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[Weaver]

Andrews and Arnold are just a joy. I thought I'd write a bit about the state of things here at WeaverTech City nowadays and my experience of AA.

[I don't have any connection with them other than being an ordinary happy customer.]

I have now got twin-line bonded ADSL going, with packet-by-packet weighted load balancing outbound and inbound, using a Firebrick FB2500 at my end to do the outbound load balancing as well as its usual router and firewall duties. I have two BTw 20CN phone lines, there's no sign of any LLU anywhere round here yet.

To do the actual ADSL end of things, I have two trusty old Netgear DG834v3s, set to act as pure bridging PPPoEoA to PPPoe between phone lines and two of the Ethernet ports on the Firebrick. Each DG834v3 was set to be a straight ethernet modem, as opposed to a router by using the undocumented magic URL command, whose effects are persistent.

Speed. One line is on the 2MBps BRAS profile (I think), the other line on 1.75Mbps. Measured throughput is sometimes over 3.5 Mbps, sometimes a supposed 3.9 very occasionally 4.1-4.3 Mbps. This could b due to th tool (tenmeg test download site) applying some conversion factor that is a bit excessive. Sync rate on line #1 is incredibly high, something slightly over 2500 for 6dB SNRM on this 63DB attn line. This is not nearly enough to get me to the 2.5Mbps profile, so it's 2Mbps for line one all the time as far as I can see. Line #2 has not yet made it to 2000 profile as far as I am aware, maybe I need to work on that a bit, or need to swap out that modem for a better individual one from out of the heap I keep. For some reason AA report line #1 as 2.25 MBps profile and line #2 as 1.97. I didn't know there was a 2.25Mbps BRAS profile, maybe there is and maybe there isn't, but it's not on the excellent table on this site.

And I have native IPv6 which is very very nice! I have, for some reason, 2 /48s and a couple of /64s. It's turned out to be incredibly useful in ways that I never expected. If you are fiddling around with all things things IPv4 reconfiguring stuff or are required to temporarily set yourself to 192.168.x.x/16 for initial config access, you can still use ipv6 to the Internet and google stuff or get settings from AA's website, which is just so handy.

AA VoIP. I think I have now also got VoIP working reasonably well, but needs proper stress-testing. It's an AA SIP /RTP service with an AA phone number which costs about £1 per month. Calls are about 1.5p per minute in peak hours, see AA website for tariff chart. H/w is a Siemens Gigaset DECT base station plus two handsets. On reflection I wish I had found a unit that speaks 802.11 to the handsets, so as to avoid the possibility of trouble with DECT-generated interference with my two existing 2.4GHz WLANs plus an existing POTS DECT phone. Config of the basestation was a real pain as I had no clue what I was doing and needed a lot of handholding, that plus getting firewall design right on the Firebrick and the whole thing took a lot of time to get going.

Now I'm fiddling about with wireless access points, a pain. I'd love to find a rock solid _5GHz_ MIMO 80211n access point.

AA are just superb. I ran out of IP addresses, so I chatted to them on IRC and they just moved my LAN to a new double-size address block right there and then, boomph. Wow.

This is a shameless plug for A&A, but like I say, I have no connection at all with AA, and I'd just like to tell you all about a series of occasions when things have gone right, since we usually discuss things that have gone wrong.

[Weaver]

Very belated update.

I have totally failed to get VoIp working reliably. I should reconfigure the Firebrick to be a back-to-back gateway, so the VoIP device on the LAN (a Siemens N300 box) talks to the Firebrick, and the Firebrick talks to A&A servers. But I just haven't got round to it, which is my fault.

As things stand, the the firewall has a hole in it to allow the N300 to talk directly to A&A’s boxes, but if I were to do the right thing and let the Firebrick be a gateway then presumably no firewall config would be required.

I think I will need a bit of hand-holding with this. To their credit, A&A even try to make it easy for you by publishing a snippet of XML on their VoIP config web server which is the required piece of Firebrick config magic runes for you to just cut-and-paste correct for your network setup.

I’m not sure why things don’t just work as they are, but I should first mend my ways and start  doing things A&A’s preferred way before moaning about things not being healthy.

[GigabitEthernet]

Such a shame they're so damn expensive.

[Weaver]

A&A  have their new(-ish) pricing deals Home::1 and Office::1, so those might be worth a look.

The fact that they don't offer all-you-can-eat deals for no money is the reason they remain guaranteed fast. (“we aim not to be the bottleneck”)

It all depends on how much frustration and slowness matter to you. I just couldn't face the thought of having to deal with “peak times” or impotent clueless ISP support staff ever again, so A&A is, barring disaster, my last ISP.

It's also pretty awesome dealing with the very people who designed your router too. Firebrick 2500.

[guest]

Such a shame they're so damn expensive.

They aren't that expensive these days. In 2003 it was "scrotum-twisting, eye wateringly expensive" - no joke

[burakkucat]

In another thread, Alec responded to my comment with --

But where will all these people go?

Perhaps, in view of the recent changes to their pricing structure, A&A will acquire some new (knowledgeable) users? 

[Weaver]

I have three DSL lines, so three “scrota” each getting its own individual twist too, as I pay: line rental for a few quid per line (to A&A, not direct to BT) and I pay for BTW Max Premium option for £36 total. I have no real phone service at all.

The fact is that the service does everything I need, the alternative would be than buying something that I hate and being pleased that I have saved some money yet have bought a constant source of frustration.

I need better modems, or a trip in the Tardis to depart 2006 and land in 2017 to see if Hie.co.uk waffle about investing in catching up with the lost entire decade and getting us a modern internet. These aren't facilities that A&A can reasonably be expected to provide, although they've give some valuable help on the modem front.

[GigabitEthernet]

No phone service removes AAISP from our list immediately, not to mention the crazy pricing for 300GB+ of data...

[Weaver]

Clarification. It’s just that I chose no POTS on these lines. I have VoIP with A&A. They do a lot of business telephony stuff too. It's worth having a poke around in their website under telephony.

Their website is easy to fall into and drown. If so, you can always talk to a human, via phone, email, IRC, IRC-over-web, Twitter and god knows what else IRC is the way to go if you want to talk to someone out of hours.

I am a heavy user on occasion, downloading movies, occasionally streaming them. I take usage of their 02:00-06:00 charging band of 1 zillion GB per unit. Sometimes I stream movies at the weekend or in the evening when its 40x cheaper than the 08:00-18:00 Mon-Fri band.

[guest]

I need better modems, or a trip in the Tardis to depart 2006 and land in 2017 to see if Hie.co.uk waffle about investing in catching up with the lost entire decade and getting us a modern internet.

Looks like Lewis is finally getting VDSL2 (FTTC) - although given a lot (most?) of Stornoway is on EO lines that probably isn't an awful lot of use.

Somewhat amusingly (given my comments about g.inp in another thread) most of the villages would be ideal candidates for g.fast - then again where's the use in that when you're connected to the mainland by the telecomms equivalent of a wet piece of string?

[Weaver]

A chat with a local BT man, who gave the impression that he found proposed development possibilities pretty confusing, started me wondering if there was a chance that BT might be doing a deployment (rather than a mere trial) of FTTDP, something wondrous linked to a box on a pole.

I’m on an EO line, like everyone else afaik, and I’m about 4-5 miles from the exchange. I get 1.75 Mbps IP payload - 2144 sync rate, varies between 2016-2272 when things are good. My three lines bond together very effectively to give 5.25 Mbps combined IP downstream. This is done by a box in A&A-land which seems to do the right thing even if the the lines are running at unequal speeeds. Upstream bonding is done by my FB 2500 router, which joins rather unequal u/s pipes into a combined 0.7-0.9 Mbps, or even 1.0-1.2 depending on who’s asking, as different speed testers give consistent wildly differing results with huge initial peaks which I don’t pretend to understand.

I assume, correct me if I’m wrong, that VDSL2 is no use to the people outside the villages and small towns that already offer a half-decent 6 Mbps. BT and the politicians seem very interested in fixing the problems that have already been fixed.

Those fortunate users who already have a decent service are clearly those most in need of the fruits of further investment [¿], this is obvious to those in power. Maximising the have-nots gap.

[kitz]

There is some hope for EO lines.   BT as part of the BDUK project are now starting to tackle the EO issue.   

Quite a lot of cabs outside of exchanges are being installed to rectify the short EO lines, and BT are also starting to rollout more of the All in one units for those longer EO lines.    It will depend on how many EO lines there are and if BDUK is taking an interest....  but I would imagine the AIO solution would be the cheapest and easiest solution for BT to implement.

[iMx]

Then we have some new stuff which I hope we can start next month - no promises, but it may finally mean some new broadband packages which I am quiet sure some people will like. Just watch this space.

http://www.revk.uk/2015/06/busy-week.html

I'm hopeful with the above, I had an AAISP line when FTTC first became available, then a few house moves later found myself renovating a house and just going with BT to get 2 x lines installed for free with FTTC.  With recent unsolved/unexplained problems with my current ISP on 1 line (migrated 2-3 weeks ago), I will quite happily pay A&A and potentially migrate both FTTC lines to them.  Although I am going to hang fire in the hope that these new packages will materialise...

[Weaver]

I apologise in advance to all kitizens for constant droning on and on like a bloody cracked record about my love affair with A&A. I give all permission to wag finger/administer slap with wet fish etc. as required. People who want to know why A&A users are happy bunnies can read ispreview.

I just want all the commission I'm now due as an unpaid salesman. 

It's a lot about personality. I'm one of those demanding customers from hell, and I have a low tolerance for frustration, for slowness, and for idiot tech support staff or those who are impotent or robots. Internet is ultra-important to me for personal reasons to do with my poor health, so that's what I spend my money on. (And I can't drive and can't go down the pub any more.)

I promise to relate the bad along with the good.

[mrpops2ko]

They do sound great. I just wish they had an unlimited option. I'd burn through my allotment in a day.