Broadband

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 08 Sep 2005, 20:52

I've been relatively happy with my Telewest 1MB service. Recently, however, I've begun to realise that it doesn't offer good value compared with other providers and I was seriously considering going back to BT, although this would entail the extra cost (max Â£75 depending on work required) of putting in a BT line.

However, I have just learned that Telewest is going to upgrade me to 4MB in the near future.

What do others think of the current deals on offer? I'm not downloading on an industrial scale so perhaps a capped limit might suit me better if it offers better value?

Post by **wangi** » 08 Sep 2005, 21:03

metronet

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 08 Sep 2005, 21:43

Been pondering telewest recently, with digital tv thrown in - am I right that contention ratio is not an issue for cable broadband?

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 08 Sep 2005, 21:53

Dunno. Does that mean the number of your neighbours who are sharing the same line? I thought it did make a difference.

I gave up my Telewest TV package and we make do with what Freeview has to offer. Can't say I really miss the other channels. I used to enjoy the live football but they got greedy with the pricing and we don't watch much TV generally.

I'll be giving up my telephone line as well once a few more folk discover VOIP.

Pal of Porty · Post by **Pal of Porty** » 08 Sep 2005, 22:17

I cannot even get Telewest in my part of Joppa.

Poppy · Post by **Poppy** » 08 Sep 2005, 22:21

Pal of Porty wrote:I cannot even get Telewest in my part of Joppa.

Aha! No cable, and Jopps's too posh an area to get a satelille dish - so that's why you grace Mr Poppy's residence with your presence! (luckily when Mr Poppy is with me at my place!!

)

Pal of Porty · Post by **Pal of Porty** » 08 Sep 2005, 22:22

Poppy wrote:Aha! No cable, and Jopps's too posh an area to get a satelille dish - so that's why you grace Mr Poppy's residence with your presence! (luckily when Mr Poppy is with me at my place!! )

Got it in one

Poppy · Post by **Poppy** » 08 Sep 2005, 22:24

Pal of Porty wrote:
Poppy wrote:Aha! No cable, and Jopps's too posh an area to get a satelille dish - so that's why you grace Mr Poppy's residence with your presence! (luckily when Mr Poppy is with me at my place!! )
Got it in one

Well, be careful not to leave your medical devices there in future!!!

Poppy · Post by **Poppy** » 08 Sep 2005, 22:24

Pal of Porty wrote:
Poppy wrote:Aha! No cable, and Jopps's too posh an area to get a satelille dish - so that's why you grace Mr Poppy's residence with your presence! (luckily when Mr Poppy is with me at my place!! )
Got it in one

Well, be careful not to leave your medical devices there in future!!!

Pal of Porty · Post by **Pal of Porty** » 08 Sep 2005, 22:28

Is that two medical devices or the same one twice then?

Poppy · Post by **Poppy** » 08 Sep 2005, 22:33

Pal of Porty wrote:Is that two medical devices or the same one twice then?

The same one once (as it were) - unless you've done it twice!!

Dakota · Post by **Dakota** » 09 Sep 2005, 12:52

Mr Magnolia: Cable companies rarely publish contention ratios; but it's almost never an issue with cable. The speed you pay for is (at least) the speed you get.

Bob: It isn't advertised anywhere on their website, but if you phone Telewest Customer Sevices, they will downgrade you to a 512K (1/2 megabyte) service at a saving of Â£5 per month.

BTW: I've been using the 512K service for several years now (always refusing the upgrade to higher speeds) and I've found it very reliable. Download speeds are almost always between 500-800K (ie faster than I'm paying for). But I think it may be time to upgrade: 384K upload speed could make updating my website a lot faster.

ifstar · Post by **ifstar** » 09 Sep 2005, 15:48

Bob Jefferson wrote:I've been relatively happy with my Telewest 1MB service. Recently, however, I've begun to realise that it doesn't offer good value compared with other providers and I was seriously considering going back to BT, although this would entail the extra cost (max Â£75 depending on work required) of putting in a BT line.

However, I have just learned that Telewest is going to upgrade me to 4MB in the near future.

What do others think of the current deals on offer? I'm not downloading on an industrial scale so perhaps a capped limit might suit me better if it offers better value?

Also worth pointing out, if you are on a 2Mb/4Mb connection or more then they will be upgrading you to 10Mb!!!!

Your upload speed will also increase significantly - from 128k to 384k.

Never had any real problems with telewest or reliability and they have boosted my connection twice now free of charge. How much do you pay for your connection?

Dakota · Post by **Dakota** » 09 Sep 2005, 16:09

Update: the 512K service will be getting upgraded to two meg at the same time.

Novastar · Post by **Novastar** » 10 Sep 2005, 14:26

Have been speaking to Telewest as I'm thinking of upgrading my TV/phone package. Â£15 a month is pretty good. They said that the contention ratio will never be worse that 1:10.

Thinking of going with it. Their service for phonelines is a lot better than BTs (please hold, your call is very important to us....) and a lot cheaper. Also seems more reliable. One of my mates is on Telewest already for BB and has never had a problem, compared to the umpteen problems he had with a BT line (but thats just his say so).

Brian McCrow · Post by **Brian McCrow** » 12 Sep 2005, 12:49

This web site is good for comparing ISPs

www.adslguide.org.uk/

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 03 Oct 2005, 09:45

Bob Jefferson wrote:However, I have just learned that Telewest is going to upgrade me to 4MB in the near future.

Looks like it's happening soon Bob according to this

Dear customer,

To enable us to make improvements to your service, including the recently announced speed increases, we will soon be carrying out some work on the network in your area.

To avoid any inconvenience we wanted to let you know in advance of this happening, as it may cause some minor disruption to your Internet service.

Disruption to your Internet service may occur at some point between today and 17 October 2005. You should only be affected for a period of around 2 hours between 10am and 5pm on the day the work is carried out. Your other Telewest services will not be impacted.

For more information, visit our blueyonder service status page (http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/status).

We apologise in advance for any inconvenience that this may cause you.

Regards,

The team at blueyonder

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 20 Oct 2005, 12:07

My internet access seems to have noticeably speeded up today. Anyone else on blueyonder noticed an improvement?
I'll need to find a site that will test my connection speed but I'm sure the upgrade work has been carried out

Post by **wangi** » 20 Oct 2005, 12:10

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 20 Oct 2005, 12:18

Thanks Wangi. Yep it's been upgraded

ecm · Post by **ecm** » 20 Oct 2005, 19:52

Marya wrote:Thanks Wangi. Yep it's been upgraded

Ours is still to be upgraded, I think. We're running at just under 2MB just now.
It's all to be done by end of October so shouldn't be too much longer.

bearcub · Post by **bearcub** » 20 Oct 2005, 23:07

Got an email from my provider, Wanadoo, saying they will be upgrading to 8Mb soon

....although I don't think my phone line will take anymore.....captain.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 21 Oct 2005, 18:57

Well, my joy was shortlived. It's back to the old 1MB speed tonight

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 21 Oct 2005, 19:48

Be grateful you have a connection. I arrived back from holiday to find my modem wasn't working (engineer coming Monday) so I have had to play my 3G card.

And the contractors still haven't finished working on our street despite promises that it would all be finished by (last) Saturday. As it has been virtually impossible to find a parking space in the bits of road that hadn't been dug up we foolishly left our car in Rosefield Avenue overnight last Saturday. We woke up to discover that it had been keyed from one end to another, along with a dozen or so other cars belonging to our neighbours. This coming after a night where we were left with no gas supply, despite assurances that portable heating and cooking appliances would be delivered. To add insult to injury, when I finally contacted someone who was reluctantly willing to accept responsibility they offered no apology or explanation and their promise of a compensation form in the post has, as yet, failed to materialise. Oh, and the Â£150 it cost to repair the boiler which failed to re-ignite when we were finally re-connected.

Re-nationalise everything now! They may have been useless before, but at least we knew who we were dealing with! And has it actually saved anyone a single penny? Or just made a few new millionaire shareholders?

Here's another example of the idiotic world we live in. I got my first bill from Genesis Communications for the 3g card. It was Â£10 more than I was expecting. I queried it and was informed that I had gone over my tarrif allowance. I replied that this was certainly not the case since I had been keeping a careful check on my usage via the supplied Vodaphone usage meter. The technical department from Genesis told me that Vodaphone's usage meter was not 100% accurate and was merely a guide. I replied that I was prepared to accept this, but I was not prepared to accept that it was less than 50% accurate, as appeared to be the case. Genesis - It's not our problem, your contract is with us. Me - I refuse to pay the excess. Vodaphone - There's nothing wrong with our software.

OK, eventually Genesis agree to credit me with the excess and point me towards their own online usage meter, while Vodaphone ensure I can't go over my allowance in future. But here's two major companies who are supposed to be working together and I get this email from Genesis:

Hi Robert

As discussed, your feedback from vodafone regarding the software would be very welcomed.

Many thanks

Matt Vailati
Technical Helpdesk
EX 112611

Can you believe it? Genesis are telling their customers not to use Vodaphone software because it is unreliable and rather than sort the issue out with Vodaphone, they are relying on me (the customer) to act as some kind of go-between!

Sorry, what we were talking about?

ecm · Post by **ecm** » 21 Oct 2005, 20:05

Poor Bob and family,

Not a happy homecoming. The inconvenience of things breaking down or failing is one thing but being given the run around and having to deal with the incompetence of those who are supposed to take responsibility is quite another.

Crack open a bottle of Rose or two, that might numb your frazzled nerves a bit.

Hope your hols were good at least.

Oh, and what's the deal with Rosefield Avenue? Is it a hive of vandalism of an evening or what?

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 21 Oct 2005, 20:22

How did you know about the rosÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â©? Great holiday thanks. Not quite so many mushrooms this year, but I have one very interesting picture to post when I find time.

Rosefield Avenue suffers from being on a direct route from Rosefield Park to the High Street and as a result there is a fair bit of car vandalism - broken wing mirrors a speciality. It's a complete re-spray of the driver's side, though fortunately I have a protected no-claims policy (less Â£100 excess).

One guy I met told me how he hadn't noticed the damage immediately and following a disagreement with someone in a petrol station that morning had demanded that they show him the CCTV footage as he was convinced that this person had been responsible.

I suppose most people won't even bother reporting the vandalism as it won't be worth their while claiming.

ecm · Post by **ecm** » 21 Oct 2005, 20:30

Bob Jefferson wrote: Not quite so many mushrooms this year

So, these terrible events you came home to really did happen then.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 21 Oct 2005, 20:32

Yes it's the same route that takes them through West Brighton Crescent as well.

I've had no accidents in my vehicle but since moving to Portobello (from law abiding Leith) have had countless claims on my insurance due to vandalism,attempted thefts and hit and run. Like you Bob I used to have a protected full no-claims but after a couple of claims in the one year that went. I'm now on 3 years no-claims with serious implications for my premium - despite opting for a higher exess. A full car re-spray can cost in the region of Â£1000 - I reckon a lot of people will be forced to make a claim rather than forking out the total cost themselves.

I'm beginning to think that Lawrence's idea of building a new library across the bottom of Rosefield Avenue is a pretty good one!

ifstar · Post by **ifstar** » 22 Oct 2005, 09:13

Marya wrote:Well, my joy was shortlived. It's back to the old 1MB speed tonight

What speed were you on before the upgrade?
That speed test site varies quite a lot for me so I found it better just downloading files to work out the speed. The speed test did show my upstream was increased to 363K though.

I was on the 2Mb service and it's went up to about 8/9/10Mb.
Try going to http://gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk/bluey ... in/movies/ and downloading the file thats there. It's about 80Mb and it's on BY's on servers so you will get your best possible connection from them - mine downloaded in 1 min 13 secs at 1.10Mb per second.
I have downloaded from some other sites and 10 files coming down at the same time was about 850k per second.

What sort of modem is it you use? Is it the SB4100 or the SB3100? If it's the SB3100 then you can get them to replace it as it doesn't support the 10Mb connection. This site http://evenfaster-faq.brion.me.uk/ has some more info on it.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Oct 2005, 09:24

I just d/l that file in less than a minute. Stunning.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Oct 2005, 10:38

ifstar wrote:
Marya wrote:Well, my joy was shortlived. It's back to the old 1MB speed tonight
What speed were you on before the upgrade?
What sort of modem is it you use? Is it the SB4100 or the SB3100? If it's the SB3100 then you can get them to replace it as it doesn't support the 10Mb connection. This site http://evenfaster-faq.brion.me.uk/ has some more info on it.

We were on the 1mb rate ifstar

It's about 2mb today.....I've got a DPX100.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Oct 2005, 11:21

ifstar wrote: Try going to http://gamefiles.blueyonder.co.uk/bluey ... in/movies/ and downloading the file thats there. It's about 80Mb and it's on BY's on servers so you will get your best possible connection from them - mine downloaded in 1 min 13 secs at 1.10Mb per second.

Just tried that download ifstar. Av. rate of 348 ...not the 480-512 kBps Blueyonder say I should be getting, but faster than the 2MB rates

I'm just confused as to why it's fluctuating quite so wildly from day to day.

(Maybe I should also say that my obsession with speed is associated with the fact that Homer is on call through the night at the moment and connects to his work server from home. Obviously every little improvement in connection speed helps him get back to bed that little bit quicker.

)

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 24 Oct 2005, 18:34

Ifstar thanks for the link you posted. From there I followed a link to Digital Spy where I learned that lots of people in the Edinburgh area are having the same problem as me. Looks like Telewest can't cope with the number of people now upgraded.

ifstar · Post by **ifstar** » 24 Oct 2005, 20:55

It will probably correct itself in a little while, although I think they have changed their advertising to include the words "up to" now, so 4Mb/10Mb isn't guaranteed.

How many people on here use Telewest and what is their connection like now? I presume Dadist is also on it and upgraded ok as his download speed for that file was quick.

CatzVP · Post by **CatzVP** » 24 Oct 2005, 21:05

Bob Jefferson wrote: Oh, and the Â£150 it cost to repair the boiler which failed to re-ignite when we were finally re-connected.

Sounds as if your thermocouple needed replaced, 150 quid is a bit steep

Talk Porty ~ Portobello

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