How to find out if you can get ADSL

Where I live, I get a 512Kb service due to my distance from the
exchange. My parents are even further away than me from the same
exchange, and they are now muttering about getting broadband. I'd like
to know if they will be able to get it or not.

Now, one way I suppose is to go ahead and order it and see what happens
-- that's probably the accepted wisdom?

However, their neighbours did exactly that and 6 months later have no
working ADSL. They started with AOL who were worse than useless, and
then switched to Plusnet, who were were willing, but AFAIK it still
does not work.

Simililary in a school up the road where I do some IT work, BT managed
to install and activate ADSL on an ISDN2e line with no master socket
fitted. Clever eh?

So I have no confidence in the standard activation procedure to
correctly survey the line's capabilities.

Is there any way to get a good survey?

"John Carlyle-Clarke" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Xns97FF5B9DA5A2Bdiscombobulation@84.92.1.10.. .
> Where I live, I get a 512Kb service due to my distance from the
> exchange. My parents are even further away than me from the same
> exchange, and they are now muttering about getting broadband. I'd like
> to know if they will be able to get it or not.
>
> Now, one way I suppose is to go ahead and order it and see what happens
> -- that's probably the accepted wisdom?
>
> However, their neighbours did exactly that and 6 months later have no
> working ADSL. They started with AOL who were worse than useless, and
> then switched to Plusnet, who were were willing, but AFAIK it still
> does not work.
>
> Simililary in a school up the road where I do some IT work, BT managed
> to install and activate ADSL on an ISDN2e line with no master socket
> fitted. Clever eh?
>
> So I have no confidence in the standard activation procedure to
> correctly survey the line's capabilities.
>
> Is there any way to get a good survey?

Suggest that your parents try to place an order with BT - they will at least
tell them quickly if a connection is not possible. There is no reason why,
although further away from the exchange, your parents would not have a
better line than yourself.

> Where I live, I get a 512Kb service due to my distance from the
> exchange. My parents are even further away than me from the same
> exchange, and they are now muttering about getting broadband. I'd
> like to know if they will be able to get it or not.
>
> Now, one way I suppose is to go ahead and order it and see what
> happens -- that's probably the accepted wisdom?
>
> However, their neighbours did exactly that and 6 months later have no
> working ADSL. They started with AOL who were worse than useless, and
> then switched to Plusnet, who were were willing, but AFAIK it still
> does not work.
>
> Simililary in a school up the road where I do some IT work, BT managed
> to install and activate ADSL on an ISDN2e line with no master socket
> fitted. Clever eh?
>
> So I have no confidence in the standard activation procedure to
> correctly survey the line's capabilities.
>
> Is there any way to get a good survey?

What do you mean by a "good survey"? Assuming you are talking about a BT
line then you really are in the hands of BT.

Why not start here?

http://www.btwholesale.com/get_broadband/index.html

Take a look and report back fwith the results for further advice


Peter Crosland

> Suggest that your parents try to place an order with BT - they will at least
> tell them quickly if a connection is not possible. There is no reason why,
> although further away from the exchange, your parents would not have a
> better line than yourself.

That does not make any sense. I can think of lots of reasons why their
line might be worse than his.

DAve

John Carlyle-Clarke wrote:
> Where I live, I get a 512Kb service due to my distance from the
> exchange. My parents are even further away than me from the same
> exchange, and they are now muttering about getting broadband. I'd like
> to know if they will be able to get it or not.
>
> Now, one way I suppose is to go ahead and order it and see what happens
> -- that's probably the accepted wisdom?
>
> However, their neighbours did exactly that and 6 months later have no
> working ADSL. They started with AOL who were worse than useless, and
> then switched to Plusnet, who were were willing, but AFAIK it still
> does not work.
>
> Simililary in a school up the road where I do some IT work, BT managed
> to install and activate ADSL on an ISDN2e line with no master socket
> fitted. Clever eh?
>
> So I have no confidence in the standard activation procedure to
> correctly survey the line's capabilities.
>
> Is there any way to get a good survey?

Since you already have ADSL on your line it would be useful to know
some of the line statistics from it particularly Downstream
Attenuation and Downstream SNR. It may turn out that your line will
support much higher than 512 (despite what any checkers say) and from
that you will get an idea of how your parents line might perform.

If you are going with the lets order it and see then I suggest using
someone who has a support line which is able to deal with problematic
installations - from my experience that rules out BT, Plusnet, AOL,
Tiscali but I would recommend Zen.

JP

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:08:49 +0100, John P <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Since you already have ADSL on your line it would be useful to know
>some of the line statistics from it particularly Downstream
>Attenuation and Downstream SNR. It may turn out that your line will
>support much higher than 512 (despite what any checkers say) and from
>that you will get an idea of how your parents line might perform.

Are there any software packages that can provied this info? My old
router had it built in - but the new Netgear one doesn't and I want to
know!!!


Tym

~There's no place like 127.0.0.1~

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 11:58:42 UTC, gort <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
> > Suggest that your parents try to place an order with BT - they will at least
> > tell them quickly if a connection is not possible. There is no reason why,
> > although further away from the exchange, your parents would not have a
> > better line than yourself.
>
> That does not make any sense. I can think of lots of reasons why their
> line might be worse than his.

I can think of reasons why it might be better. So?

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.broadbandbanter.com

Tym wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:08:49 +0100, John P <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Since you already have ADSL on your line it would be useful to know
>> some of the line statistics from it particularly Downstream
>> Attenuation and Downstream SNR. It may turn out that your line will
>> support much higher than 512 (despite what any checkers say) and from
>> that you will get an idea of how your parents line might perform.
>
> Are there any software packages that can provied this info? My old
> router had it built in - but the new Netgear one doesn't and I want to
> know!!!

Waht model of Netgear do you have ? Most have these figures under
Router Status then Show Statistics

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:52:39 +0100, Tym <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:08:49 +0100, John P <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>Since you already have ADSL on your line it would be useful to know
>>some of the line statistics from it particularly Downstream
>>Attenuation and Downstream SNR. It may turn out that your line will
>>support much higher than 512 (despite what any checkers say) and from
>>that you will get an idea of how your parents line might perform.
>
>Are there any software packages that can provied this info? My old
>router had it built in - but the new Netgear one doesn't and I want to
>know!!!

That surprises me. I thought all netgear routers had it built in.

Which model is yours?
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Space is an illusion, disk space doubly so.
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

John P <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:44b65351$0$7621$(E-Mail Removed):

>
> Since you already have ADSL on your line it would be useful to
> know some of the line statistics from it particularly Downstream
> Attenuation and Downstream SNR. It may turn out that your line
> will support much higher than 512 (despite what any checkers say)
> and from that you will get an idea of how your parents line might
> perform.
>

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 576 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 56 db 15.5 db
Noise Margin 12 db 24 db

As far as I know, that is not good enough for 1 meg.

When we were all on dialup, I used to achieve between 36 and 40 kbps
approx. They never connect above 28.8. Not conclusive, but indicates
likelihood of a worse line to me. They also regularly have problems
with trees causing damage to cables along the way, which suggests a few
inline repairs by now maybe?

You seem to highly rate Zen... interesting, as I'd like to move on from
Plusnet myself.