Broadband speed - exchange distance? Provider?

Astraeus

Astraeus

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This might take one genius but it's been throwing me for a while and Google offers little beyond a generic explanation.

I understand the principle behind broadband speeds slowing down the further from an exchange that you are but at what point does this become an issue? I am house-hunting and looking at houses 1.3km away from the nearest ADSL-exchange. Will I be well below the 8mb I'm being offered or will it be negligible?

Also, what experience have people had with BE Broadband? I'm hearing good things but not sure if it warrants me leaving a slightly less expensive and always reputable PlusNet for them.

:thumbs:
 
I was about 4 km from the exchange before I left the UK. Lines were underground until they reached the village and then went airborne (poles)for the last part....speed was between 3.5 and 4 Meg although the guarantee was only 2 meg.

Bob
 
Well at 1.3km away you might get a decent speed you may not :shrug:
A: It will depend on how many others in your area use the same provider.
B: It will depend on which route from the exchange to your house the system takes, not a case of how the Crow fly`s. A few years back I was living in Slough and I was with Wanadoo, I worked for a company that had broadband which was less than half a mile away, but I was unable along with a lot of others to get broadband. Obviously things have changed, but just dont assume you will get a fast reliable connection, there are lot that still dont.
 
Bear in mind it's the length of the cable, not as the crow flies. If you are 1.3km in a straight line you could be a lot more by line length.
 
Gremlin said:
Don't really know that much, but I live in the country, quite close to the exchange and the maximum we can get is 6 1/2mb basically because the exchange hasn't yet been upgraded.
You can check the available speed at

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayCategory.do?categoryId=CON-TOTAL-BB-R1

just put your phone number in the box on the right
Click to expand...

That's useful, thanks. I'd looked on other comparison sites and they'd all indicated I could have very fast internet but the BT checker says 6Mb is as fast as it'll go for me, rendering any package above 8Mb wasteful.

I'm assuming BT will be checking on how fast the actual line will go as opposed to how fast they will provide internet? So no other provider can go above BT's 6Mb threshold?
 
Hi

I'm with Be Broadband and they are very good - their speeds are also far better than BT can offer as they have their own equipment in the Exchange.

For example, BT offer me "upto" 3MB - I regularly get 4.5 with Be

Hope this helps
 
Strangely enough I work for BT and my previous task was working out the Line Loss for ADSL especially when it got into the further distance grey areas

Its not all about distance, cable conductor size comes into it along with whether its all copper or partly alu (although most of that has now gone)
The loss can also be affected by the number of other ccts on the cable too although that is a very small factor.

I would think at up to 1.5km you should be fine given a normal route

8 meg is the absolute max and its only up to, you wouldn't get that living next door to the exchange

One other thing to watch for, be very careful if the house you buy is on a DACS, might mean there is a shortage of plant and no guarantee you could actually get any ADSL service
 
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The on line tests are not truly tests as I understand, just an interrogation of a database, it will return whatever is stored. Your speed of download is not only down to where you are in relation to the exchange and type of physical infrastructure it also depends on how many other users there are...
 
I got 'selected' for the new BT fibre optic trial (Infinity) and my speeds have shot up from 6meg to 39-meg average...sometimes peaking at 54-meg. Might have something to do with being about 100m from the fibre optic exchange. Browsing seems to be normal speed, but d/l and u/l speeds are crazy fast. Paying the same p/m as normal broadband.

Peak-time speeds 4pm-12pm are at 8-meg, however. Wait... tried downloading multiple things and the speed shot up to 40-odd meg...weird :)
 
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We've got Be, we are 1.2k from exchange. We paid for 8meg and got 6, we now pay for Be pro (24 meg) and get 20. So it seems the more you pay for, the more you get! (if you see what I mean!)
 
ekimeno said:
I got 'selected' for the new BT fibre optic trial (Infinity) and my speeds have shot up from 6meg to 39-meg average...sometimes peaking at 54-meg. Might have something to do with being about 100m from the fibre optic exchange. Browsing seems to be normal speed, but d/l and u/l speeds are crazy fast. Paying the same p/m as normal broadband.

Peak-time speeds 4pm-12pm are at 8-meg, however. Wait... tried downloading multiple things and the speed shot up to 40-odd meg...weird :)
Click to expand...

We can all wish, haha! :thumbsdown:

wontolla said:
We've got Be, we are 1.2k from exchange. We paid for 8meg and got 6, we now pay for Be pro (24 meg) and get 20. So it seems the more you pay for, the more you get! (if you see what I mean!)
Click to expand...

Is that likely to be down to the fact that the more expensive products have lower contention rates so there are fewer people sharing that connection? I must say I'm tempted to go for the BE Pro product.
 
I can only wish to get results like that, I live miles from the exchange....

 
wontolla said:
We've got Be, we are 1.2k from exchange. We paid for 8meg and got 6, we now pay for Be pro (24 meg) and get 20. So it seems the more you pay for, the more you get! (if you see what I mean!)
Click to expand...

You pay for "up to." To get a throughput of 6Mbps on a speed tester you are probably synced at 8Mbps so are getting full speed. There are overheads on any TCP/IP connection so even at the maximum sync speed you don't get the full throughput, it is impossible.

up to 8 is an older form of ADSL, up to 24 is ADSL 2 which requires different equipment in the exchange. BT hasn't upgraded all the exchanges yet but some other providers have installed their own equipment in BT exchanges.
 
Not much better :(

 
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Slightly different results to Limerick
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