The Great (Pipex) Escape - complete !

When I woke up this morning (later than normal, as i'm on strong
painkillers at the moment) my line was dead - plugged in the new router,
and was up and running in seconds.

HTTP seems a little flaky at present, and my line stats / attenuation
seem up and down (dslzone reports 4Mbit (496k/sec), adslguide reports
3.8Mbit) - but having changed the filter (I was getting dropped when the
phone rang, something I hadn't suffered from with my old router) my
stats are now:

Connection Speed 4640 kbps (down) 768 kbps (up)

Line Attenuation 50.0 db 31.5 db
Noise Margin 7.6 db 14.0 db

I'm seeing 505k/s steadily on a download, and saw 83k/sec upload in
netmeter anyway, so that's a lot better (and cheaper) than Pipex :-p

In article <(E-Mail Removed)> , Colin
Wilson <(E-Mail Removed) o.uk> wrote:

> I'm seeing 505k/s steadily on a download, and saw 83k/sec upload in
> netmeter anyway, so that's a lot better (and cheaper) than Pipex :-p

Congratulations!

Who are you with now?

Kit

> Congratulations!
> Who are you with now?

Sky

On a slightly related note, someone I contacted via the adslguide (or
was it dslzone) forums to pass on the email addresses I used for senior
management has also been told today that they can leave Pipex without
penalty - despite only being a couple of months into the 12 month
contract.

> > Congratulations!
> > Who are you with now?
> Sky

Hmm ok, so http was flaky earlier, since then:

* the mail server's down
* the router has had to be rebooted before it would connect...

Let's just hope it doesn't carry on like this :-}

"Colin Wilson" <(E-Mail Removed) o.uk> wrote
in message news:(E-Mail Removed) t...
>> > Congratulations!
>> > Who are you with now?
>> Sky
>
> Hmm ok, so http was flaky earlier, since then:
>
> * the mail server's down
> * the router has had to be rebooted before it would connect...
>
> Let's just hope it doesn't carry on like this :-}

Aha. I was going to post a separate thread but thought I'd ask you what you
thought of Sky first....

I'm with Plusnet on their Premier package (£21.99/month) and can leave at
any time ie. not tied to any minimum contract. I was tempted to switch to
one of the Sky packages as since April 1st they are now in my area (LLU) so
I can pick any one of their packages.

I used to be more of a heavy downloader with p2p but not so much now so I
reckon I stay within 40Gb/month limits so am not sure whether to pick the
Mid @ £5/month or the Max product @ £10/month.

I don't really use any of the advanced features of Plusnet other than the
web space (not that much though) - does Sky have a web space option?

The only thing thats tempting me at the moment is the drastic reduction in
monthly cost - even if I went to Max I would be saving £11/month!

Couple of other questions though - do you HAVE to use the wireless router
provided by Sky? Looks like a Netgear - I already have a DG834G (1st model)
so wouldn't really need to change unless you are forced into using it (I've
heard Sky have their own custom firmware on the wireless router they
provide?)

I suppose the big question really is, yes its a lot cheaper but how much
more reliable or unreliable is the service compared to Plusnet (I must admit
I haven't had that many problems with PN even though a lot of people slag
them off frequently) and if I picked the Max service (claim up to 16mb)
would I see any improvement in my dl/ul rates (currently my attenuation from
the netgear readings is around 52db so I get roughly 3500/512 in dl/ul now.

Andy

> Aha. I was going to post a separate thread but thought I'd ask you what you
> thought of Sky first....

Not too bad to be fair, but i'm trying to clarify a few things via the
adslguide forums at present - i'm supposed to be on an LLU line, but I
only appear to be connecting as an "up to 8Mb" customer, not "Max 16Mb".

> I used to be more of a heavy downloader with p2p but not so much now so I
> reckon I stay within 40Gb/month limits so am not sure whether to pick the
> Mid @ £5/month or the Max product @ £10/month.

I went for the Max, but i'm not entirely sure if i'm _getting_ it at
present. I was formerly on a 1Mbit connection, and this has ramped up to
a ~3.5Mbit connection, so it's cheaper and faster - i'm not complaining
too hard in this respect, but it would appear from my line stats that I
should be able to get at least another 1Mbit over and above what i'm
getting now.

> I don't really use any of the advanced features of Plusnet other than the
> web space (not that much though) - does Sky have a web space option?

Not as far as I know.

> The only thing thats tempting me at the moment is the drastic reduction in
> monthly cost - even if I went to Max I would be saving £11/month!

Same here - the mail seemed to come back up again quickly enough, and
may have even been my fault (I had peerguardian running at the time, and
I think I was trying to send one - PG was blocking it ?!?)

> Couple of other questions though - do you HAVE to use the wireless router
> provided by Sky? Looks like a Netgear - I already have a DG834G (1st model)
> so wouldn't really need to change unless you are forced into using it (I've
> heard Sky have their own custom firmware on the wireless router they
> provide?)

There are some threads kicking around about using other hardware, people
have reported mixed results - i'll post a couple of links below that may
or may not be of any use or interest :-}

> I suppose the big question really is, yes its a lot cheaper but how much
> more reliable or unreliable is the service compared to Plusnet

It's certainly no worse than I was seeing with Pipex - which had become
a joke !

> would I see any improvement in my dl/ul rates (currently my attenuation from
> the netgear readings is around 52db so I get roughly 3500/512 in dl/ul now.

That might depend on how you end up getting connected, as I say, i'm not
actually sure i'm connecting as an ADSL2+ customer (I suspect not), but
that might either be a profile that'll sort itself out, or a setting in
the router (which i'm waiting for some answers on)

My attenuation was only 7dB when I first connected (!) but has since
changed to 50dB

<http://dg834gt.mognuts.com/NetgearRouterUtility.html>

<http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-r...lashed-router-
got-my-sky-password.html>

<http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-r...my-own-router-
sky-broadband.html>

In short, no real issues as yet - gaming pings are generally poor
compared to many ISPs (I see 100ms+ regularly), so for the price, i'm
happy enough with them.