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[feeutfo]

Virgin Media  ...there service aint bad & I do think they  try to sort out probs quickly I'm on cable I do get the odd glich but 99% of time all runs very well....Some good  deals to be had if you take it on as new customer ! just now.

Glitches? Bt may be slow but its never played up.... i think???  But thanks for the heads up Willyboy. Will look into it, the Mrs will be dealing with it through work so if she can bare dealing with Virgin i think they will be most likely to give an improvement over the current snail trail in our street. Cheers.

[stuart30]

We use 2 laptops with Oranges 3G dongle on one of them and built in sim card with Internet connection on the web book.

£15 a month or £25 with the web book for 3gb a month.

Probably not that much to you guys but I am on the net most nights for 3-5 hours and use around 2gb a month.

Mate of mine suggested similar, i asked about other devices,phones, consoles and other lap top etc. He said should be able to run both lap tops and other devics from one dongle. He talked about 'ad hoc' and 'piece of pis s to set up'. But then i guess the lap top with dongle would have to be always on? Didnt beleive the piece of p part but i guess it should be do able. Anyone tried it?

I'm on a 3G dongle all the time im on here...pay £15 a month for 3 gig download usage,not a huge amount compared too a fixed line deal but its totally mobile so handy for work.

I posted up speeds a while back in a Internet speed thread...even with full signal its slow,fine if you need too be away from a fix source but id not even consider having it in the house as a main supply for the net.

The dongle will run a ps3 online but just very slow and wipe out any usage very quickly.

Oh and one other thing too remember if you go over allowance you get charged a small fortune.

Set up is simply plug into a usb slot and off you go....loads its own drivers for you.




Webby....Im on the net probably 240 hours a month (20 shifts @ 12 hrs) and use just over 1.5 gig.

You on You tube or something...

Unusualy quick today...

[webby23]

Yep I do use YouTube sometimes, as well as iPlayer and other vid sites but i dont go mad.

Mine posts similar speeds to yours and I am happy with that to be honest.

I dont download films or music and it is plenty fast enough for me, and its great that when we go away the web book comes with us for internet wherever there is network coverage.

And it saves wasting £12 a mth just for BT line rental cos we both have mobiles with 600 mins a mth and unlimited texts

As stated before, Orange web book (Asus Eee PC 901) that I use has a built in slot for a SIM card, and our Orange dongle was a piece of cake to set up.

Overall very happy with the service.

[stuart30]

Yep I do use YouTube sometimes, as well as iPlayer and other vid sites but i dont go mad.

Mine posts similar speeds to yours and I am happy with that to be honest.

I dont download films or music and it is plenty fast enough for me, and its great that when we go away the web book comes with us for internet wherever there is network coverage.

And it saves wasting £12 a mth just for BT line rental cos we both have mobiles with 600 mins a mth and unlimited texts

As stated before, Orange web book (Asus Eee PC 901) that I use has a built in slot for a SIM card, and our Orange dongle was a piece of cake to set up.

Overall very happy with the service.

Agree i wouldn t be without mine now days for work ect and at home since BT have allowed a 3rd party too close our account...

Id like too use the Iplayer but someone said that its the same as downloading and wipes out the usage. :-/

[Marks DTM Calib]

Here is a litle food for thought for you.

Your 'Line' is a twisted pair of solid conductors, no more. This will be spliced into a larger set of pairs for back haul to the exchange/concentrator/mux (however its implimented in your setup) via a set of krone blocks or simple crimps.

Once at the exchange/concentrator/mux, it will enter an access mux having passed through numerous terminations.

Its only after this mux that it is split off to other providers kit.....do you REALLY think that if you were to say select 02 that they would go out and physicaly swap wires over!

After the access mux its then routed to the service providers BRAS (broadband remote access server) which is the part that actualy allocates you IP address, monitors useage, checks access passwords and even bills (where applicable) before its then streamed onto the layer 2/3 network.

Line loading is unlikely to be related to your drop in throughput, its more likely that the access mux has a limited connection (say 1G or even 100M) and its limiting the throughput when many users are on (the main cause of limiting in practice!)

[dippydave]

i've been with telewest and then virgin for seven years now and have been happy all the time.

no cutoffs, i've always stuck with the middle package and the rate has been upped over the years (due to demand?) from 512k in 2001 to 2MB to 4MB now. It's due to go to 10MB early next year too!

[dippydave]

virgn





their customer service are not as bad as they used to be when they were telewest/NTL

you''re getting much higher than me matey, are you on the XL package or have they done the L upgrade in your area already?

http://[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/380675069.png[/IMG][/url]

[Marks DTM Calib]

Virgin are shite and the reason I have been off for some time!

At least with BT they give you an SLA of 48 hours to address faults which if using it for buisness is worth having......Virgin say 3-5 days is the target and never meet that time scale!

They then wont talk compensation and buggered my connection up following a upgrade by them which I didn;t want, they didn't inform me about and when talking to technical said it was my end!

[TheBoy]

Doesn't matter who you are with, if its provided over the phone cable, it will make sod all difference who you are with if you get a low sync rate and unstable connection.

That leaves cable (presumably not available?), satellite (latency issues), or mobile (not that great).

[TheBoy]

To clarify how your line is made up - you have a dedicated pair of wires from your house to the exchange, possibly several kilometres worth.

Along the way back to the exchange, more and more pairs of wires will be in the same cable, typically up to 100 pairs of wires as it enteres the green cabinet at the side of the road, then in 200 or 400 pair cables back to exchange.  But you still have your own exclusive pair of wires all the way back to the exchange.

This pair determines your sync rate and line stability.

At the exchange, your line splits, via microfilters (in effect), voice goes to the exchange linecards, data to the DSLAM.  The DSLAM has a number of Backhauls going off via the BT ATM network back to POPs, then from these to your ISP via Centrals (normally 622Mbps), then through the ISP's network onto the internet via their transit links.

If you get a good, fast, stable sync, but poor throughput in general, this is generally down to either exchange congestion on the backhauls (which would affect multiple (but not necessarily all) ISPs), the ISPs Centrals (most likely), or the ISP's own network and onward transit links.


Very simplistic view, but should be enough info

[feeutfo]

just been into virgin shop in town, and was given the phone to tech support, told us all we wanted to know. We left, not haveing that nightmare again...opps that!

[Marks DTM Calib]

To clarify how your line is made up - you have a dedicated pair of wires from your house to the exchange, possibly several kilometres worth.

Along the way back to the exchange, more and more pairs of wires will be in the same cable, typically up to 100 pairs of wires as it enteres the green cabinet at the side of the road, then in 200 or 400 pair cables back to exchange.  But you still have your own exclusive pair of wires all the way back to the exchange.

This pair determines your sync rate and line stability.

At the exchange, your line splits, via microfilters (in effect), voice goes to the exchange linecards, data to the DSLAM.  The DSLAM has a number of Backhauls going off via the BT ATM network back to POPs, then from these to your ISP via Centrals (normally 622Mbps), then through the ISP's network onto the internet via their transit links.

If you get a good, fast, stable sync, but poor throughput in general, this is generally down to either exchange congestion on the backhauls (which would affect multiple (but not necessarily all) ISPs), the ISPs Centrals (most likely), or the ISP's own network and onward transit links.


Very simplistic view, but should be enough info

Did you know that BT are about the only major operator using STM4's!

I guess thats over SMA16 or SMA1664 kit.....I worked on the design of the STM4 card in the SMA16 and managed part of the 1664 development.

[TheBoy]

To clarify how your line is made up - you have a dedicated pair of wires from your house to the exchange, possibly several kilometres worth.

Along the way back to the exchange, more and more pairs of wires will be in the same cable, typically up to 100 pairs of wires as it enteres the green cabinet at the side of the road, then in 200 or 400 pair cables back to exchange.  But you still have your own exclusive pair of wires all the way back to the exchange.

This pair determines your sync rate and line stability.

At the exchange, your line splits, via microfilters (in effect), voice goes to the exchange linecards, data to the DSLAM.  The DSLAM has a number of Backhauls going off via the BT ATM network back to POPs, then from these to your ISP via Centrals (normally 622Mbps), then through the ISP's network onto the internet via their transit links.

If you get a good, fast, stable sync, but poor throughput in general, this is generally down to either exchange congestion on the backhauls (which would affect multiple (but not necessarily all) ISPs), the ISPs Centrals (most likely), or the ISP's own network and onward transit links.


Very simplistic view, but should be enough info

Did you know that BT are about the only major operator using STM4's!

I guess thats over SMA16 or SMA1664 kit.....I worked on the design of the STM4 card in the SMA16 and managed part of the 1664 development.

I wasn't aware, but can believe it...

[Marks DTM Calib]

Most went STM1 and then STM16/64.....not bothering with STM4......BT dived on the back of SMA4 and SMA1/4 so have loads of STM4 in the legacy network.

[TheBoy]

Most went STM1 and then STM16/64.....not bothering with STM4......BT dived on the back of SMA4 and SMA1/4 so have loads of STM4 in the legacy network.

I know they had a lot of STM1...