ADSL 2+?

March 1, 2006 5:14 AM

Broadbandfilter: Does anyone have experience of "ADSL 2+"? This advertises speeds of 22MB over regular copper (in the UK). Is it for real?

22MB - Wow! so I signed up as soon as I could. The ISP is UK Online (they would not have been my choice otherwise). I had to buy their ADSL 2+ router (a Netgear DG834GT). I duly installed and waited for the miracle. It didn't happen, speeds were hopeless, about half a meg downstream (upstream was pretty impressive though, at about 800 K). Then we got into blaming the line (they pointed at BT, BT pointed at them). "Local Loop Unbundling" means that the buck stops nowhere. In fact UKOnline couldn't wait to downgrade my service back to regular ADSL which has now happened. OK, fair enough but I feel defeated. Should I have tried harder to get this technology to work? Is anyone using it successfully? how was it for you?

posted by grahamwell to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Yeah, you get 22Mb if you live on top of the exchange, and the line isn't degraded, and the wind blows the right way, and the day of the week doesn't have a vowel in. Get 10Mb cable from Blueyonder - I regularly get 1MB download speeds, for £35 a month.
posted by Orange Goblin at 5:24 AM on March 1, 2006

From what I understand (which is based on the Dutch situation), the speed of ADSL is pretty much limited by the old, rusty copper phone cables. They serve well as phone lines, but trying to put this much data through them just doesn't work in most situations. In my town, I'm stuck to the lowest speed (1500kbps), because I'm just too far away from the ADSL/phone center.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 5:26 AM on March 1, 2006

I should add that I'm a kilometer from the exchange and the engineers tested the line, figuring it good for about 16MB (or so they said), which would have been fine by me. In the end I'm not complaining too much, the 8MB service I've ended up with is pretty sweet, but it's just not what I was sold and I'm wondering if ADSL2+ is for real.
posted by grahamwell at 5:40 AM on March 1, 2006

Consider a complaint to Ofcom, the UK's independent telecomms regulator. They won't look at your complaint specifically but enough complaints may see them address the issue. They also provide guidance as to what action you should take if you're not getting satisfaction from the ISP. There is a phone number here. It does sound like its possible they are trying to get customers in through the door by offering one thing then offering them something else once they're in. However, this may be of no use to you if you agreed a new contract to cover your return to ADSL. UK Online has a Code of Practice, which lays down guidelines for how its supposed to behave - see if you can shoot holes in their behaviour using that. It does point out that there are limits on the 22MB service.
posted by biffa at 5:48 AM on March 1, 2006

Yes, those speeds are for real, but only if you take into account that your 100 Mbit LAN will never deliver 100 MBit speeds either, because of the overhead involved to get the data from one point to another without errors. So, just don't believe the marketing involved.

Point Topic published a survey on this in December last year. The gist of that was only 5% of the Brits were living so near an exchange [= within 300 meters of it] they could get the download speeds advertised, in theory.
posted by ijsbrand at 6:31 AM on March 1, 2006

When I signed up for UKOnline's 8MB they set me up at 0.5MB. I had to complain until they upped my line speed and it took a fair bit of complaining too. Once it was up it's been a fairly solid service although I never get 8MB - more like 5; they also blame my line.

I get the impression they're utterly lazy and won't do something unless they really have to. I wouldn't be surprised if they never really tried to get your connection working properly.

My friend's been on the 22MB for a while now (the only thing holding me back is the £80 for the router) and he gets around 14MB on a good day. Both our connections are relatively stable though.
posted by ed\26h at 7:12 AM on March 1, 2006

Orange Goblin
That's great, but only if you can get cable in your area. Not all of us can...

Hell... Where I live (6 miles outside Cambridge) we haven't got mains gas or mains water. The chances of getting cable any time soon are just about nil.

grahamwell
You have to take into account the distance you are from the exchange. More than 4km (IIRC) and you can't get ADSL at all, so the drop off rates are obviously pretty steep.

Still, 22Meg to 0.5 is a hell of a long fall...
posted by twine42 at 9:06 AM on March 1, 2006

UK Online are pretty poor all round, their customer service is appalling. I had to spend months getting my problems dealt with - and that only happened when I contacted their press office and told them I'm a journalist!

Might be worth trying the other company, Be, and checking ADSL Guide for more opinions.
posted by ascullion at 9:07 AM on March 1, 2006