Thursday 13 March 2008

Rural Broadband ...

Are we slowing down...??

Are we slowing down...??

What is the problem resolution process like? My experience is a bruised one with a lack of contention testing tools and being at the mercy of the current main telecoms operator and their workflow systems... Game of tennis anyone..!!!
Type rest of the post here

3 comments:

Roger G said...

Won't help you with contention ratio, but their speedtest is good for keeping an eye on your bandwidth performance:
/http://www.bandwidthplace.com/

Roger G said...

The "game of tennis" inevitable involves trying to gain ownership of your problem from either the (BT) local loop provider, and the broadband service provider, and it's all too easy for each to blame the other.
There are, however, a small number of (very localised) rural services around which effecively skip the local loop by providing a wireless service.
Examples are VillageNetworks, in Buckinghamshire
http://www.villagenetworks.co.uk/info/
and FirstMile, in Herefordshire
www.firstmile.co.uk/
ThinkBroadband.com maintains a list of rural wireless providers here:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/wirelessisp.html

Ed Bedell said...

Finally solved... after hassling our local Phone provider to move my line to a newer ADSL box - ie a "Lift and Shift". However the improvement was not immediate, and while I think this helped I do not believe it was the total solution. Something mysterious and good happened which now means my connections are fast and consistent, around 3.3MBps. I am about 4km from my rural exchange... so not bad. Finally SNR margins are important. If you are getting below 4 then you may get an unreliable line. However a good router can help this. I have a DLINK DSL604T which is fine, but the Netgear 834s are renowned for tolerating low margins. I may yet get myself one !!!