If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?

If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?

I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get 512
kbps".

I am 5 km from the exchange.
A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3 Meg.

Any advice?
--
Chris

Chris wrote:
> If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
>
> I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
> The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get 512
> kbps".

The checker has been known to be extremely wrong in many cases.

Previously, BT decided I could not get 2 Mbit, despite the fact that I was
already using it. Now BT suggest I 'might' be able to get 5.5Mbs, and the line
syncs at 8128000/448000 most of the time, although it does drop down to 7392000
or 6816000 on occasions, usually involving thunderstorms. During the recent
heatwave, it nailed itself nicely to 8128000, so I suspect humidity plays a part
on my line.
One thunderstorm did turn interleaving on. I have had the line set to not use
interleaving at all. Other ISP's may not provide that option.

> I am 5 km from the exchange.
> A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
> The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3 Meg.
>
> Any advice?

Unless your 1Mbit line generates a lot of errors, you are unlikely to get
anything slower from Max.

Can you post attenuation and margin figures for your line?

Some DslMAX confusion seems to exist, AAISP have a page which may be
enlightening here:
http://www.aaisp.net.uk/maxmagic.html

Chris wrote:

> If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
>
> I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
> The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get 512
> kbps".
>
> I am 5 km from the exchange.
> A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
> The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3 Meg.

It appears to be unpredictable. And your speed could certainly go down.

Graham

Your speed certainly could go down. What a friend gets and your
different distance from the exchange is not a reliable guide, as your
lines may have connections of varying quality on the way.

The figures that give a better guide are your line attenuation and
your signal/noise ratio, or noise margin. In particular if your noise
margin shows lots of variation over 24 hours, the BT kit on a maxed
line will pull down your speed in order to improve reliability of the
connection. It might pull it down to 512k.

Furthermore there have been reports of people who try Max and get poor
speeds being unable to get back to their previous fixed speed because
of changes BT have made to their line. BT do not regard speeds as low
as 512k as a fault and so would not fix it.

On the other hand there are many who have got good Max speeds on long
lines. The truth I think is that you will not know until you try.
John

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:34:20 +0100, Chris <nospam@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

>If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
>
>I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
>The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get 512
>kbps".
>
>I am 5 km from the exchange.
>A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
>The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3 Meg.
>
>Any advice?

Your speed certainly could go down. What a friend gets and your
different distance from the exchange is not a reliable guide, as your
lines may have connections of varying quality on the way.

The figures that give a better guide are your line attenuation and
your signal/noise ratio, or noise margin. In particular if your noise
margin shows lots of variation over 24 hours, the BT kit on a maxed
line will pull down your speed in order to improve reliability of the
connection. It might pull it down to 512k.

Furthermore there have been reports of people who try Max and get poor
speeds being unable to get back to their previous fixed speed because
of changes BT have made to their line. BT do not regard speeds as low
as 512k as a fault and so would not fix it.

On the other hand there are many who have got good Max speeds on long
lines. The truth I think is that you will not know until you try.
John

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:34:20 +0100, Chris <nospam@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

>If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
>
>I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
>The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get 512
>kbps".
>
>I am 5 km from the exchange.
>A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
>The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3 Meg.
>
>Any advice?

"Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed) > wrote in
message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>
> Chris wrote:
>
>> If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
>>
>> I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
>> The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get 512
>> kbps".
>>
>> I am 5 km from the exchange.
>> A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
>> The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3 Meg.
>
> It appears to be unpredictable. And your speed could certainly go down.
>
> Graham

That's why I've opted out of Max for the time being.
I'm on a similar long rural line, working at 512K with a USB modem.
This is very reliable and suits me at the moment (I don't do gaming and
don't use binary Usenet)
BT's Max forecast for my line is 1.5 Meg. However, as we all know Max is
very unpredictable/unstable at present.
I'm not risking an "upgrade" until I stop seeing Max "horror stories" on
this and other NGs.

George

George Weston wrote:
> "Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed) > wrote
> in
> message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>>
>> Chris wrote:
>>
>>> If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
>>>
>>> I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
>>> The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get
>>> 512 kbps".
>>>
>>> I am 5 km from the exchange.
>>> A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
>>> The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3
>>> Meg.
>>
>> It appears to be unpredictable. And your speed could certainly go
>> down. Graham
>
> That's why I've opted out of Max for the time being.
> I'm on a similar long rural line, working at 512K with a USB modem.
> This is very reliable and suits me at the moment (I don't do gaming
> and don't use binary Usenet)
> BT's Max forecast for my line is 1.5 Meg. However, as we all know
> Max
> is very unpredictable/unstable at present.
> I'm not risking an "upgrade" until I stop seeing Max "horror
> stories"
> on this and other NGs.

I don't think you'll ever see a complete stop, as there are just to
many users who don't understand that it's not always a nice quick
changeover & that you may have upto 10/14 days of dropped synch whilst
the system negotiates what your maximum stable rate is & even after
that you may require a manual reconfigure to stop your SNR dropping to
low (which was the problem I had, it only took a extra week for PN to
get BT to sort it).

The big problems at the present moment appear to be coming from the
LLU ranks nowadays anyway. So if you are prepared to bite the bullet
for 10 days or so go for it, but if you want a 100% solid connections
don't move from the service you already have..

"kráftéé" wrote:

> George Weston wrote:
> > "Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed) > wrote
> > in
> > message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> >>
> >>
> >> Chris wrote:
> >>
> >>> If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
> >>>
> >>> I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
> >>> The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get
> >>> 512 kbps".
> >>>
> >>> I am 5 km from the exchange.
> >>> A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
> >>> The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3
> >>> Meg.
> >>
> >> It appears to be unpredictable. And your speed could certainly go
> >> down. Graham
> >
> > That's why I've opted out of Max for the time being.
> > I'm on a similar long rural line, working at 512K with a USB modem.
> > This is very reliable and suits me at the moment (I don't do gaming
> > and don't use binary Usenet)
> > BT's Max forecast for my line is 1.5 Meg. However, as we all know
> > Max
> > is very unpredictable/unstable at present.
> > I'm not risking an "upgrade" until I stop seeing Max "horror
> > stories"
> > on this and other NGs.
>
> I don't think you'll ever see a complete stop, as there are just to
> many users who don't understand that it's not always a nice quick
> changeover & that you may have upto 10/14 days of dropped synch whilst
> the system negotiates what your maximum stable rate is & even after
> that you may require a manual reconfigure to stop your SNR dropping to
> low (which was the problem I had, it only took a extra week for PN to
> get BT to sort it).
>
> The big problems at the present moment appear to be coming from the
> LLU ranks nowadays anyway. So if you are prepared to bite the bullet
> for 10 days or so go for it, but if you want a 100% solid connections
> don't move from the service you already have..

Talking of LLU...........

I have an interesting update on my own situation I'll post in the PN group
later.

Graham

In article <44ee0ade$0$3201$(E-Mail Removed)>,
kráftéé <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>George Weston wrote:
>> "Eeyore" <(E-Mail Removed) > wrote
>> in
>> message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>
>>>
>>> Chris wrote:
>>>
>>>> If I went to ADSL Max could my speed go down?
>>>>
>>>> I'm getting a solid 1 mbps at the moment on Pipex Solo 1000.
>>>> The BT wholesale availability checker says I "might be able to get
>>>> 512 kbps".
>>>>
>>>> I am 5 km from the exchange.
>>>> A friend is a further 2 km away on the same cable route.
>>>> The checker predicted he would get 1.5 Meg - and in fact he gets 3
>>>> Meg.
>>>
>>> It appears to be unpredictable. And your speed could certainly go
>>> down. Graham
>>
>> That's why I've opted out of Max for the time being.
>> I'm on a similar long rural line, working at 512K with a USB modem.
>> This is very reliable and suits me at the moment (I don't do gaming
>> and don't use binary Usenet)
>> BT's Max forecast for my line is 1.5 Meg. However, as we all know
>> Max
>> is very unpredictable/unstable at present.
>> I'm not risking an "upgrade" until I stop seeing Max "horror
>> stories"
>> on this and other NGs.
>
>I don't think you'll ever see a complete stop, as there are just to
>many users who don't understand that it's not always a nice quick
>changeover & that you may have upto 10/14 days of dropped synch whilst
>the system negotiates what your maximum stable rate is & even after
>that you may require a manual reconfigure to stop your SNR dropping to
>low (which was the problem I had, it only took a extra week for PN to
>get BT to sort it).
>
>The big problems at the present moment appear to be coming from the
>LLU ranks nowadays anyway. So if you are prepared to bite the bullet
>for 10 days or so go for it, but if you want a 100% solid connections
>don't move from the service you already have..
>
>

I find the following URL interesting, and it may add value to your
checks -

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed.php


--
John Clark