Different speeds offered on two lines to same house - what to do?

Our exchange (01473 736xxx) is due to be ADSL enabled on 4th May.

We have two lines to our house, one is a BT POTS line and the other is
a C&W ISDN line which is physically actually provided by BT.

If I feed our BT POTS line number into the ADSL predictor it says it
should be possible to provide up to 1Mb/s but if I put the ISDN number
in it says 2Mb/s.

Does this really mean that the routing/condition of the ISDN connection
is actually better than that of the POTS line? Or is it that the
system automatically assumes that a line that can support ISDN must be
able to convert to 2Mb/S ADSL? (It does know it's an ISDN line
because there's a footnote about being able to keep only one number if
the ISDN is changed back to POTS + ADSL)

The problem is that I really want to keep the C&W ISDN for its MSN
numbers and to have it as a backup for the ADSL. It's also *much*
cheaper than BT ISDN or Home Highway. A change from C&W to BT would
be a nightmare anyway, I've tried asking previously about keeping
numbers etc. and both sides are totally unresposive. The C&W ISDN
works well but customer service etc. is non-existent so I'd prefer to
let sleeping dogs lie.

I suppose 1Mb/s will probably be OK but it would be nice to know
what's really the truth.

--
Chris Green

On 20 Apr 2005 09:05:25 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Our exchange (01473 736xxx) is due to be ADSL enabled on 4th May.
>
>We have two lines to our house, one is a BT POTS line and the other is
>a C&W ISDN line which is physically actually provided by BT.
>
>If I feed our BT POTS line number into the ADSL predictor it says it
>should be possible to provide up to 1Mb/s but if I put the ISDN number
>in it says 2Mb/s.
>
>Does this really mean that the routing/condition of the ISDN connection
>is actually better than that of the POTS line? Or is it that the
>system automatically assumes that a line that can support ISDN must be
>able to convert to 2Mb/S ADSL? (It does know it's an ISDN line
>because there's a footnote about being able to keep only one number if
>the ISDN is changed back to POTS + ADSL)
>

Unfortunately, you won't know until you try it.

The BT checker is notoriously unreliable, but it is perfectly possible
that the two lines have different routing from the exchange.

Unless you are downloading quite a lot of large files, I wouldn't
worry too much at this stage, I'd just get it put on the line you
would prefer it on, then see what speed you can get.

For normal surfing, email, usenet, you will hardly notice the
difference. It is when doing several things at once, or downloading
largish files that you will notice.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
One good turn gets most of the blanket.

To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:39:56 +0100, Alex Heney <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>The BT checker is notoriously unreliable, but it is perfectly possible
>that the two lines have different routing from the exchange.

or to be made of different stuff, fatter stuff, stuff with more joints
in or stuff with different quality joints. I have two lines that do
come the same way from the same exchange and are appreciably
different, one would run a 56k modem at 38k and the other at 44k (not
adsl clearly but indicative of some differences).

Phil
Tiscali - dialup speeds at Broadband prices :-)

--

Phil Thompson <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:39:56 +0100, Alex Heney <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
> >The BT checker is notoriously unreliable, but it is perfectly possible
> >that the two lines have different routing from the exchange.
>
> or to be made of different stuff, fatter stuff, stuff with more joints
> in or stuff with different quality joints. I have two lines that do
> come the same way from the same exchange and are appreciably
> different, one would run a 56k modem at 38k and the other at 44k (not
> adsl clearly but indicative of some differences).
>
But surely the ADSL checker doesn't know about things like that,
remember the lines in this particular case aren't even ADSL enabled
yet. The checker surely doesn't have direct access to individual line
quality information on CSS does it? (or does it?)

--
Chris Green