8128000 but never exceeding
> 550KB/s second seems odd, when I should (in theory) be capable of
> about 715KB/s. Is this an issue with my telephone exchange? I'm in a
> rural area (Exchange is BRACO / ESBRA), but I'll be very surprised if
> exchange contention is the cause.
>

You don't seem to understand how MAX works. Basically BT have cooked up
a wheeze which allows them to sell 8 meg connections using the same
network designed for 512k days.

Contention is now a very real issue, and because you are on a rural
exchange it may well have less backhaul than an urban one. Everyone else
is now also using their shiny new 8 meg connections via that same piece
of fiber out of your exchange, no matter what ISP you use. If it's not a
particularly busy exchange then BT may not have done any upgrading of
physical capacity for it.

MAX also sets your data rate on several criteria, and sync rate is one
part but by no means all of it. Quoting speeds is as much use as a
chocolate teapot as there are more factors involved.

By all means go elsewhere, but you drag the same problems with you.
Namely that any issues you have with BT and their part of it come with
you. And the MAX system is sat firmly on that part.

FR

> I'm currently with Eclipse internet. I'm not a heavy downloader
> (around 10GB/month)

LOL i`ve managed that in 3 days before now :-p

On Mon, 15 May 2006 19:02:53 +0100, Flying Rat <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Joe Bloggs
>says...
>> If I migrate from Eclipse to Ace, am I likely to see improvements to
>> my download speed? Synchronising at 8128000 but never exceeding
>> 550KB/s second seems odd, when I should (in theory) be capable of
>> about 715KB/s. Is this an issue with my telephone exchange? I'm in a
>> rural area (Exchange is BRACO / ESBRA), but I'll be very surprised if
>> exchange contention is the cause.
>>
>
>You don't seem to understand how MAX works. Basically BT have cooked up
>a wheeze which allows them to sell 8 meg connections using the same
>network designed for 512k days.
>
>Contention is now a very real issue, and because you are on a rural
>exchange it may well have less backhaul than an urban one. Everyone else
>is now also using their shiny new 8 meg connections via that same piece
>of fiber out of your exchange, no matter what ISP you use. If it's not a
>particularly busy exchange then BT may not have done any upgrading of
>physical capacity for it.
>
>MAX also sets your data rate on several criteria, and sync rate is one
>part but by no means all of it. Quoting speeds is as much use as a
>chocolate teapot as there are more factors involved.
>
>By all means go elsewhere, but you drag the same problems with you.
>Namely that any issues you have with BT and their part of it come with
>you. And the MAX system is sat firmly on that part.
>
>FR


Many thanks for the input...I think.

Don't worry, I fully understand MAX, BRAS, MSR, MDR etc. Is there any
chance I can verify this backhaul thingie? It's been my suspicion
about throughput, but I've no way of verifying. ALl my neighbours are
also on Eclipse!

What does frustrate me though, is that I know of other users on other
exchanges with other ISPs who are getting signifcantly better
throughput than I am.



Jim

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Joe Bloggs <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Don't worry, I fully understand MAX, BRAS, MSR, MDR etc. Is there any
> chance I can verify this backhaul thingie? It's been my suspicion
> about throughput, but I've no way of verifying. ALl my neighbours are
> also on Eclipse!

You could try this checker - gives more info than any other I've seen:

http://www.prodigynet.co.uk/menu.php.../adsllinecheck

As for Ace Internet, they use Mistrals BT Centrals which you may or may
not know. On ADSLguide their customers seem very happy.

The only thing I'd be a little wary of, and the same goes with any ISP
and it might be stating the obvious, is that their product is cheap for
an uncapped/unshaped product so if they get the wrong balance of light
to heavy users..

cheers,
Paul
--
(E-Mail Removed)

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Joe Bloggs
says...
> Many thanks for the input...I think.

Just my opinion.
If the problem is local then no move is going to fix it for you with the
exception of LLU.

>
> Don't worry, I fully understand MAX, BRAS, MSR, MDR etc. Is there any
> chance I can verify this backhaul thingie? It's been my suspicion
> about throughput, but I've no way of verifying. ALl my neighbours are
> also on Eclipse!

That's BT data and sensitive. Can't see any way of finding out just what
they provision out of a specific exchange as it's not a leased-out
circuit in any way, so nobody has a right to that data outside of BT.

>
> What does frustrate me though, is that I know of other users on other
> exchanges with other ISPs who are getting signifcantly better
> throughput than I am.

Apples and oranges. Now we are into MAX there is no standard against
which to measure any more as it is such a dynamic product.

ISPs can have plenty of transit and all the rest of it, but because of
BT's cheap implementation of Max that often counts for nothing. The bit
from the exchange to the point where data is separated out is down to
BT's woefully underprovisioned local loop and flaky implementation of
the MAX product.

So again, if you do move would it be worth it in the end?

FR

On Mon, 15 May 2006 20:35:23 +0100, Paul Hutchings <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> Joe Bloggs <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Don't worry, I fully understand MAX, BRAS, MSR, MDR etc. Is there any
>> chance I can verify this backhaul thingie? It's been my suspicion
>> about throughput, but I've no way of verifying. ALl my neighbours are
>> also on Eclipse!
>
>You could try this checker - gives more info than any other I've seen:
>
>http://www.prodigynet.co.uk/menu.php.../adsllinecheck
>
>As for Ace Internet, they use Mistrals BT Centrals which you may or may
>not know. On ADSLguide their customers seem very happy.
>
>The only thing I'd be a little wary of, and the same goes with any ISP
>and it might be stating the obvious, is that their product is cheap for
>an uncapped/unshaped product so if they get the wrong balance of light
>to heavy users..
>
>cheers,
>Paul

Many thanks for the link. This is what it reports:


Telephone number : 01786xxxxxx
BT exchange : BRACO
Real time check : Yes

Line speed capabilities

Rate adaptive (250k and 500k) : Green
Fixed Rate (1000k and 2000k) : Green
MAX speed (upto 8000k) : Green (4500 kbps)

250k, 500k, 1000k, 2000k and 4500k are all available on this line.

Line status

This line has ADSL fully installed on it. There are no open orders
currently on this line.

Exchange status

This exchange is fully enabled for rate adaptive (500k) ADSL, fully
enabled for fixed rate (1000k and 2000k) ADSL, and fully enabled for
Max ADSL (upto 8000k).

There are 1 DSLAMS in the BRACO exchange

DSLAM name ADSL enabled SDSL enabled Daily port usage Spare ADSL ports
Spare SDSL ports Short term available ports Long term available ports
Available bandwidth (Mbps) In service date
BWC_DSL_101 Yes No 0 6-10 0 0 0 130-140 Now






The BT checker always said my line could support "5.5Mb or greater".
Yet I've always synched at 8128000, with spare SNR margin.



Hmmm.......




Jim