ADSL v LLU ?

Hi,
I am presently with Zen adslmax. They are excellent providers but the best
connection I get given my distance to exchange etc is just over 2mbps which
is pretty slow in comparison to what some get. I know its to do with line
distance etc and cant do much about that but I see that Sky have an LLU
setup (checked over DSL ZoneUK) in my area and wondered if that has any
bearing on better speeds? The Zen cost of £17.99 pm also seems high when
taking Sky's option of £5.00 or £10.00 pm into account and I know it does
entail a 12 month contract but I do have their TV service. Is it likely I
would get better speeds? I guess the service would be somewhat less than Zen
but I would save a fair bit in costs. I don't really go in for gaming much
so any ideas appreciated.
Stuart.

srt wrote:

> Hi,
> I am presently with Zen adslmax. They are excellent providers but the best
> connection I get given my distance to exchange etc is just over 2mbps which
> is pretty slow in comparison to what some get. I know its to do with line
> distance etc and cant do much about that but I see that Sky have an LLU
> setup (checked over DSL ZoneUK) in my area and wondered if that has any
> bearing on better speeds? The Zen cost of £17.99 pm also seems high when
> taking Sky's option of £5.00 or £10.00 pm into account and I know it does
> entail a 12 month contract but I do have their TV service. Is it likely I
> would get better speeds? I guess the service would be somewhat less than Zen
> but I would save a fair bit in costs. I don't really go in for gaming much
> so any ideas appreciated.

At the distance you must be to get 2Mbps with a BT line, ADSL2+ (as used by Sky)
will not run any appreciably faster.

Graham

"Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>
> srt wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I am presently with Zen adslmax. They are excellent providers but the
>> best
>> connection I get given my distance to exchange etc is just over 2mbps
>> which
>> is pretty slow in comparison to what some get. I know its to do with line
>> distance etc and cant do much about that but I see that Sky have an LLU
>> setup (checked over DSL ZoneUK) in my area and wondered if that has any
>> bearing on better speeds? The Zen cost of £17.99 pm also seems high when
>> taking Sky's option of £5.00 or £10.00 pm into account and I know it does
>> entail a 12 month contract but I do have their TV service. Is it likely I
>> would get better speeds? I guess the service would be somewhat less than
>> Zen
>> but I would save a fair bit in costs. I don't really go in for gaming
>> much
>> so any ideas appreciated.
>
> At the distance you must be to get 2Mbps with a BT line, ADSL2+ (as used
> by Sky)
> will not run any appreciably faster.
>
> Graham
>

Mine did when i switched.
Sky is generally quite reliable but it does go through periods of congestion
so if you want to use it for doing lots of downloads its not a good choice.
Also it tends to collapse between 7 and 8 am most days for no apparent
reason.
massive packet loss.
I can't think that this would be their peak period so maybe there is some
other reason.


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Gordon Hudson wrote:
> "Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>> srt wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I am presently with Zen adslmax. They are excellent providers but the
>>> best
>>> connection I get given my distance to exchange etc is just over 2mbps
>>> which
>>> is pretty slow in comparison to what some get. I know its to do with line
>>> distance etc and cant do much about that but I see that Sky have an LLU
>>> setup (checked over DSL ZoneUK) in my area and wondered if that has any
>>> bearing on better speeds? The Zen cost of £17.99 pm also seems high when
>>> taking Sky's option of £5.00 or £10.00 pm into account and I know it does
>>> entail a 12 month contract but I do have their TV service. Is it likely I
>>> would get better speeds? I guess the service would be somewhat less than
>>> Zen
>>> but I would save a fair bit in costs. I don't really go in for gaming
>>> much
>>> so any ideas appreciated.
>> At the distance you must be to get 2Mbps with a BT line, ADSL2+ (as used
>> by Sky)
>> will not run any appreciably faster.
>>
>> Graham
>>
>
> Mine did when i switched.
> Sky is generally quite reliable but it does go through periods of congestion
> so if you want to use it for doing lots of downloads its not a good choice.
> Also it tends to collapse between 7 and 8 am most days for no apparent
> reason.
> massive packet loss.
> I can't think that this would be their peak period so maybe there is some
> other reason.
>
>
But then my Sky broadband has worked almost faultlessly since I got it,
about 3 months ago. I've had to reconnect twice in that time. Checking
the router logs it's been running for 283 hours now without falling
over, and it only went down that time because we went away for the
weekend and I switched everything off...

As far as downloading stuff is concerned I download a lot, and I've
found that it performs as well as my cable connection used to when I was
with ntl, and the main limiting factor is the bandwidth of the site
you're downloading from. For example, I'm currently downloading a GNOME
Live CD build and I've been getting between 453-458kB/sec all the time.

--
Abo

"Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>
> srt wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I am presently with Zen adslmax. They are excellent providers but the
>> best
>> connection I get given my distance to exchange etc is just over 2mbps
>> which
>> is pretty slow in comparison to what some get. I know its to do with line
>> distance etc and cant do much about that but I see that Sky have an LLU
>> setup (checked over DSL ZoneUK) in my area and wondered if that has any
>> bearing on better speeds? The Zen cost of £17.99 pm also seems high when
>> taking Sky's option of £5.00 or £10.00 pm into account and I know it does
>> entail a 12 month contract but I do have their TV service. Is it likely I
>> would get better speeds? I guess the service would be somewhat less than
>> Zen
>> but I would save a fair bit in costs. I don't really go in for gaming
>> much
>> so any ideas appreciated.
>
> At the distance you must be to get 2Mbps with a BT line, ADSL2+ (as used
> by Sky)
> will not run any appreciably faster.

It could do. If Sky are using brand new equipment to LLU the exchange, it
may well be better than the older kit BT have in there because ADSL2+ specs
not only an increase in speed but also handles long lines better.

Dave

srt wrote:
> Hi,
> I am presently with Zen adslmax. They are excellent providers but
> the best connection I get given my distance to exchange etc is just
> over 2mbps which is pretty slow in comparison to what some get. I
> know its to do with line distance etc and cant do much about that
> but I see that Sky have an LLU setup (checked over DSL ZoneUK) in
> my area and wondered if that has any bearing on better speeds? The
> Zen cost of £17.99 pm also seems high when taking Sky's option of
> £5.00 or £10.00 pm into account and I know it does entail a 12
> month contract but I do have their TV service. Is it likely I would
> get better speeds? I guess the service would be somewhat less than
> Zen but I would save a fair bit in costs. I don't really go in for
> gaming much so any ideas appreciated. Stuart.

Remember you get what you pay for. ZENs quality of support has been
proved time & time again. With SKY the opposite is true & if you
don't believe me why else would they refund £87 to me when I left
after 9 months (no I don't know where they got that figure from but £3
for 9 months problematic broadband is quite cheap especially when I
thought I may have to fight to get out without a penalty).

As for speeds, why would changing an ISP change your line length &
line conditions???? It won't so you will not get much if any benefit
going for SKYs ADSL2 upto 16Mbps service.

As an aside I left SKYs ADSL2 service to go to a straight ADSL Max
rate service & am now getting almost 1Mbps more than with ADSL2.

So don't get fooled by the banner headlines read the small print,
decide how important your ADSL (& the support you get with it) is &
then make the judgement which only you can do.

Personally I would stick with Zen if I was you, but if money is that
tight then............

Dave wrote:

> "Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
> >
> > At the distance you must be to get 2Mbps with a BT line, ADSL2+ (as used
> > by Sky) will not run any appreciably faster.
>
> It could do. If Sky are using brand new equipment to LLU the exchange, it
> may well be better than the older kit BT have in there because ADSL2+ specs
> not only an increase in speed but also handles long lines better.

You may be right, but the charts I've seen for ADSL2+ show little advantage at
longer distances.

Graham

"kráftéé" wrote:

> Remember you get what you pay for. ZENs quality of support has been
> proved time & time again. With SKY the opposite is true & if you
> don't believe me why else would they refund £87 to me when I left
> after 9 months (no I don't know where they got that figure from but £3
> for 9 months problematic broadband is quite cheap especially when I
> thought I may have to fight to get out without a penalty).

Can you remind me what the problem was ?

Graham

"Gordon Hudson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:46fce9f8$0$762$(E-Mail Removed)...
>

>
> Mine did when i switched.
> Sky is generally quite reliable but it does go through periods of
> congestion so if you want to use it for doing lots of downloads its not a
> good choice.
> Also it tends to collapse between 7 and 8 am most days for no apparent
> reason.
> massive packet loss.
> I can't think that this would be their peak period so maybe there is some
> other reason.
>
>

Sky doesn't generally behave like that so you probably have a problem.
Which package are you on and what are your router specs especially between
7-8?

Eeyore wrote:
> "kráftéé" wrote:
>
>> Remember you get what you pay for. ZENs quality of support has
>> been proved time & time again. With SKY the opposite is true & if
>> you don't believe me why else would they refund £87 to me when I
>> left after 9 months (no I don't know where they got that figure
>> from but £3 for 9 months problematic broadband is quite cheap
>> especially when I thought I may have to fight to get out without a
>> penalty).
>
> Can you remind me what the problem was ?
>
> Graham

First 3 months no service at all LLU dslam had been installed by ill
trained monkeys & they refused to anything about it until word reached
their CEO, unstable connection/sync speeds varying by anything upto
3Mbps , email only worked for one day etc etc.....

Hang on you've heard all this before....