Which providers allow for 7/14/30 day trials?

I'm with plusnet, on a 2Mbps package, but I'm only getting 450-500Kbps
throughput. I have a support ticket that has been open for a month, and
after a lot of nothing, BT finally arrived to check my setup.

My line had an extension of a type that can cause problems, which the
engineer fixed, but it didnt solve the problem overall. However, running the
BT SpeedTester gave an throughput of 1800+ Kbps which is the kind of area
I'd expect, but when switched back to the Plusnet account I'm back to
<500Kbps.

So I want to try another provider to see if I can get better speeds with
them... Are there any providers that will offer a short-term trial? Is this
possible even? Can I temporarily switch to an alternative provider to test
this?

Cheers

Chris

--
(E-Mail Removed)
[remove the obvious bits]

"CJM" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'm with plusnet, on a 2Mbps package, but I'm only getting 450-500Kbps
> throughput. I have a support ticket that has been open for a month, and
> after a lot of nothing, BT finally arrived to check my setup.
>
> My line had an extension of a type that can cause problems, which the
> engineer fixed, but it didnt solve the problem overall. However, running
> the BT SpeedTester gave an throughput of 1800+ Kbps which is the kind of
> area I'd expect, but when switched back to the Plusnet account I'm back to
> <500Kbps.
>
> So I want to try another provider to see if I can get better speeds with
> them... Are there any providers that will offer a short-term trial? Is
> this possible even? Can I temporarily switch to an alternative provider to
> test this?

Now you've had the speed test from BT have you opened or updated your ticket
with PN to advise them? It sounds like you're connection is being throttled
to 512kbps and is just waiting for PN to make the change at their end to
increase the speed which normally happens when BT notify them that an
upgrade has been carried out (and in this case, there's no upgrade so you
need to notify them yourself).

Dan

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, (E-Mail Removed)
....

> However, running the BT SpeedTester gave an throughput of
> 1800+ Kbps which is the kind of area I'd expect, but
> when switched back to the Plusnet account I'm back to
> <500Kbps.

Doesn't that suggest the fault lies with/or at Plusnet? After all, if
connecting to the BT network causes no issues, but routing thru PN's
does ... where does logic say the problem lies? Did I miss something?

On 12 Jul 2005 17:25, ComPCs <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Doesn't that suggest the fault lies with/or at Plusnet? After all, if
>connecting to the BT network causes no issues, but routing thru PN's
>does ... where does logic say the problem lies? Did I miss something?

It might, or it might just be that the type of traffic which the user
wants to use on his connection is subject to traffic shaping (assuming
he might have the Broadband Plus account at 14.99 and be using some app
that is for peer-to-peer file sharing, or downloading binary newsgroups)

Of course, if the account is a PAYG or Premier, then perhaps the problem
lies with the remote sites... As a brief experiment, I tried using my
2000 kbps Plus.Net "Broadband Plus" connection and with a few of the
local council webcams, and a few from the USA, I had the following

Rx Speed (kB/s) Rx Speed (kB/s)
67.00 17.13
29.85 13.70
22.18 5.56

with a few other web pages being downloaded (and not taking account of
two other PCs which may be using this same connection for some traffic)
the total rx speed for my 'snapshot' (at a fairly busy part of the day)
was 156 kB/s which is quite respectable. I didn't push it with 2 or 3
high-speed webcam streams (from Boston University) or trying to d/l a
700 MB movie from CinemaNow, but I would hesitate to point fingers at
the service from Plus.Net for limited download speeds... Peter M.

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

On 12 Jul 2005 15:37, "CJM" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Are there any providers that will offer a short-term trial? Is this
>possible even?

>Can I temporarily switch to an alternative provider to test this?

I doubt this is possible with a regular customer line, to have service
from more than one ISP... at least not "on request" the way you want
(but it was recently the case someone had access to two, when they had
migrated and their old ISP was still accepting their login). ISPs may
have this set up so they can test (eg where they run several different
branded services... ironically, Plus.Net has such a line !) Peter M.

"poster" <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed) s.net...
>
> It might, or it might just be that the type of traffic which the user
> wants to use on his connection is subject to traffic shaping (assuming
> he might have the Broadband Plus account at 14.99 and be using some app
> that is for peer-to-peer file sharing, or downloading binary newsgroups)
>

No it's ALL traffic. Any way you want to slice it... the max throughput is
is 60KBps/500Kbps. All the time, every time.


> Of course, if the account is a PAYG or Premier, then perhaps the problem
> lies with the remote sites...

It is a premier, and I'm talking about speedtests...eg. the plusnet
speedtest or the one on adslguide.org. So the problem is not related to
remote sites.

"ComPCs" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) t...
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, (E-Mail Removed)
>
> Doesn't that suggest the fault lies with/or at Plusnet? After all, if
> connecting to the BT network causes no issues, but routing thru PN's
> does ... where does logic say the problem lies? Did I miss something?

IMHO, it DOES suggest the problem lies with plusnet.

We've removed the BT line form the equation, we've removed the PCs/router
from the equation, and we have removed the remote sites from the equation.
The only thing left is the Plusnet network.

Not sure Plusnet see it the same way. They half-heartedly suggest it might
be this, that or the other that is the issue, but in each case their
suggestions don't hold water.

"Spack" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> Now you've had the speed test from BT have you opened or updated your
> ticket with PN to advise them? It sounds like you're connection is being
> throttled to 512kbps and is just waiting for PN to make the change at
> their end to increase the speed which normally happens when BT notify them
> that an upgrade has been carried out (and in this case, there's no upgrade
> so you need to notify them yourself).
>

Nah, they claim that I'm enabled for a 2Mbps connection and I'm not
throttled back.

Yes the ticket is still open and I'm still chasing them; they are currently
running 'tests'.

I havent been able to test yet (still at work) but I have been contacted by
Plusnet - apparently they think they have solved the problem...

Why they couldnt have done this test 8 weeks ago is beyond me.