Is it BT and not the ISPs to blame?

Reading the thread 'Speed that the line supports' also in the many BB forums
9 out of 10 posts will be about low Sync. and download speeds. I gather it
is BT that does the Sync. and its always lower than the upto 8 meg or upto
24 meg the ISPs claim in their adverts.
Then the speed you get is 15 / 20 % lower than this number. Both figures
Sync. and speed being blamed on the distance of your home to the BT
exchange. (Sometimes put as the customers fault, lol)
Other things get mentioned joins in BT cable, material cable made of, the
lack of a good BT main socket, bad solder connections even the weather etc.

I just thinking it's BT not the ISPs to blame. If I'm right can't
understand the ISPs sitting back and taking all the blame wondering why they
not jumping on BT.
I would like to talk to BT, properly not via India, but not allowed to as my
'phone is not through BT and my BB not through BT.
To me the whole industry in a mess as operating, blame Mrs Thatcher I
suppose.

--
Regards,
David

Please reply to News Group

"David" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:gh8kis$5v3$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Reading the thread 'Speed that the line supports' also in the many BB
> forums 9 out of 10 posts will be about low Sync. and download speeds. I
> gather it is BT that does the Sync. and its always lower than the upto 8
> meg or upto 24 meg the ISPs claim in their adverts.
> Then the speed you get is 15 / 20 % lower than this number. Both figures
> Sync. and speed being blamed on the distance of your home to the BT
> exchange. (Sometimes put as the customers fault, lol)
> Other things get mentioned joins in BT cable, material cable made of, the
> lack of a good BT main socket, bad solder connections even the weather
> etc.
>
> I just thinking it's BT not the ISPs to blame. If I'm right can't
> understand the ISPs sitting back and taking all the blame wondering why
> they not jumping on BT.
> I would like to talk to BT, properly not via India, but not allowed to as
> my 'phone is not through BT and my BB not through BT.
> To me the whole industry in a mess as operating, blame Mrs Thatcher I
> suppose.

I think you summarised the situation correctly!
BT will only talk to your ISP - not you - if you have a broadband problem.
If you have a BT phone line and have a problem with voice
connectivity/quality, yes, they will talk to you - but only for voice
problems (audible noise on line, etc.)
If your phone line isn't with BT, you must go to your chosen phone company.
If your ISP or phone company needs BT to sort out a broadband (or voice)
problem on your line, they must get BT out.
However, BT will charge your ISP / phone company if they can't find a fault
and they will pass the charge on to you.
Many broadband problems are due to other factors, such as routers/modems,
internal house-wiring faults, etc., which BT won't investigate. That's why
your ISP will always get you to do loads of self-test checks before they'll
even think of calling out BT.
With regard to broad band speeds, the phrase "up to" can mean anything, and
will depend on the length and quality of your local line and internal
wiring, etc.
For example, I'm on an "up to 8 meg" system but live a couple of miles from
the BT exchange. My best speed is now about 3 megs and I can't expect more,
due to the factors mentioned above.
In order to achieve even that speed, I've had to buy a new router, upgrade
my phone filters and have also fitted a BT I-plate on my main socket. Before
I did that, I was getting less than 1 meg.
ISPs also vary considerably in the service that they provide - choose a good
one and be prepared to pay for a good tariff package. In general, the better
the ISP, the less you'll have heard of them. Don't go with a mass-advertised
or very cheap ISP or you'll get a crap service!

Life ain't simple!


George

"David" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:gh8kis$5v3$(E-Mail Removed)
> Reading the thread 'Speed that the line supports' also in the many
> BB
> forums 9 out of 10 posts will be about low Sync. and download
> speeds. I
> gather it is BT that does the Sync. and its always lower than the
> upto 8
> meg or upto 24 meg the ISPs claim in their adverts.
> Then the speed you get is 15 / 20 % lower than this number. Both
> figures
> Sync. and speed being blamed on the distance of your home to the BT
> exchange. (Sometimes put as the customers fault, lol)


The distance to the exchange is important, and that's not BT's fault.
The relationship between max download speed and distance to the
exchange is shown in this figure:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...sl2-dist07.jpg

The figures for those graphs are theoretical though, and in practice
non-ideal lines from the exchange to the user will reduce the sync to
speeds below what that graph shows.


> Other things get mentioned joins in BT cable, material cable made
> of, the
> lack of a good BT main socket, bad solder connections even the
> weather
> etc.
> I just thinking it's BT not the ISPs to blame.


Why is BT to blame for the distance to the exchange?


> If I'm right can't
> understand the ISPs sitting back and taking all the blame wondering
> why
> they not jumping on BT.


BT's plans to roll out superfast broadband to 40% of the population
consists of them reducing the distance to the exchange by extending
the fibre optic cable to roadside telecoms cabinets, and that's going
to cost £1.5 billion. So blaming BT for the current distance to the
exchange is ignoring how expensive it is to reduce that distance...


> I would like to talk to BT, properly not via India, but not allowed
> to as
> my 'phone is not through BT and my BB not through BT.
> To me the whole industry in a mess as operating, blame Mrs Thatcher
> I
> suppose.


Good shout on Mrs T. You could always switch BB provider though - my
ISP (Be*) has an Eastern European call centre, and it's only
marginally better than an Indian one, so if you do change ISP look
into where the call centre is first...



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

"DAB sounds worse than FM" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "David" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:gh8kis$5v3$(E-Mail Removed)
>> Reading the thread 'Speed that the line supports' also in the many BB
>> forums 9 out of 10 posts will be about low Sync. and download speeds. I
>> gather it is BT that does the Sync. and its always lower than the upto 8
>> meg or upto 24 meg the ISPs claim in their adverts.
>> Then the speed you get is 15 / 20 % lower than this number. Both
>> figures
>> Sync. and speed being blamed on the distance of your home to the BT
>> exchange. (Sometimes put as the customers fault, lol)
>
>
> The distance to the exchange is important, and that's not BT's fault. The
> relationship between max download speed and distance to the exchange is
> shown in this figure:
>
> http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g3...sl2-dist07.jpg
>
> The figures for those graphs are theoretical though, and in practice
> non-ideal lines from the exchange to the user will reduce the sync to
> speeds below what that graph shows.
>
>
>> Other things get mentioned joins in BT cable, material cable made of, the
>> lack of a good BT main socket, bad solder connections even the weather
>> etc.
>> I just thinking it's BT not the ISPs to blame.
>
>
> Why is BT to blame for the distance to the exchange?
>
>
>> If I'm right can't
>> understand the ISPs sitting back and taking all the blame wondering why
>> they not jumping on BT.
>
>
> BT's plans to roll out superfast broadband to 40% of the population
> consists of them reducing the distance to the exchange by extending the
> fibre optic cable to roadside telecoms cabinets, and that's going to cost
> £1.5 billion. So blaming BT for the current distance to the exchange is
> ignoring how expensive it is to reduce that distance...
>
>
>> I would like to talk to BT, properly not via India, but not allowed to as
>> my 'phone is not through BT and my BB not through BT.
>> To me the whole industry in a mess as operating, blame Mrs Thatcher I
>> suppose.
>
>
> Good shout on Mrs T. You could always switch BB provider though - my ISP
> (Be*) has an Eastern European call centre, and it's only marginally better
> than an Indian one, so if you do change ISP look into where the call
> centre is first...
>
>
>
> --
> Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info
>
> The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
> decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
> http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm
UKOnline have a British call centre that seems to be mainly staffed with
East Europeans:-)
Derek.


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In article <gh8kis$5v3$(E-Mail Removed)>,
David <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>Reading the thread 'Speed that the line supports' also in the many BB forums
>9 out of 10 posts will be about low Sync. and download speeds. I gather it
>is BT that does the Sync. and its always lower than the upto 8 meg or upto
>24 meg the ISPs claim in their adverts.

Not always. My ADSL Modem syncs at 8128000 bits per second which is the
maximum possible for the technology I'm using.

>Then the speed you get is 15 / 20 % lower than this number.

Again, not always. In addition to the speed the line has synchronised at
there is the "BRAS" profile/speed. This is deliberately set a fraction
lower than the sync. speed, but it's not a large percentage like 15-20. I
am currently on a profile speed of 7150Kbps. This is the maximum possible
for the technology I'm using.

This speed is determined by the equipment in the exchange based on what it
think the maximum speed your line can sustain without errors. It's often
lower than the sync speed because lots of errors have been observed and
(AIUI) the equipment is favouring stability over speed.


> Both figures
>Sync. and speed being blamed on the distance of your home to the BT
>exchange. (Sometimes put as the customers fault, lol)

It's no fault of the customer that BT has sub optimal copper (or
aluminium!)

>Other things get mentioned joins in BT cable, material cable made of, the
>lack of a good BT main socket, bad solder connections even the weather etc.

Someone has to pay to maintain the copper and upgrade it...

>I just thinking it's BT not the ISPs to blame. If I'm right can't
>understand the ISPs sitting back and taking all the blame wondering why they
>not jumping on BT.



After the physical bit of network from your modem to the exchange, there
is then the BT Wholesale network for your data to pass through - this is
where traditionally the 50:1 and 20:1 contention ratios were imposed -
It's done somewhat differently now (Again AIUI), but the net-effect is
almost the same.

After that it's handed off to the ISP.

Then some ISPs have another contention ratio to apply to the data inside
their own networks before the data gets to the edge points of the ISP
where the ISP peers with other ISPs and so on.

This is a bit of a very broad generalisation, but...

Consider an ISP with 6 fat-pipes into the BT Wholesale network
- that's 6 pipes of 622Mb/sec, or lets say just under a total
bandwidth of 4Gb/sec. What if they only used 1Gb network connections
internally? They're then almost immediately putting a 4:1 contention on
data from BT before it gets passed off to other ISPs.

Say they then just have a single 1GB link to other ISPs...

Hopefully ISPs have better than this internally, or separate traffic
such that these things don't happen, but this all costs money...

>I would like to talk to BT, properly not via India, but not allowed to as my
>'phone is not through BT and my BB not through BT.
>To me the whole industry in a mess as operating, blame Mrs Thatcher I
>suppose.

If you like. Personally I blame the greedy shareholders for stifling
innovation by restricting money going back into the companies (including
BT), and the selfish actions of a minority of peer to peer users,
abusing what really is a contended network...

Gordon

"Gordon Henderson" <gordon+(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:gh94i3$2ar3$(E-Mail Removed)

> After the physical bit of network from your modem to the exchange,
> there
> is then the BT Wholesale network for your data to pass through -
> this is
> where traditionally the 50:1 and 20:1 contention ratios were
> imposed -
> It's done somewhat differently now (Again AIUI), but the net-effect
> is
> almost the same.


How's it done nowadays?


> After that it's handed off to the ISP.
>
> Then some ISPs have another contention ratio to apply to the data
> inside
> their own networks before the data gets to the edge points of the
> ISP
> where the ISP peers with other ISPs and so on.
>
> This is a bit of a very broad generalisation, but...
>
> Consider an ISP with 6 fat-pipes into the BT Wholesale network
> - that's 6 pipes of 622Mb/sec, or lets say just under a total
> bandwidth of 4Gb/sec. What if they only used 1Gb network connections
> internally? They're then almost immediately putting a 4:1 contention
> on
> data from BT before it gets passed off to other ISPs.


I don't understand that. Why would they pay the capacity-based charges
for 4 Gbps of bandwidth to BT if they only used 1 Gbps internally?
Surely they'd only pay for 1 Gbps to BT if they could get away with
it?



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...ion_of_dab.htm

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
DAB sounds worse than FM <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>"Gordon Henderson" <gordon+(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:gh94i3$2ar3$(E-Mail Removed)
>
>> After the physical bit of network from your modem to the exchange,
>> there
>> is then the BT Wholesale network for your data to pass through -
>> this is
>> where traditionally the 50:1 and 20:1 contention ratios were
>> imposed -
>> It's done somewhat differently now (Again AIUI), but the net-effect
>> is
>> almost the same.
>
>How's it done nowadays?

I think they changed the metrics - but right now I can't find exactly
the right thing from BT, however this:

http://www.griffin.com/news/Broadban...ctsnMyths.aspx

and this:

https://www.zenpartner.com/Downloads...%20%20v1.0.pdf

Seems to talk about "Expected end user Experience" ... From what I recall
seeing, each product has an expected minimum level of traffic avalability.

>> After that it's handed off to the ISP.
>>
>> Then some ISPs have another contention ratio to apply to the data
>> inside
>> their own networks before the data gets to the edge points of the
>> ISP
>> where the ISP peers with other ISPs and so on.
>>
>> This is a bit of a very broad generalisation, but...
>>
>> Consider an ISP with 6 fat-pipes into the BT Wholesale network
>> - that's 6 pipes of 622Mb/sec, or lets say just under a total
>> bandwidth of 4Gb/sec. What if they only used 1Gb network connections
>> internally? They're then almost immediately putting a 4:1 contention
>> on
>> data from BT before it gets passed off to other ISPs.
>
>I don't understand that. Why would they pay the capacity-based charges
>for 4 Gbps of bandwidth to BT if they only used 1 Gbps internally?
>Surely they'd only pay for 1 Gbps to BT if they could get away with
>it?

They may not - I really don't know (and it's been a very long time since
I worked for an ISP) - you'd have to ask the ISPs, and they might regard
that information as commercially sensitive ;-) I was just expanding the
idea of usage outwards in general...

Gordon

David wrote:

> Reading the thread 'Speed that the line supports' also in the many BB forums
> 9 out of 10 posts will be about low Sync. and download speeds. I gather it
> is BT that does the Sync. and its always lower than the upto 8 meg or upto
> 24 meg the ISPs claim in their adverts.

I have no trouble syncing at up to 8128 kbps.


> Then the speed you get is 15 / 20 % lower than this number.

It's called 'overhead'. Suggest you read how ADSL works.


> Both figures Sync. and speed being blamed on the distance of your home to the
> BT
> exchange.

YES, it does affect it. How far are you ?


> (Sometimes put as the customers fault, lol)
> Other things get mentioned joins in BT cable, material cable made of, the
> lack of a good BT main socket, bad solder connections even the weather etc.
>
> I just thinking it's BT not the ISPs to blame. If I'm right can't
> understand the ISPs sitting back and taking all the blame wondering why they
> not jumping on BT.

Well you're 100% wrong as you would find out if you used a decent ISP like mine
(IDNet). Is Tesco.net still run by NTL (VM) ? No wonder it's bad.

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php ( Virgin Media ADSL ) scores 3.25/10.
IDNet scores 9.0 btw.

Graham

Gordon Henderson wrote:

> Consider an ISP with 6 fat-pipes into the BT Wholesale network
> - that's 6 pipes of 622Mb/sec, or lets say just under a total
> bandwidth of 4Gb/sec. What if they only used 1Gb network connections
> internally? They're then almost immediately putting a 4:1 contention on
> data from BT before it gets passed off to other ISPs.
>
> Say they then just have a single 1GB link to other ISPs...

That's unlikely, because transit [or in some cases peering] to other ISPs is
a lot cheaper than a BT Central, especially if you have your Central
terminate in a colo, so it would very much be a waste of money. Of course a
BT Central is a lot cheaper than laying a connection from every single
exchange in the country back to your colo.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
20:23:06 up 1 day, 1:05, 1 user, load average: 0.10, 0.08, 0.05
They call me titless because I have no tits

"Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>
> David wrote:
>
>> Reading the thread 'Speed that the line supports' also in the many BB
>> forums
>> 9 out of 10 posts will be about low Sync. and download speeds. I gather
>> it
>> is BT that does the Sync. and its always lower than the upto 8 meg or
>> upto
>> 24 meg the ISPs claim in their adverts.
>
> I have no trouble syncing at up to 8128 kbps.
>
>
>> Then the speed you get is 15 / 20 % lower than this number.
>
> It's called 'overhead'. Suggest you read how ADSL works.
>
>
>> Both figures Sync. and speed being blamed on the distance of your home to
>> the
>> BT
>> exchange.
>
> YES, it does affect it. How far are you ?
>
>
>> (Sometimes put as the customers fault, lol)
>> Other things get mentioned joins in BT cable, material cable made of, the
>> lack of a good BT main socket, bad solder connections even the weather
>> etc.
>>
>> I just thinking it's BT not the ISPs to blame. If I'm right can't
>> understand the ISPs sitting back and taking all the blame wondering why
>> they
>> not jumping on BT.
>
> Well you're 100% wrong as you would find out if you used a decent ISP like
> mine
> (IDNet). Is Tesco.net still run by NTL (VM) ? No wonder it's bad.
>
> http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php ( Virgin Media ADSL ) scores
> 3.25/10.
> IDNet scores 9.0 btw.
>
> Graham

I did the IDNet broadband availabilty checker test and it came up-
"You can migrate to 5Mb* IDNet Broadband on 01323xxxxxx

*This is an estimation provided by BT based on the distance from your local
exchange. The actual maximum download speed that your line can support is
determined by the equipment at the exchange within the first 10 days of
service.

Speeds are not only affected by your proximity to your local telephone
exchange but also by the quality of your phone line. Actual download speeds
can vary from below 2 Mbps during peak times, up to a maximum of 7.15 Mbps".

Whereas BE tell me:


"BT phone number 01323******
We've estimated that your maximum download speed is 14 meg .This is
based on information BT gave us about your BT line. Actual download speeds
depend on different things, like the distance between your telephone
exchange and your home, or the quality of your BT line. We'll work with
what's there and always give you the fastest speed we can, depending on your
chosen package. Even then, your broadband speed might vary from time to
time"


As with speed testers I get extreme variations from different suppliers.

Derek..






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