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[Maturecheese]

he Digital Britain report is expected to outline plans for a Universal Service Obligation to deliver a 2Mbps service to the entire UK population by 2012, but we have a long way to go in tackling not only the notspots where no affordable broadband is available, but also slow-spots; areas of the country where you can't receive a service above 2 Mbps which are far more common.

I have copied this from the Thinkbroadband site and I have a question about this so called 2Mbps minimum requirement.  Will that be the sync speed or the throughput speed because the two are very different.  Throughput is what you actually achieve at any given time so I would have thought that this would be  the benchmark.  My poor line ( 58db attenuation  13 SNR downstream are the best achievable stats at the right time of day)syncs at 2272 but I am lucky if I get 1800 throughput, most of the time its less.  Surely the minimum requirements should be at least 3500Mbps to allow HD streaming.  I watch a lot of tv online these days and it is so bloody frustrating when your telephone line can barely cope even though you pay the same line rental to BT as someone with a much better line.  If people with poor broadband(say under 3000Mbps paid at least a third less line rental it might focus BT's minds a bit more.  I live near Bridgend and BT are rolling out FTTC there imminently.  My exchange is approx 7 miles away and serves around 7 thousand subscribers and yet there are no plans for us to get FTTC in the foreseeable future, if ever because it seems us mugs don't count.

[waltergmw]

Hi MC,

As far as I'm aware there is still no USO even if anybody installs FTTC.

I note from:-

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php

that your line seems to be under performing a little.Have you read the thread here:-

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm

Have you experiment ed with different modems e.g. a 2Wire 2700 HGV ?

Kind regards,
Walter

[roseway]

Walter's points are good. All I would add are that I doubt very much if the people who published the Digital Britain report have much (if any) understanding of the difference between connection speed and download speed. If a USO really does materialise, I am pretty sure that it will only cover the connection speed, because that's the only figure which can be easily defined and reliably measured. Actual download speeds depend on so many other factors which aren't part of the basic infrastructure.

[Maturecheese]

Currently using a Netgear DG834G v3.  Isn't a 2Wire 2700 HGV  a BT business router?  Is it as good as what I am using for working with low SNR.   I noticed that when I tried using a couple of Netgear GT 834 s , the line attenuation went up to 61 so I got rid of those.  Also I am with UKonline (easynet) so would the BT router be any good as Ukonline being an LLU operator in my exchange, don't use IP profiling.  They just set the sync rate at a level that the line can cope with.

As for my line under performing, I am aware that it isn't getting the throughput speeds it used to say 6 months ago.  I don't know if the fact that the estate I live on is being revamped so there are a lot of workmen currently messing with the lines to the poles and peoples aerials.  Trying to get your ISP to sanction a BT engineer is very difficult as invariably the engineer will find no fault.

Is there anyway of finding out BT's future
 plans for my exchange?

[waltergmw]

Hi again MC,

Yes the 2700 is BT's business router and is only available from amazon or e-bay. It is rather tricky to set up but there are instructions available at :-

http://bt2700hgv.tripod.com/002.htm

Provided you have a standard ADSL signal then the 2wire will work just as any ADSL modem will but, as far as I'm aware, is not future-proof for VDSL2 solutions.
I have conducted a number of practical experiments and have found nothing better for long and noisy lines.
In particular they seem much better at holding a poor signal and recovering to the same speed after a significant event.
You can look at some of our somewhat parochial adventures here:-

http://www.ewhurst-broadband.org.uk/?cat=4

I am not aware if anybody has published actual research of the differences between modems and in any case I believe the 2Wire use a bespoke chip set.
I believe Kitz's opinion is that different modems can work better in some circumstances than others so you have to experiment.

If BT has announced that your exchange is to be FTTC enabled you might just find a BT Openreach engineer with a list of the cabinets they propose to upgrade.
N.B. there is no guarantee that every cabinet will be upgraded. Otherwise, unless you get involved in a brouhaha such as that at Erbistock I think you will find that BT will not disclose their future plans.

Kind regards,
Walter

EDIT One other caution !!!!!!   NEVER tell a BT domestic help desk person that you're using a 2Wire as the auto-pilot cuts in and they will transfer you to the BT Business call centre, one section of which is in Dundee.
(They tend to be more experienced people who will attempt engineering diagnosis rather than reading from an Indian script.) HOWEVER they are powerless to help domestic users as they have no access at all to any details of your connection except to say it is not a business line.
To a lesser extent some other ISPs may not know too much about the 2 Wire as it's restricted by BT and is not supposed to be available to anybody in the UK other than BT Business subscribers. If you are familiar with the interface it's not too difficult to tell call centre staff the parameters they need to know.

W

[kitz]

>> I believe Kitz's opinion is that different modems can work better in some circumstances than others so you have to experiment.

yep...  and why Im sometimes wary unless the user can afford to experiment with different routers.
In all fairness the 2wire does seem to fair well on long lines for stability, but there is no guarantee. So if you can afford and/or you can pick up a cheap one on Ebay then it may be worth a shot and you could be pleasantly surprised.

On my own (short) line, the router compares rather badly against the likes of the ST585 + Netgear 834's and I loose about another 2-3Mb of sync speed.
The 2wire 2700 doesnt support Annex_M, so for fair testing I compared with a ST585 v7 which allows me to change settings back to Annex_A.

>> the line attenuation went up to 61 so I got rid of those.

Bear in mind that different routers can measure the attenuation differently.  eg some may use a set tone, others average across the whole available range, or an average of the tones in use.  I would be more inclined to go off the sync and performance rather than just the attenuation.

>> If people with poor broadband(say under 3000Mbps paid at least a third less line rental

Cant see it happening.  The actual costs to install and more importantly maintain the longer lines, is far more expensive than that of short lines.
The costs to ISPs and BT support wise is far higher than short/medium lines. :/

>>> I am aware that it isn't getting the throughput speeds it used to say 6 months ago.

I can sympathise, I wont mention figures other than over the past 12 months or so Ive gradually lost about 3-4Mbps of sync, which I doubt BTw would do anything about.  Im still undecided about the effects of NeXT (cross-talk) now we are using MSANs that hold many many more users than the old DSLAMS, but I could be wrong on that and I just musing out loud as I know of a few lines that seem to have seen a gradual decline as the MSANs fill up. 


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Back to your original question, I tend to agree with Erics remarks and would assume that it would be sync speed for the reasons he mentioned.