ADSL & BT? Any other options?

[granny]

Lo all,

I've had NTL cable modem for 2 years now and am, frankly, fed up with it, it's shite. Frequent downtimes (at least once a month) and I suffer from the "set top box needs power cycling often" problem so at least once every day or two the connection dies for no apparent reason and I have to unplug the STB, wait 30 secs & plug the damn thing back in before it works again.

No filesharing apps work with the connection, I suspect they're specifically blocked somewhere or the routing is so poor they just can't extablish connections, and my bandwidth seems considerably less than the 512kbps I'm paying for.

So I'm wondering if there's any alternatives? I really don't want a BT line, I detest BT, they've been fucking crap with me in the past (had to engage the services of a lawyer at one point to threaten them with court action to sort a problem out) but is it still the case that ADSL *has* to be done via a BT line?

 

[Clown]

Or a BT based line, yeah.

 

[granny]

Bum

Spose I'm stuck with NTL then, I refuse to get a BT line :/

 

[Vae]

Can you get Blueyonder (telewest) where you are - I've got it in London and I suppose I have outages once every few months (had one for a few hours Weds night and the last was some point last year). Other than that it works fine and i've not really got any complaints.

 

[Xavier]

No, he won't be able to- areas are either covered by NTL or Telewest.

Get a BT line, ignore the fact it's BT, don't spend a dime on calls and hook up for Zen (low lantencies & reliable) or Bulldog(cheap datastream products for more bandwidth). You'll love it.

Xav

 

[Custodian]

Yes.
Ignore the fact that BT supply the line and go ADSL. Many good suppliers to choose from. www.adslguide.org.uk has a very comprehensive list.

 

[babs]

Yup, cable areas are franchised, tis one or the other. Bulldog will require you being connected to a an Unbundled exchange (not many unless you live around London atm) for their high-bandwidth offerings, the other packages they do are just BT Wholesale and exactly the same as every other decent DSL provider will offer you. Easynet are also unbundling quite a bit, but everything they do so far are business products and pricey.

 

[granny]

Hmm, ok well I did a bit of checking... seems I'm right on the edge of the range from the exchange for ADSL. All anyone will say is I "may" be able to get it but they can't tell me until they run a check on the line.

I suppose what I should do first is get a phone extension so I can call NTL tech support and see if they can see any problems (they won't even talk to you unless you can access the PC while on the phone to them and my PC is upstairs, phone downstairs).

Thanks for the replies guys

 

[Clown]

Hmm, ok well I did a bit of checking... seems I'm right on the edge of the range from the exchange for ADSL.

Heh, they say that to everyone. I used to be right on the edge, but I'm only 4 hops away from the Docklands shit and get 20 ping to most game servers, aaaand decent download speeds. Don't let that quote fool you is what I'm trying to say.

Enter someone who will come and tell me that the distance you are from the exchange doesn't matter to this stuff.

 

[Dubbs]

You may find that getting another BT line installed to the house will fix the edge of range issue. They quite often recommend this although don't guarantee it will work ( we've found it has every time with our staff). If you go with bulldog they seem to be ramping up the llu work to get unbundled exchanges sorted. It's long-term much cheaper and more profitable for them and great for those of us that would eventually like 8Mb sdsl !!

 

[babs]

If you are a long way from the exchange, then it's likely you'll get RADSL. Your download will be the same but uploads can vary (although in practise it's usually exactly the same as normal).

You may well have a visit to test the line, if you do make sure nothing is attached to other sockets on extensions for the same line. Even if an engineer gets DSL working on your line, if the whooosh test comes back with > 60dB then he has to remove it. Someone I know has had exaclty that happen to him, it took four orders and a new line in to get service eventually. Extra phones etc. on the line at the time of test can add a few dB to the result and may be enough to swing it.

And yeah, the distance from the exchange will not have any effect on your ping/number of hops to linx/telehouse etc.

 

[granny]

Heh...

Did a quick format c: and reinstall of XP. Problems seem sorted now, mostly. Gawd knows what I'd fucked with to bugger things up but there ya go eh.

Thanks for all the suggestions anyway peeps