Move to LLU - will speed increase?

If I'm currently with an ISP (Plusnet) on my telephone exchange as a normal
connection ie. non LLU and I'm getting around 3.5meg based on my distance
from the exchange, will I likely see faster speeds if I decide to switch to
someone like Sky (who I believe use Easynet LLU) and go onto their "Max"
package (which claims up to 16meg) ???

ie. is there much point in me changing to the Max package in the expectation
of faster speeds or should I just as well stick with the "Mid" package which
is up to 8meg and put up with less usage allowance?

Thanks
Andy

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Andy Pandy wrote:

> If I'm currently with an ISP (Plusnet) on my telephone exchange as a normal
> connection ie. non LLU and I'm getting around 3.5meg based on my distance
> from the exchange, will I likely see faster speeds if I decide to switch to
> someone like Sky (who I believe use Easynet LLU) and go onto their "Max"
> package (which claims up to 16meg) ???

You are mistaken. You might get a very small increase with ADSL2 that's all.


> ie. is there much point in me changing to the Max package in the expectation
> of faster speeds or should I just as well stick with the "Mid" package which
> is up to 8meg and put up with less usage allowance?

Up to you based on your usage.

Graham

Andy Pandy wrote:
> If I'm currently with an ISP (Plusnet) on my telephone exchange as
> a normal connection ie. non LLU and I'm getting around 3.5meg based
> on my distance from the exchange, will I likely see faster speeds
> if I decide to switch to someone like Sky (who I believe use
> Easynet LLU) and go onto their "Max" package (which claims up to
> 16meg) ???


You may get a little extra but at least you wouldn't have to soft cap
traffic shapping which you are experiencing now.
>
> ie. is there much point in me changing to the Max package in the
> expectation of faster speeds or should I just as well stick with
> the "Mid" package which is up to 8meg and put up with less usage
> allowance?

Now that depends entirely upto you & your usage. I pay for the (upto)
16Mb package & am now only getting around 5Mb but the usage level is
what I'm after so I'm not complaining..

One thing though, customer support is dire....
>
> Thanks
> Andy

> If I'm currently with an ISP (Plusnet) on my telephone exchange as a normal
> connection ie. non LLU and I'm getting around 3.5meg based on my distance
> from the exchange, will I likely see faster speeds if I decide to switch to
> someone like Sky (who I believe use Easynet LLU) and go onto their "Max"
> package (which claims up to 16meg) ???

I converted to Max last week (formerly with Pipex 1Mbit) - i'm now
getting a variable connection from about 3400-4800kbps depending on my
attenuation and line noise at the time... I've seen a few posts where
people with 8dB noise margin (even with 50db+ attenuation) are
reporting getting around 8Mbit connections over on the Sky forums.

Typically my attenuation is around 50dB, but the Sky router often
displays this as either 7dB or 15dB, which the forum techies believe
is a bug in the firmware.

My noise margin varies from p!ss poor (5.3dB) to reasonable (8dB), but
is usually in the 6.5dB range (currently running at 51dB / 5.6dB /
3904kbps)

Have you got any stats that might give any clues as to what you might
connect at ?

Sky don't have a 10 day "training" period as such, and it'll just sync
at whatever it can at the time.

It does seem to take several minutes before it links up at times - it
will often connect quite quickly, but I think their authentication
server is a little on the lethargic side (it was out for about an hour
earlier today - I only realised as I rebooted to see if I could
improve my line speeds), so it can be a couple of minutes after the
modem itself connects before you can do anything.

>> If I'm currently with an ISP (Plusnet) on my telephone exchange as
>> a normal connection ie. non LLU and I'm getting around 3.5meg based
>> on my distance from the exchange, will I likely see faster speeds
>> if I decide to switch to someone like Sky (who I believe use
>> Easynet LLU) and go onto their "Max" package (which claims up to
>> 16meg) ???
>
>
> You may get a little extra but at least you wouldn't have to soft cap
> traffic shapping which you are experiencing now.
>>
>> ie. is there much point in me changing to the Max package in the
>> expectation of faster speeds or should I just as well stick with
>> the "Mid" package which is up to 8meg and put up with less usage
>> allowance?
>
> Now that depends entirely upto you & your usage. I pay for the (upto)
> 16Mb package & am now only getting around 5Mb but the usage level is what
> I'm after so I'm not complaining..
>
> One thing though, customer support is dire....
>>

I'm on Sky - according to my router my d/l is 8MB but when I do a speed test
it typically runs around 6MB. I was told by Sky when I signed up I'd
probably get no more than 4MB, so am more than happy with the 6MB speed.

> I'm on Sky - according to my router my d/l is 8MB but when I do a speed test
> it typically runs around 6MB. I was told by Sky when I signed up I'd
> probably get no more than 4MB, so am more than happy with the 6MB speed.

What and where are you using to do the speed tests ? - many of the
test sites are at best indicative in my experience, some reporting a
throughput of less than half of what I get to a decent server (point
in question, the Intel broadband speed test just gave me four
different results, the lowest being 1.3Mbit)

Have you got anything like netmeter installed ? - it's not perfect,
but on a good steady download you can get a visual of what you're
doing. Some apps (like Firefox) aren't all that good at times, as they
may display a decreasing speed when there's no throughput whatsoever.

Can I suggest trying something like ubuntu from the University of Kent
linked from this page:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

I'm getting between 406-413k/sec, while connected at 3776kbps

Colin Wilson wrote:

> Have you got anything like netmeter installed ? - it's not perfect,
> but on a good steady download you can get a visual of what you're
> doing. Some apps (like Firefox) aren't all that good at times, as they
> may display a decreasing speed when there's no throughput whatsoever.

Have not tried NetMeter, but some of the older firewall apps (like the
Kerio / Tiny Software firewalls, both named as v2.1.15) certainly showed
the traffic speed. Simple solution is to use a 10 Mbps hub between router
and PCs... the Windows Task Manager will then display 100% for 10 Mbps (so
15% is 1500 kbps, 25% is 2500 kbps, etc :-))

> Can I suggest trying something like ubuntu from the University of Kent
> linked from this page:
>
> http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
>
> I'm getting between 406-413k/sec, while connected at 3776kbps

I'm getting 290 kB/sec (though that's on this PC and there are two more
connected at present, one running Usenet binaries downloads, the other
running utorrent with a number of different up/downloads going on...

(8128/448 from my router, 14.99 Eclipse Evolution a/c, no Sky in town!)