ADSLmax Speed Vs ADSL Speed

I am a wee bit confused as to projected adsl speeds shown on a BT phone
line connected to a Hemel Hempstead exchange.

The BT speed checker at http://www.adslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl shows
speeds of 'an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to
1Mbps' and then goes on to say 'Our test also indicates that your line
currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 500Kbps
or greater'

Why would ADSLmax indicate a lower speed than the original adsl.

Geoff Lane

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:g0l0v0$bh$(E-Mail Removed)...
>I am a wee bit confused as to projected adsl speeds shown on a BT phone
>line connected to a Hemel Hempstead exchange.
>
> The BT speed checker at http://www.adslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl shows
> speeds of 'an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to
> 1Mbps' and then goes on to say 'Our test also indicates that your line
> currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 500Kbps or
> greater'
>
> Why would ADSLmax indicate a lower speed than the original adsl.
>
> Geoff Lane
But the qualifications "up to" and "or greater" ensure they are not
necessarily indicating what you suggest.

--
Graham

%Profound_observation%

Graham. wrote:

>> I am a wee bit confused as to projected adsl speeds shown on a BT phone
>> line connected to a Hemel Hempstead exchange.
>>
>> The BT speed checker at http://www.adslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl shows
>> speeds of 'an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to
>> 1Mbps' and then goes on to say 'Our test also indicates that your line
>> currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 500Kbps or
>> greater'
>>
>> Why would ADSLmax indicate a lower speed than the original adsl.

> But the qualifications "up to" and "or greater" ensure they are not
> necessarily indicating what you suggest.

Yes, I appreciate that but the suggestion is still that ADSLmax might be
slower.

Bearing in mind the marketing used by almost all ISPs they tend to
suggest the higher figure, why else would they use bits per second
rather than bytes.

I'm only curious as the ADSLmax normally gets around 1mbps when
conditions are right.

Geoff Lane

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:g0mkrp$721$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Graham. wrote:
>
>>> I am a wee bit confused as to projected adsl speeds shown on a BT phone
>>> line connected to a Hemel Hempstead exchange.
>>>
>>> The BT speed checker at http://www.adslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl shows
>>> speeds of 'an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to
>>> 1Mbps' and then goes on to say 'Our test also indicates that your line
>>> currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 500Kbps
>>> or greater'
>>>
>>> Why would ADSLmax indicate a lower speed than the original adsl.
>
>> But the qualifications "up to" and "or greater" ensure they are not
>> necessarily indicating what you suggest.
>
> Yes, I appreciate that but the suggestion is still that ADSLmax might be
> slower.
>
> Bearing in mind the marketing used by almost all ISPs they tend to suggest
> the higher figure, why else would they use bits per second rather than
> bytes.
>
> I'm only curious as the ADSLmax normally gets around 1mbps when conditions
> are right.
>
> Geoff Lane

It can work the other way too.
When I went to ADSLmax my estimate was the same as yours.
In the event my actual speeds vary between 1.9 and 3 Meg (currently working
at 2.4).

George

Geoff Lane wrote:
> Graham. wrote:
>
>>> I am a wee bit confused as to projected adsl speeds shown on a BT
>>> phone line connected to a Hemel Hempstead exchange.
>>>
>>> The BT speed checker at http://www.adslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl shows
>>> speeds of 'an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to
>>> 1Mbps' and then goes on to say 'Our test also indicates that your
>>> line currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of
>>> 500Kbps or greater'
>>>
>>> Why would ADSLmax indicate a lower speed than the original adsl.
>
>> But the qualifications "up to" and "or greater" ensure they are not
>> necessarily indicating what you suggest.
>
> Yes, I appreciate that but the suggestion is still that ADSLmax might be
> slower.

The only reason I can think of is that bin allocation is different on
ADSLmax - ie fewer bins are made available for downstream use. There is
some logic to this, since the upstream rate is higher, but I don't know
if it is true - perhaps someone else can confirm/deny.

> Bearing in mind the marketing used by almost all ISPs they tend to
> suggest the higher figure, why else would they use bits per second
> rather than bytes.

Communications links fundamentally operate with bits, so rates are
expressed in those terms. Also, the rates are typically derived from a
decimal clock signal, so decimal prefixes (eg 1 kbit/s = 1000 bit/s) are
natural.

Alex

George Weston wrote:

>> I'm only curious as the ADSLmax normally gets around 1mbps when conditions
>> are right.

> It can work the other way too.
> When I went to ADSLmax my estimate was the same as yours.
> In the event my actual speeds vary between 1.9 and 3 Meg (currently working
> at 2.4).

That's interesting, the location is my daughter's and not mine and she
has a lot of fish tank electronics close by which I am sure is a
contributory factor in speed problems.

Geoff Lane

Alex Fraser wrote:

> Communications links fundamentally operate with bits, so rates are
> expressed in those terms. Also, the rates are typically derived from a
> decimal clock signal, so decimal prefixes (eg 1 kbit/s = 1000 bit/s) are
> natural.

That's true. I use analogX which is configurable for Bytes or Bits anyway.

Geoff Lane