Well put it like this.
Tiscali and BT are using exactly the same telephone line, and exactly the same equipment at the exchange. In fact Tiscali are leasing the broadband service from BT (wholesale) and in turn selling it to you. Legally BT are not exlusively allowed to sell you technologically superior line or exchange equipment than they supply to Tiscali.
The chances are you would end up with a 2 or 3mb ADSL that is suffering severe disconects.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Tiscali and BT are using exactly the same telephone line, and exactly the same equipment at the exchange.
They will indeed use the same line from the exchange, but not necessarily the same equipment at the exchange. In these days of Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) a large, and rapidly growing, number of service providers now provide their own ADSL equipment in the BT exchange.
Legally BT are not exlusively allowed to sellyou technologically superior line or exchange equipment than they supply to Tiscali.
True in that BT Wholesale have to offer the same product at a wholesale rate to both BT Retail and Tiscali, doesn't necessarily mean that Tiscali will choose to take up and market a product that BT Retail decide to take up and market, particularly if the only way they can provide that product is to buy in a BT Wholesale product in an exchange where they have their own kit to provide the other products that they are offering, it may not make commercial sense for them to do so at present.
Sky are doing a similar thing at the moment with their free BB offer, the free BB service is only available at exchanges where they have installed their own ADSL kit and can therefore use LLU to serve their customers, at all other sites they have to use the BT Wholesale wholesale offering and thus charge a monthly fee.
BB is now a very cuthroat business and all providers are squeezing their margins to the limit and making very hard headed commercial decisions.
Some service providers will inevitably cease to be over the next few years, Bulldog, (C&W), have already cut their losses and decided to pull out of the domestic retail market to concentrate on being a network provider for others in competiton to BT Wholesale.
It's going to get very interesting over the next couple of years and I think we are not far away from the scenario where content and reliability will start to decide which provider you use rather than speed as with newer technologies such as ADSL2+ coming onstream the reach will improve, just as it has since the days when we thought a 9.6Kb modem was fast and 56Kb was obscenely quick!
Cockle
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They will indeed use the same line from the exchange, but not necessarily the same equipment at the exchange. In these days of Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) a large, and rapidly growing, number of service providers now provide their own ADSL equipment in the BT exchange.
Tiscali have unbundled approx 250 exchanges in a year, leaves approx 4750 still using the BT wholesale DSLAM, so thats 16 years at the current rate!
>9.6Kb modem was fast and 56Kb was obscenely quick!
Pah - I stated with a 1200/75 assymetric (thats 1.2k bytes down and 75bytes up)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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And I thought that you were old enough to remember Datel 200 modems (BT Type 2A? plastic monsters, about the size of a desktop PC) supporting 110 bit/s teletypes. Although in theory they could just about work at 300 bit/s full duplex if you could afford the terminals to connect.
But since you are a Big Blue man didnt you have something at 134.5???bit/s for your polled terminals?
The memory is fading fast!
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pmh (was peter)
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>>Sky are doing a similar thing at the moment with their free BB offer, the free BB service is only available at exchanges where they have installed their own ADSL kit >>
Sky bought up EasyNet about a year ago as part of future plans. However EasyNet's network means that it can only serve about a third of the potential Sky customers at present.
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>>exactly the same equipment at the exchange.>>
Tiscali does now have its own LLU equipment in many exchanges - I never got to experience it as I got so frustrated, like so many others, with the ISP.
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What the "BT Sales person" suggested is anti-competitive and also very unlikely from a techinical stand as it would break regulations. As for Tiscali, many other providers would be an improvement (!) compared to their own services.
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Adaptive rate DSL (which is what is being described) is causing some customers huge problems, as the system keeps adjusting the connection speed and re-setting as it does so. Some people find it's re-setting every few minutes.
I'd ask around with neighbours if you have any (you might be in a deeply rural area with only wildlife for neighbours) and learn from their experience first of all.
tinyurl.com/uh3t5 explains it quite well.
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tinyurl.com/uh3t5 explains it quite well.
From which, "Max is much more susceptible to poor quality filters, long phone extension cables and electrical interference, where a previous lower broadband speed might have been more tolerant. To help prevent problems you should try to ensure that anything within your control - your ADSL hardware, internal wiring, filters, etc. is set up correctly. Upwards of a third of faults raised to our technical team about Max are issues relating to these issues and not within our control."
Indeed so; After the initial disconnects whilst the limit of my line was assessed, I had a continuing problem that turned out to be caused by a poor connection on an internal extension. Easy to describe, not so easy to deduce. I still then had very occasional disconnects until I replaced the microfilters on each extension around the house with a single new BT master socket with built in filter to which the ADSL wireless router directly plugs.
Since then I have continued to have 8Mbps downstream and 448kbps upstream from BT Total Broadband but now without a single disconnection. I'm therefore a happy customer who gets what he pays for, but it took some "getting there" issues along the way.
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until I replaced the microfilters on each extension around the house with a single new BT master socket with built in filter to which the ADSL wireless router directly plugs.
An NTE5 replacement faceplate with built in splitter that replaces the lower half of the master socket, to be more precise.
Not purchased from, but looks like; www.telephonesuk.co.uk/images/ADSL_skt.jpg
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>>Not purchased from, but looks like>>
...or www.solwise.co.uk/adsl_splitters.htm#NTE5
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Thanks for your replies.
Looking at the results of the www.samknows.com line tester, it says 'According to BT Wholesale, your line should be able to support a 3Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max' and 'Your exchange is also enabled for ADSL Max services'. I notice that Tiscali offer a (more expensive) 'Max' package.
Do you think that the provider has to pay more to BT to use the 'max' equipment, so Tiscali can't offer the 2Mb on the 'normal' equipment which they currently use to provide my service?
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Do you think that the provider has to pay more to BT to use the 'max' equipment, so Tiscali can't offer the 2Mb on the 'normal' equipment which they currently use to provide my service?
Nope, for the anti-competitive reasons given. I would guess that Tiscali is simply being more conservative in approach (ie not risking that you will get a lower service than you think you've paid for)
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Right- sorry, our replies crossed. Thanks for the Max info- I guess BT are talking about Max speeds, while Tiscali are talking 'normal' speeds. I'm actually in Reading, not exactly out in the sticks, but apparently not near enought to an exchange to get decent speeds.
I'll probably stick with the 512 for the moment, as it's reliable, and cheap at £9.99 for 'unlimited' usage.
Cheers
John
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Just scanned this thread not read in detail so apologies if info is repeated, it is with going to MAX-dsl even if there is little prospect of 8Mb speeds on your line because 1/ it is rate adaptive and will offer the best possible speeds for the line conditions (after a period of settling down) and 2/ it offers nearly twice the upload speeds, ADSL is 256Kb, MAX-dsl is 448 Kb.
Worth looking at Plusnet, very comprehensive and competitive BB service plus a great deal on both land line and VOIP phone calls.
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Worth looking at Plusnet, very comprehensive and competitive BB service plus a great deal on both land line and VOIP phone calls.
Thanks cheddar- I was with Plusnet for a few years before Tiscali, switching when their £15 unlimited service became limited. Tiscali also dropped the price to £10 because I can only get 512 using the 'normal' method. I might have been lucky but didn't notice any deterioration in service after switching.
However, if I do decide to try out a Max package, it will probably be between Plusnet's limited £15 Plus package (4Gb at peak times = 4-12pm, 50Gb off-peak) and Tiscali's 'unlimited' £18 package. 4Gb is probably enough, apart from when I re-install Windows and download all the updates :-)
We don't use the phone enough for included call deals to offer much of an incentive.
John
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I moved away from plusnet late last year. Have a good look on their forums to see if they have sorted out the dire reliability and support issues. they seemed to have email and dns servers down more often than up - I think they grew too fast and had too many p2p bods hitting the network as well.
When it comes to adsl, Max is adaptive and as people have described there can be issues - but the fixed speed stuff can be provided at different speeds, 512, 1meg or 2meg. I always thought that this was different cards in the exchange, but for all I know it might be software selectable.
Do tiscali make a charge for changing products ? (I know my isp only charge for a change between a home and business product you can change speeds up or down as you like within those product lines) Can you go onto max - or the 1mb or 2mb products and then move back if there are issues or would that incur costs to you?
The other thing of course is the capabilities of your router/modem - some dont handle higher speeds.
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I have been with Plusnet four three years, exemplary service.
Their 2 Gb limit PAYG service is very comprehensive, even more comprehensive than their 2Gb Plus service and an extra 2Gb / month is only £1.50 on, guess what, a pay-as-you-go basis so 4Gb is £16.50, 6Gb £18.00 etc though only £15 in the months you dont use more than 2Gb.
I moved away from Tiscali a few years ago, I hear horror stories about the cust service these days.
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I have Orange ADSL which claims to be 2 Mbps. If I "point" at the icon on the taskbar which looks like two monitors it says 2.2 Mbps. Is this what I'm actually getting, and if not how can I find out my actual speed?
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L\'escargot.
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There are several issues which will affect broadband speed and what Tiscali will offer you;
Line (Copper pair) has been covered above
Exchange equipment (The DSLAM) is either rented from BT or Tiscali's own.
This will be the same as BT (although BT have several standards) and Tiscali may not want to pay the higher price for a faster linecard slot from BT. Tiscali will only have their own equipment where there are sufficient Tiscali customers on your exchange to justify Tiscali investing in a DSLAM - they will want several hundred customers on your exchange before they do this.
Backhaul from the exchange to the ISP - either bandwidth rented from BT by Tiscali or Tiscali's own wire (probably fibre).
This has actually been the limit to broadband speed for the last couple of years (as BT have increased the capacity of their network). Imagine building a telephone exchange with links out sized for 5kb/sec voice links (this is contended so not the sum of all the possible lines but a fraction of the sum). You then start hanging 56k modems on a few of the lines and backhaul volume stats to rise. When the 56kb modems become more common and then become 500kb rising to 2Mb and 8MB the capacity needed out from the exchange to the ISP rises exponentially (imagine traffic on the M25 increasing by a factor of 10 every six months). Tiscali may not have enough backhaul capacity to let you have a faster line without affecting the service they offer to others on your exchange.
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The 2.2Mbps merely indicates the maximum speed of which your line is capable. For a good speed test website go to:
www.thinkbroadband.com/ (you don't need to register to use the Speed Test).
It's the former ADSLguide. org. uk website brought up to date.
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www.thinkbroadband.com/
Interesting; running this test I get 2.2Mb down and 336kb up. Running another test (a .exe installed on my laptop that also sends and receives ever larger packets of data and displays results for UDP and TCP) I get 8Mb down and 448kb up, which is also what my router says I'm getting.
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Your router, and therefore it seems your .exe, will report the line sync speed which is very different from the actual speed, my line syncs at 6848 Kpbs though the actual speed varies between 3000 and 6000 due to the MAX-dsl rate adaptive technology.
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>>Interesting; running this test>>
I have a (wired) modem router and 2MB TalkTalk broadband. Average consistent download speeds are a fraction under 1.9Kbps and uploads 241-242kbps - these are virtually right on the nail for a 2MB service and superior to that which Tiscali used to provide.
Due to move over to TT's LLU service next month. As I'm only 580 yards from the exchange I'm quite hopeful although, to be honest, current speeds are adequate for my purposes.
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