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[mr_chris]

Hiya

I'm fed up of BT's Target SNR sillyness... both Be and UKOnline / Sky are available on my exchange (I think it's probably a Sky exchange, as it was enabled 04.03.07 according to Kitz's ADSL Checker).

So the choice is: Be Unlimited or UKOnline >8Mbps service (which are a similar cost - I don't really want to start paying more for my BB each month)

Be: Pros
3 month contract - UKO is 12 months
Higher upload than the 8Mb UKO product (1.3Mb compared to 768kbps - not a biggie but nice)
Possibility I'll get 9 or 10Mbps on ADSL2+
Free bebox (wow!)

UKO: Pros
Better support?
No Level3!

Can't think of any other pros for UKO, but I'm sure there are any. Anyway, please can I have all your thoughts on the matter, as I've decided I'm going to move.

Cheers guys... oh and in true AOL-stylee...

/discuss

[guest]

Post your stats - preferably from the master socket and I'll take a guess at sync speed. 9 or 10Mbps will be ADSL2 rather than ADSL2+ territory though. Edit 2 - I don't believe you'll get 1.3Mbps on Be unless you sync at ADSL2+ rates but I can't remember for sure. (ircsome will know)

Do bear in mind that Be is very likely for the chop - I just can't see any way that O2 will keep them going. Support is awful right now and there is no point in having a callcentre in the UK and another in Sofia. The BeBox isn't free either (unless that changed) - it belongs to Be and they will want £100 from you if you keep/damage it.

The UKOnline service that I think you're referring to has a 1Mbps upload (edit no it doesn't it is 768kbps). Support seems OK but I wouldn't want to say they definitely are as I haven't exactly asked them anything difficult

I wouldn't go back to IPStream if you paid me.

Edit3 - use of the BeBox is apparently still compulsory if you want support. So is having remote logins enabled  I turned the remote login stuff off when I realised the first thing they do is reset the box to defaults - which is so good <sarcasm alert> when you've changed the default LAN IP address

[mr_chris]

Cheers for the reply.

Stats at the moment down are 37dB attn, 12dB SNR @ 5024kbps. Upstream is 11dB attn, 24dB margin @ 448kbps. So I'm not looking for any miracles, but I would hope for something heading towards the 8Mbps region! Maybe I'm asking too much.

What is UKO and Be's target SNR margin, do you know?

Do you not sync at ADSL2+ if you can anyway, I'm not 100% familiar with what decides when an ADSL2 sync would become an ADSL2+ sync, if you know what I mean.

£100 for the bebox - that's a bit steep, however I can't see myself damaging it or wanting to keep it, or even wanting to use it lol

I dunno whether I'm still drawn to Be or UKO - how bad is the support with Be? I guess the only good thing is that I could give it 3 months and if it's really bad, move to UKO after that if I decided that LLU was the way forward.

And, (sorry for all the questions) how bad is Level3 really? Was it a deciding factor in your moving away?

Cheers for the response, I just want to make a decent informed decision

[guest]

Any chance of a few more details like errored seconds, CRC errors etc Chris?

On the face of it you should get 12 or 13Mbps with those specs. ADSL2+ is above 12Mbps downstream and there are numerous examples of people who only sync at ADSL2 on Be. I can't remember 100% whether that dropped the upstream - just checked ircsomes place and there's one guy only getting 4Mbps but still syncing at ADSL2+ (G992.5 Annex A). His upstream is about 21dB and he's getting 1.2Mbps up or so. He does have significant problems with his connection though

Be will set you to a 6dB interleaved profile on downstream, as will UKO (on the 22Mbps service anyway). It doesn't really matter what they set the margin to provided you have a router which DMT can modify the margins. Edit - I would STRONGLY recommend this.

Support at Be is on a par with Tiscali right now. The people in Sofia can do nothing meaningful - if it needs escalating then Brett/Louise (who are NOT techies) deal with it and supposedly pass it on to O2 second line support. If you require an Openreach visit then you'll have to agree to Be debiting your card prior to the visit. I am not clear as to whether they refund that if the fault is on the BT side of your master socket. I suspect they don't and you'd have to argue for it back. Good luck if that's the case.

Level3 is awful. The problem is that for the backhaul the BT LES (lan extension services) get dumped into the nearest Level3 POP and there you stay. What peering there is (and there's very little) happens at packetexchange (guess who runs that ). Be don't upgrade the Level3 transit until people start screaming at them in my experience. Lots of people It was a major factor in me moving, as was the IWF fiasco.

I'd look at O2 rather than Be if you're looking for an alternative to UKO.

PS - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3235-be-unlimited-causes-stir-in-effort-of-blocking-child-abuse-images.html is the article Seb wrote based on the info/whinge I gave him

[mr_chris]

Any chance of a few more details like errored seconds, CRC errors etc Chris?

Not at the moment... I'm at work and need to telnet into my router to get stats like that... will do when I get home.

Cheers for the reply. It's just the 12 month contract with UKO that's putting me off really, given it's a leap into the 'unknown' for me anyway. Having said that I guess if the support is so much better then they're more likely to get problems sorted, one would hope!

[guest]

You mentioned in another thread that your line might have a minor fault? If so then don't use Be as even if you get less speed than you do now they simply won't raise it as a fault with BT. If you persist and try to get them to do something they will just say "That is all your line is capable of" and if you further persist (like saying it managed more than that before I joined you) they will invite you to leave.

If you have any suspicion of a fault then don't go to Be.

Edit - I'm not sure about UKO's support yet, but unless its something catastrophic I won't need to call them as I can usually fix it with the DMT Tool.

PS - As an aside does anyone know if the DG843GT is meant to have bitswapping turned off? Mine seemed to until I turned it on last night. Seems damn weird having it turned off on ADSL2+ 

[mr_chris]

Yes, it does have a small fault as regards interference that I can't source, and I suspect it is coming from a neighbouring flat, and possibly induced into the wire before it even gets up to my NTE5.

It's looking more and more like UKO would be better really, isn't it. Funny that, because I was a little bit more swayed towards Be before, but now I'm not so sure!

[guest]

Were I you I'd try to find some others on UKO who have had problems and see what they have to say.

I'm not really in a position to judge UKO support yet and I told kitz (much to her disappointment) months ago - March/April? - that Be were muppets so I'm not exactly Mr Impartial there

[guest]

Still thinking or have you decided?

[mr_chris]

Well, I have my MAC key now - not thought about it that much to be honest. The 12 month contract with UKO is the only sting.

I need to move my domains / email away from PlusNet before I do anything, too. Just being lazy I suppose!

I'm still thinking I may try Be for 3 months, if they're rubbish I will eat humble pie and move to UKO!

[guest]

I hear you and I thought much the same. Be were frankly awful for the first 2 months then the outages subsided. Then Level3 and the IWF happened (over a period of weeks). That is my experience with them in a nutshell.

I can't see the O2 rollout being painless though, that's the thing - the Jesus Phone (AKA iphone) is on the way - so I doubt that you'll get the benefits I got when the network functioned (totally uncontended network in early 2007 - and I do mean TOTALLY). I think you might be better going for the O2 offer given your line stats - and that they offer a 100 day money-back guarantee if you're not happy.

Me, I went Be as I literally had no choice. IPstream on the legacy DSLAM was useless (200ms on an idle line) with no way to get off it other than cease & provide or go LLU. I have no qualms at all about UKOnline now as they've been around long enough to know what they are doing (Easynet as was).

The O2 network bods only got their "hands" on the Be "network" in early 2007 and I remember a (swiftly deleted by Be staff) post where an O2 network bod said "We're sorting it out now so don't worry". I rather think O2 did sort out the ridiculous (30+ hours EVERY weekend) outages too.

I have to emphasise again Chris that if you suspect your line has a fault then Be are not the way to go. Really old lad I kid you not. Please ask the people you may know on Be about this (ircsome and yesyes are fairly impartial). Nicola (nredwood) isn't as she freely admits she's on a special "lifetime" deal with Be.

Best of luck whichever way you go - you will find the service (if/when it works) much better than IPStream. IMHO.

[mr_chris]

Cheers... I keep changing my mind!

What's the default SNR Margin on UKO, by the way.. and how easy (if at all) is it to get it changed without using DMT?

Thanks for the continued responses in this thread, btw... it's all helping (even if I'm not any more decisive yet... I'll suddenly make my mind up, I'm like that!)

[guest]

For me it was a 6dB profile. I have no idea how easy it is to get changed I'm afraid as I use DMT to tweak things. Be are (or were) very good at changing profiles/interleaving via the ticket system (20 minutes or so for a "fastpath" change). Via phone is a different matter as Bulgarian and (my) Scots accent don't really mix - I did get on really well with the peeps in Sofia though.

Again I'd emphasise that LLU works very well with a solid line. You seem to have a problem with yours so DMT is a must-have. In that instance if money for a new router is an issue then Be might be a good way to "dip your toes" into LLU. Alternatively buy a DG834PN which works well on both Be and UKO apparently but I have no personal experience of that. I would say that although the data granularity on the DG834GT I have seems finer than the 780WL (BeBox) that the DMT Tool + 780WL is MUCH MUCH better than the DG834GT.

Do remember Level3 - really! It isn't a minor problem by any means but if you are a little north of Manchester (as I suspect) then you might have a fighting chance of avoiding packetexchange. If it works that way then there goes one of the major probs. Actually didn't kitz setup a couple of Be lines? Get some tracert's from them and see where it goes. I'd suggest the following :

www.dilbert.com (usually awful at the best of times)
news.bbc.co.uk (nice test to see peering)
admin.1and1.co.uk (it'll go to Germany)
www.linx.net (obvious I'd guess)
www.lonap.net (Seb on TBB runs this)
www.lipex.net (another London peering exchange)

Give that a try - ask them to do a tracert and then do a ping -t for at least 3 hours in whatever you consider YOUR peak time.

Hope that helps.

[mr_chris]

Cheers

Money for a new router isn't the issue at all, it's just that I'd prefer not to have to... I like the stability of the Netgear I've got and all my NAT rules etc are already in there!!

Yes, I am near Blackpool too, so it is a little north-west of Manchester. The lines Kitz set up weren't round here though. I don't know anyone who's on Be, I may bite the bullet and ask on ADSLGuide, but then again, I may just chance it.

My line does have an intermittent fault, it seems. SNR will plummet down by around 4dB or so, then hours later it will just as suddenly go back up to normal. I survived synced at 8128 non-interleaved for about 6 months on a 6dB target profile, even though the SNR would go down to 0dB (and CRC errors would rack up during that time), so whilst I have a problem, it's not that bad. It's obviously *something* in one of the neighbouring flats.

Having said that, I haven't checked it for ages, so I've just re-started MRTG and will have a look over the next day or two to see what's going on!

I have also been browsing TBB's Be and UKO forums, and I've seen that Be are now using some form of DLM, but there doesn't appear to be much info available about it. Don't really wanna jump out of the frying pan into the fire - but I wonder if UKO will follow suit!

[kitz]

Chris is on the neighbouring exchange to me - they got as far as his exchange, here was due to be the following month - but they pulled out re the take-over. 

I think if Be was here then I'd risk it for 3 months - if its really bad then theres always the "pay your way out" option.

Chris's problem IMHO I suspect isnt to much his line - but Ive said for a long while that I  think something like a neighbours immersion heater etc causing additional noise.   MRTG graphs are weird.  Its like someone flicks a switch and the SNR plummets..  and then shoots back up again x hours later.  No strict pattern aside from it happens mostly during the day, for several hours at a time.

The Be lines arent local so no indication Im afraid...   other than similar atten to chris's (40dB) and I believe atm theyre struggling a bit speedwise due to Be increasing the Target SNR to stabilise.  The guys thinking of having another BT line put in since sync speed isnt much different.  Havent visited the premises and was meant to go down there this Wed to check them out.

Dont know anyone round here who has Be since I think chris's exchange is about the only one they did.  Sky seems ok - but most of the people round here seem to go for the 8Mb package with TV rather than pay extra for the 16Mb so no indication on that re the higher speeds either.