BT-21CN rollout doesn't look good at all

[glad rag]

Well is this a case of best left alone? Seems from the BT forums some are experiencing A DROP in performance even after the 10 day exchange "learning" period.

And the requirement to either patch router or replace for ADSL 2+ then have a slower service, well it could only be BT couldn't it!

SamKnows - BT Wholesale ADSL2+ Exchanges (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchanges/bt/wbc)

BT 21CN - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_21CN)

I'm only asking because I re signed last night and was told of a speed improvement due in 14 days...

Any more examples anyone?

[mixture]

Are you seriously surprised by the slowness of the rollout ? It's an expensive process (no, I'm not making excuses for BT, they knew this when they started the project), and it's a process which BT are undertaking on a commercial basis (supply & demand, and rolling-out all the low-hanging-fruit locations first).

Furthermore, as a residential client of BT, you should not expect magic from 21CN when it reaches you. The contention, packet shaping and rate limiting will live-on for customers who are paying peanuts. Especially if you're living in a BT dominated area above Inner/Outer Core or Metro PoP level (a.k.a. not in a large conurbation and thus in a location that the LLU guys are unlikely to hit for a while).

Why did you re-sign with BT and not look at one of the LLU providers out there who do not rely on BT more than necessary for their ADSL coverage ? And even on the BT network, why on earth did you choose BT Broadband and not a more customer focused BT-based player such as Zen or A&A ?

Apologies for the negative tone, but I think it's important to maintain realistic expectations of what you should expect from BT, particularly as a residential customer.

[BOAC]

Where I lives the 'line length' issue is great and the advice I have received is to REFUSE to be connected to 21-CN/ADSL2+ (since the CRC errors and router disconnect/reconnects cause a worse performance that ADSL2) and to insist on remaining on 480kb on ADSL2.:ugh:

[Mike-Bracknell]

The first thing to check, is whether there's a stuck profile on the line.

The BT line checker tells you this.

Test Result (http://speedtester.bt.com)

Please note, don't expect miracles, and there's not an exact match between the speed the line has synced at and a properly functioning IP profile, but if there's a large discrepancy between the IP profile and the sync speed then shout at your ISP.

[glad rag]

5934/7150 or a snifter under 6Meg distance from exchange 593m.

"Download speedhttp://217.32.105.42/PerformanceTester/images/help.jpgachieved during the test was - 5934 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedshttp://217.32.105.42/PerformanceTester/images/help.jpg is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :8096 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 7000 Kbps
Additional Information:
Assured Rate IP profile on your line is - 600 Kbps"

Lets see what happens [if anything] once the change over occurs.

[handsfree]

Serves 'em right for excluding Marconi from the contract.

If they hadn't, I and hundreds of my colleagues would have still have a job. :rolleyes:

[B Fraser]

I had the pleasure of building telco networks with Marconi kit, lovely stuff. Nortel kit was rather good too.

Back to broadband discussion, the location of your router has the greatest influence on your speed. Ensure your primary socket has an I-Plate fitted as either part of the standard socket or as an after market upgrade. The in-built filters greatly reduce the arial effect from unshielded domestic wiring which kills BB speeds. Connect your router directly to this socket, nowhere else. One well respected Mod upped his speed from sub 1 Mb to 6 Mb in under 48 hrs after we moved the router.

The BT marketing has to keep pace with the promises made by the competition hence the user believes that if they don't get the full speed then there's a problem. The only real solutions are to sort out your internal wiring and electrical interference issues on wireless broadband while BT roll out Infinity which delivers BB over fibre to the street cabinet or to your house.

There's plenty of stuff on the web.

afterthought : if you have 6Mb today, what will you do with anything more ? Video on demand needs less than 2Mb (standard definition).

[mixture]

B Fraser

Nortel kit was rather good too

You're not meant to put "Nortel" and "good" in the same words when Mike's lurking around the forums... :E

afterthought : if you have 6Mb today, what will you do with anything more ? Video on demand needs less than 2Mb (standard definition).

I would tend to agree with you. Infact, I would caution people to remember the old saying quality, not quantity.

Take some time to ignore the headline figures. Do some reasearch into your ISPs customer service (e.g. are their callcentres in the east or west ?, what's being said about them on thinkbroadband etc. ). What's the quality of their network like ? What are their contention/packet shaping / rate limiting policies ?

At home, I've got an 8Mb connection.

Bandwidth wise, it's more than enough on a day-to-day basis. The only time it comes to its own is when I'm running software updates etc., and even then, downloading 1GB of data happens at a reasonable enough rate.

But, more importantly, I'm willing to ignore those large billboard adverts for 40Mb speeds from competitors.... because I know it won't be a like-for-like comparison when you start looking at the small print. I know I'm on a good deal.

Wearing one of my work hats, I can download a copy of, say, the latest BBC Podcast in a few seconds (70Mb in 2.54 seconds, equivalent 215 Mbps).

Which is great... but that's 2.54 seconds of the 31536000 you would be paying for in a year (or 0.000008%).

But I also know the above is 1:1 contention, uncongested direct access into the BBC :


$ ping BBC - Homepage (http://www.bbc.co.uk)
PING BBC - Homepage (http://www.bbc.net.uk) (212.58.244.71): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.244.71: icmp_seq=0 ttl=60 time=0.384 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.244.71: icmp_seq=1 ttl=60 time=0.955 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.244.71: icmp_seq=2 ttl=60 time=0.357 ms


You wouldn't get the same results on those deals they advertise on the billboards at pennies per month.

Personally, unless someone else was paying for it, I'd much rather have a "slower" connection at home, but of the highest quality, then have a "super-fast" marketing-hype connection at home that consistently fails to deliver on hyped up its promises on a congested network.

[BOAC]

Infinity which delivers BB over fibre to the street cabinet or to your house. - not sure where you got that from - BT?:) Infinity 'delivers' ONLY to the cabinet and thence over miles of twisted pairs of crud to your house. BT are 'trialling' FTTP, however, but not making much headway.

[mixture]

BT are 'trialling' FTTP, however, but not making much headway

The long and short of it is that once Civil Engineering has anything to do with a telecomms project, you're only looking at an increase in cost and time. Economies of scale only go so far.

The thing is, you see, you've got to run survey the premises, obtain wayleave, clear the roadworks with the council, run the ducts, run the cables, terminate the cables, buy the active kit.

Whilst if you stick to copper delivery to the building, a lot of the headache (especially around wayleave matters) suddenly disappears.

Hence, BT's likely view on the world is Fibre to the Cabinet for the home, and Fibre to the Premises for Businesses (where economical for BT, or where the business would pay the premium).

There is also a high probability that there will be a "postcode-lottery" to some extent on the pricing of BT 21CN access. In regions where BT faces little competition (i.e. out in the sticks), you can probably expect to see a premium fee.

The problem is, for multitude of reasons the UK has been a slow adopter with new technologies. Just look at ADSL. It was first introduced in 1999, and only now, 10-12 years later are we seeing some reasonable quality ADSL products out there at reasonable prices.

I think the honest answer is that we're looking at 10-12 years for 21CN too, perhaps longer if the economy remains depressed. So somehwere around 2017/2018.

[B Fraser]

Here you go BOAC

BT Infinity (http://www.broadbandwatchdog.co.uk/bt-infinity.php)

"The "BT Infinity" network will be able to offer broadband speeds of up to 40Mb download speeds for those who have a FTTC (http://www.broadbandwatchdog.co.uk/fttc.php) connection, this is the type of connection that BT will be installing for most of the UK. However some who receive a FTTH (http://www.broadbandwatchdog.co.uk/ftth.php) connection will be able to receive fibre broadband speeds of up to 100Mb."

The murky bit that introduces a degree of confusion is that FTTP is fibre to the "premises" which can be any building that the customer is willing to pay for.

The miles of twisted "crud" is down to where you choose to live and if you are indeed miles from the nearest cabinet then you can't expect to live in the sticks and enjoy the benefits of living in a town and vice versa. The twisting in any case gives the copper pair shielding from EMF interference unlike the untwisted crud in your domestic wiring hence my earlier comments that the home domain fouls up BB to a surprising degree.

I trust BOAC is not "Better On Ancient Copper" ;)

[Duckbutt]

My experiences if they of interest to anyone - when I was switched to ADSL 2+ overall there was no noticeable speed improvement with most speed tests both before and after the change showing about 4.8 Mbps on my screen (the router typically reported 44db attenuation with an snr of anything between 4 and 8db). Subjectively the line seemed more stable though with fewer disconnections.

At the beginning of this month I switched to FTTC and download speeds now average around 27 Mbps with a low of 21 and high of 32. Upload speeds have improved from 375 kbps to around 1675. I have not detected any disconnections at all.

My ISP is Plusnet.

[Mike-Bracknell]

B Fraser



You're not meant to put "Nortel" and "good" in the same words when Mike's lurking around the forums... :E

Best company I ever worked for. :ok:

Excellent care of their employees - lightyears better than i've experienced elsewhere. Just a shame they lost their way after 2000 really. The 1990s was an immense time to work for them!

The miles of twisted "crud" is down to where you choose to live and if you are indeed miles from the nearest cabinet then you can't expect to live in the sticks and enjoy the benefits of living in a town and vice versa. The twisting in any case gives the copper pair shielding from EMF interference unlike the untwisted crud in your domestic wiring hence my earlier comments that the home domain fouls up BB to a surprising degree.

I trust BOAC is not "Better On Ancient Copper" ;)

My house was built in 1987, and Bracknell was blessed with jobsworth morons when the original BT trunk was laid as my house is 1.2km from the exchange as the crow flies, but 9.1km from the exchange as the cable runs. It was only 2006 when I could actually get ADSL through the phone lines via RADSL, and that was only at circa 1mbit/s.

The year before last, I ran some Cat5E from the house entry point (i.e. prior to the master socket) and into a new socket. I'm now synced at 2.6mbit/s (and BT can sod off if they think that i've done a bad job).

[Mr Optimistic]

For the record Bracknell has never been 'blessed' with anything -ex-Crown Wood evacuee here.

[mixture]

The year before last, I ran some Cat5E from the house entry point (i.e. prior to the master socket) and into a new socket. I'm now synced at 2.6mbit/s (and BT can sod off if they think that i've done a bad job).

For future reference, should you wish to do things by the rules, it's not too tricky :

- When the man from BT finally decides to grace you with his presence , smile nicely, offer a cup of tea.... maintain a pleasant demeanour despite the fact you've been waiting in all day and had just about given up hope.

- When showing the location to install, request he install on a "conn box" (a.k.a Krone 254B) instead of the usual NTE5 "master socket" that they would terminate domestic lines on.

- And there you have it.... full official flexibility is now yours to put "master sockets" wherever you want. If you're lucky, the BT engineer may even leave you a few "spare" BT-branded master sockets.... :E

[Mike-Bracknell]

For future reference, should you wish to do things by the rules, it's not too tricky :

- When the man from BT finally decides to grace you with his presence , smile nicely, offer a cup of tea.... maintain a pleasant demeanour despite the fact you've been waiting in all day and had just about given up hope.

- When showing the location to install, request he install on a "conn box" (a.k.a Krone 254B) instead of the usual NTE5 "master socket" that they would terminate domestic lines on.

- And there you have it.... full official flexibility is now yours to put "master sockets" wherever you want. If you're lucky, the BT engineer may even leave you a few "spare" BT-branded master sockets.... :E

Nice to know - the next time Mr BT arrives it will be to install BT Business Fibre (Infinity for people who like static IP addresses). Do you know whether they've relaxed their rules around that install too?

[B Fraser]

Bracknell has never been 'blessed' with anything

Unless you include the ability to make the Gaza Strip look attractive.

I do remember when it was all fields :{

[mixture]

Do you know whether they've relaxed their rules around that install too?

My guess would be unlikely. But that's more to do with the fact that only a subset of engineers will have been trained-up to deal with this newfangled fibre malarkey, and therefore will probably still have limited real-life field experience to be able to understand why things may occasionally need to be done differently.

Which particular part of the install were you thinking of in terms of necessitating flexibility ?

[Mike-Bracknell]

Which particular part of the install were you thinking of in terms of necessitating flexibility ?

The bit where they find that the master socket in the hallway (stuuuupid place to put it) isn't connected, and that the entire house wiring is bypassed for a set of Cat5E that goes via my downstairs loo, the garage, and into my living room where the router is :)

[mixture]

Erm, I thought you said you were getting fibre ? Why would they need to look at the copper master socket ?

[Mike-Bracknell]

"BT Business Fibre" == FTTC (ie Infinity with a static IP)

[mixture]

Oh must have missed that bit in your post !

Oh well, let me know which jail you end up in, and I might send you some biscuits to console you ! :E

[BOAC]

For B F - BOAC is actually WOAA - you can work that out.

Sent from Grenada on my Android app - 8mb all over.......