BT HomeHighway Questions

[old.eternity]

I thinking about getting homehighway and I like to know a few things from the people who already have it.

1.)Whats your monthly line rental with HH?
2.)What sort of pings do u get?
3.)Any reliability issues?
4.)How long do BT take to install it?

Cheers



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eternity

 

[Guest]

1. £39.99 (which includes £13 of free calls)
2. Using BW dialup to a BW server, around 35-45
3. None
4. Took them 4 weeks to install mine, but it was over the christmas period

 

[old.Kez]

£40? ffs thats ridiculous, cable is the same price!

 

[Guest]

That's right.

HH is billed monthly, and as I don't normally exceed my quota of 'free' calls, it works out at £27 a month (If you see what I mean).

Of course, my use of HH may differ from most, as I also use it to dial into our Novell servers, which are based at customer sites. This is actually cheaper than dialling in via modem (because of the file sizes involved).

I'd really like to keep that facility if I ever switched to ADSL, and maybe I can if (one of) the proposed BW offerings (a hybrid ISDN/ADSL setup) is actually realised.

So, I'd say that if Internet was all you wanted, then HH is a bit pricey (unless you have no other option). If you use ISDN for other 'non-internet' stuff then it's a bargain.

 

[Guest]

Whether it's ridiculous, or not, wasn't the question.

And I'm sure cable is fabby, groovy and all that...if you live in an area that has it.

 

[old.eternity]

SoWat: So quarterly u pay about £120 for line rental?

I think mines £30 for a normal line, hmmm.

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eternity

[This message has been edited by eternity (edited 27 August 2000).]

 

[old.Necro]

1) Depends on what package you choose
2) 50 region usually.
3) Very Few, if you get a decent TA (ISDN 'modem')
4) Depends. The bastards took over a month in my case. Normally 2 weeks i think.

 

[old.Deluge]

Only took 2 weeks here i think it depends how bust the BT engineers are in your area

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Nbd-Deluge
Nightbreed

 

[old.Ninja Net]

you may think the cost of ISDN is high,
so bear this in mind if you do decide to upgrade, get yourself a surftime package @ £10 a month i use freeserve unlimited 24/7 access as you may find that you will be on the net for longer periods with ISDN.
This has offset my costs somewhat.

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Noooooo don't run away
your flag will be mine
http://www.kotr.co.uk/

 

[Chameleon]

Enquire about the cost of an ISDN2e line rather than HH if you can. I got one with Cable&Wireless about a year ago and although its more money it totally owns with pings as low as 20!!! Which is pretty amazing for isdn. Yeah sure cable modems and adsl could be the same price, but from what I see, these ppl's pings can jump to horrible levels when the service is busy and you cant just switch isp like with isdn. I have an ezesurf account and free calls 24/7 with an average ping of about 40 aint bad at all! Until cable modems get more consistant I'll be sticking to isdn tbh. Do it if you can afford it.

Ch@m

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Go hard or Go home!

 

[kryt]

Funnily enough HH is identical to ISDN2e minus the analogue POTS ports... And i can ping 20 on BW dialup... Its just how its's set up. Incidentally, I use HH, billed Quarterly, and pay 60 something quid a quarter in total rental.

 

[Embattle]

I've been on HH for about a month now and can say I'm very pleased with it.

 

[old.Kez]

[Stands up]

Hi, I'm Kez.

I've been an analogue line abuser and HPB for 2 & 1/2 years.

[Sits down]

 

[old.Necro]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kez:
[Stands up]
I've been an analogue line abuser and HPB for 2 & 1/2 years.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Only 2.5 years..?

(Modemer for around 4 years 2 months before getting ISDN)

 

[old.eternity]

When you connect through dial-up, what speed do u normally connect at? Is it as erratic and unrealiable as 56k? (connecting at differnet speeds all the time)

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eternity

 

[old.SimbobX]

with HH?
No, it's 64K everytime.
128K if you dual bond.
There's no "retraining" like 56k modems go through, and there are no 'line quality' issues .. if you have a 'good enough' line to have HH, you have 64K guarenteed.

 

[old.Necro]

With ISDN, you always get the full 64Kbits (i've never tried double-bonding), and the signal doesn't go through several dodgy AD/DA en route to/from the ISP.

OK, its not 100% 100% of the time, but you would be exceptionally unluckey to get any of the connect problems comparable to what modemers would call routine.

 

[old.eternity]

Do they give u a isdn modem, or do u have to buy your own? if u do wuts the best one to get?

Ahhh I love questions

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eternity

 

[old.SimbobX]

it's called a "Terminal Adapter" .. and you have to buy your own

Most people swear by the ASUSCom TA .. I've got it, and I must be honest, it's slightly better and a bit cheaper than the BT Speedway.

Not as much of a difference as most people claim, but a drop in ping of about 10 (from 60/70ish to 50/60ish).

Depending on where you go, around the £30 mark for the ASUS, and £50 for the BT Speedway.

(btw: it's not called a modem because it doesn't "MOdulate/DEModulate", because it's not analogue full of useless info, ain't I? )

 

[old.eternity]

Yea I meant to say Terminal Adapter

Honest

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eternity

[This message has been edited by eternity (edited 31 August 2000).]

 

[old.Ninja Net]

ch@m you meant you HAD an ezesurf account
what you gonna do now?

------------------
Noooooo don't run away
your flag will be mine
http://www.kotr.co.uk/

 

[old.Angie]

Ive had isdn for four months HH, took them a week to install, worked perfectly. But if id had cable available to me id have chosen that. Just because i think Bt couldnt organise anything, take surf time, what a cock up, they have no idea what to do about isdn users who have 2 0800 accounts and want them both to be changed to surf time. I use bt 0800 and freeserve 24/7 (which means free calls) so i never have any call charges for my internet use. Taking the 13 quids worth of free calls into account my bills way way lower than it ever was before. But id never have gone to HH had i not had the 0800 ability , and i think its best to buy your own ISDN Card (Whatever u call it) rather than let bt provide it they charge to much. (Bts isdn isp is cack, my ping is equal to a modem ping with them) Freeserve Rocks if you can register with them.

Angie

 

[Chameleon]

From my experience, the best isdn adapter to get is the Eicon Diva 2. It kicks arse and seems to perform slightly better than the asuscom one, but there's very little in it. The difference is alot smaller than going from BT speedway to any decent card.

 

[old.The_Stranger]

Well, I moved house in may, when i phoned bt up to cancel isdn2e in old house, I asked about HH in new one, they installed it the day I moved in

which was nice


The Stranger



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The Stranger

 

[Guest]

That IS nice!

These days, when we move house, the list of essentials that need to be available are:

kettle
teabags
bin liners
internet connection

 

[Chameleon]

LOL!
My girlfriend keeps saying to me "when we by our new house, what area do u think it will be in?". I never say it, but I always think, just let me do that postcode check thingy on the BTopenworld and NTL cable modem site before I decide hehe

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Go hard or Go home!

 

[Embattle]

I'm no lover of BT but people seem to think its easy for BT to provide surftime, its a massive process. Its alright to think that its just about saying we are going to provide the service but there has to be the infrastructure to provide such a service otherwise there wouldn't be enough capacity to deal with the expected demand.

 

[old.Angie]

Re comments on Bt surf time

If the remark from Embattle regarding thinking its easy for BT to provide surf time is directed at me, you couldnt be more wrong, i have no problem with the fact that they can and do provide the service, my problem is that they dont have a structure that works regarding the easiest request. They have three different departments none of which talk to the other,and basically havent a clue what to do when something a little out of the ordinary crops up, such as me wanting to alter both of our Bt accounts to surftime, im probably one of the few that dont try to abuse the system by using one account for two seperate computers. So youd think that in this so called infastructure there would be someone who knows the answer to this question, and can then back it up with fact, because believe me, they cant, ive been waiting three weeks for one person to call me back about this now, and hey what do you know, she hasnt called. And i doubt she ever will. Im sorry if this offends but after (and this is not an exageration) 34 phone calls and six hours on the phone where i had to pay for the calls,and more time where i didnt have to pay for the call, im just a wee bit ticked off. Dont get me wrong, everyones been very nice, but they contradict each other every phone call. I apologise for this rant, i have never before replied to someone directly, as you can see my posts are few and far between, and people who know me aalso know i keep quiet, but this i just couldnt let go.

Angie aka Sweetpea (Xena)

 

[Embattle]

Re: Re comments on Bt surf time

Originally posted by Angie
my problem is that they dont have a structure that works regarding the easiest request

This is only off you own experience, I had a complecated problem that had to sorted so that I could have HH installed and I have to say they did a first class job and two months in I haven't suffered one problem.

 

[old.Angie]

Comments on Bt Surftime

If you read my original post again youll notice it says "Ive had isdn for four months HH, took them a week to install, worked perfectly."

I havent a problem/complaint about that at all, and isnt this what this forum is for, our own opinions?

My main objective was to shed a little light on the ups and downs of the services available to you once you opted for HH, in essence to advise that Free calls was the best option to keep overall costs down. Simple! So i thought, and if your aware of the possible pitfalls,if any, maybe they can be avoided.

Angie