Use a non LLU line?

[alienware]

Non LLU line = stuck with hiring lines from BT.

That's the situation I am in. I live in a very rural spaced out area (not drugged, but lots of farms and fields between small private housing developments with minimum housing ass stuff.

Due to this Virgin have not put cable in anywhere within 20 miles of where I live. That means that BT won't bother to upgrade their lines to LLU because there is nothing in it for them.

And of course, that means that no matter what ISP I choose I am going to suffer the same crappy speeds and problems I do on O2.

Ever since I got back to the UK and signed with O2 my speeds have been erratic at best. Some weeks (yes, a whole week) I get .20 mb. This is from a promised up to 8mb. I have called to complain a few times but have gotten nowhere, so I simply smiled along and paid up my £18.50 a month.

Some days I cannot use Skype and most days I cannot even watch a stutter free youtube movie. Over the last couple of months it had improved but a few days ago I noticed something badly wrong with my download speeds. I don't do an awful lot of downloading and I buy all of my games legitimately and have for over two years (long story, but I wanted to take away the argument that downloading kills sales.. I don't want to open a can of worms with that so I shall leave it there).

However, I do a lot of graphic design and because of that I use Rapidshare and Megaupload a lot. Friends of mine will upload stuff on their premium accounts and I will download it.

However three days ago I noticed that both services seemed to be capped to 6k download speed. Then when I installed FEAR 2 and it wanted to update (3gb worth) it took about six hours, never going above 103k a second.

I was explained how LLU and non LLU works when I returned to the UK and immediately looked at when BT proposed upgrading my lines. It said then that the proposed dates were 2011-2012 and my local exchange would then be LLU. However checking it yesterday it seems the date has been removed and it now says -

"We are not planning to upgrade your line now or in the future".

Asshats. Because of this (and the fact there is no cable) I pay £23 a month to Sky for a basic service with NO movie or sport channels and I pay £19 pm to O2 for up to 8mb which I have never seen. If it wasn't for a friend of mine letting me use his mobile number when I signed up I would be paying £27 a month, for absolutely sh*tty internet.

So BT's answer to the speed issues? Well, they go a little something like this.

BLOCK Rapidshare.

BLOCK all torrent applications.

BLOCK Megaupload.

BLOCK Hotfile.

BLOCK anything that any one uses to transfer or upload and download files.

CAP Steam.

CAP Skype so that it drops every ten seconds.

THEN when some one phones to complain send them to Speedtest.net, get them to relay their 7mb speed back to you and then say "see? your speeds are excellent".

THEN get them to download a file of YOUR CHOICE that you have not blocked access to and when they get 800k a second say "well, we can't do anything about other sites".

The worst part? This is all controlled and monopolised by BT. So it's not even like I can phone O2 and say "f**k you" and go elsewhere, because no matter who I go with and how much I pay it will be exactly the same.

 

[lasher]

And all the while making 5 Billion in revenue!!

The whole broadband to the masses was I believe a previous government policy and still is with the new coalition government.

Obviously in the economic climate we are in at the moment and the Bank of England today sating growth will be less than previously expected, i find it hard to believe investment from government and the broadband providers will increase until things are more stable.

There's a link to investment which is quite interesting reading - just cut the bull from the politicians out and you get an understanding.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/business-sectors/telecommunications/broadband/bduk

I too grew up in rural areas - blimey i remember moaning when we didnt has Gas! Just have to accept the fact your not stuck in a town with crime and poverty and be blessed with the fact you have a nice environment to live in.

We will never break B T's monopoly on the service provision they have, even ofgem cant!

Could always hire one of these

http://www.bentley-walker.com/tooway/

 

[alienware]

Yup that's exactly what's going on. They want to keep pulling the tits on the cash cow without putting anything back. The reason they have started this entire lock down charade is so that they don't have to face the real issues. Which are - if things carry on they way they are the entire infastructure will collapse.

It just makes me sick. When I lived in the USA I lived on a 25 acre farm in a 15 sq m area with nothing but similar farms and properties. Yet, all of them had cable. I got 10m cable internet there and it was awesome.

However here we are on this tiny island that the Yanks could wire out in six months using 60 year old phone lines for our broadband.

So on the surface I am getting 7m + ADSL on a BT line. Sadly I can't use it for anything at all. And the bit that chaps my asshole the most is that nothing seems to be any faster because of course, it won't be. Web pages still load at the same speed and nothing is any different at all.

It's like renting some one a Ferrari and them paying £4k a month. Upon getting in it they realise that some c u next tuesday has welded a block of metal to the floor so the throttle only goes down 1/3 of the way.

I can't believe they're allowed to get away with it tbh.

 

[llwyd]

SSL over a VPN? Certain 'groups' provide them as part of their subscription services. Used to work for me. It is disgusting that they do it but it's nothing more than a cheap and easy answer to all the pressure on ISPs to do more about piracy and maintaining browsing speeds for the majority over their maxed out hardware and crap contention ratios.

If you look at your exchange on samknows, are there no providers listed as LLU? BT were court ordered to open up the exchanges to other companies hardware, if any of them have enough customers on that exchange they often put their own ADSL2+ gear in there.

 

[Bungral]

Umm if you were downloading a file at 800k wouldn't that be very nearly right for 7mb/s? Well it would be more like 6.2 but still pretty close.

Unless I read the last part of your post wrong that is, which is quite likely.

 

[alienware]

Umm if you were downloading a file at 800k wouldn't that be very nearly right for 7mb/s? Well it would be more like 6.2 but still pretty close.

Unless I read the last part of your post wrong that is, which is quite likely.

Yes it would be right if the sites were not blocked. I did some pokery testing tonight. I got 780k a sec from EA (I finally got NFS Shift working !) 380k from Hotfile (bastards haven't sussed that one yet) 4k from Rapidshare (and yes, I mainly use that for legal purpose) and nothing from Megaupload at all.

Torrents are now capped at 20k and Steam is capped at around 100.

As I said in my first post, what O2 (and I'm pretty sure it is just O2) have done is throttle the crap out of anything downloadable to butter up their figures and make their internet look fast on a crappy BT non LLU line. This reduces congestion for sure, but at the same time it pretty much rules out even causing congestion in the first place.

Still, if that's their way of dealing with it fair play. I'll be off come October to pastures new. I don't like being lied to, and ISPs are the biggest lying motherf*****s on earth.

A friend of mine is a genius coder. Seriously this guy knows everything about everything. Now he was with Virgin cable the last time I spoke to him and he knew FULL WELL they were capping and traffic shaping him between certain hours. He went through every tier of customer service right up to the network admins and not one of them would admit it. Let's face it, due to his T&C on the contract he was on it would be completely illegal for them to have been capping and shaping him. Time and time again they told him it was just congestion so he coded a program to monitor. Not only did he catch them sending him empty packets to f**k up his downloads but he also noticed that at EXACTLY 11pm every night his speeds all of a sudden boosted back to normal. He confronted them with it and guess what? "It must be a faulty modem you have there, let us send you another"

So they sent him another. And another, and another, and another. In the end he thought it was so much fun he ended up going through about 15 modems. None of them fixed the 'problem' of course because the problem was that his ISP were dirty f*****g liars who did things they were not legally allowed to do.

You see, the way O2 handle it is to call your bluff. They point out that Rapidshare is used for naughty goings on and then refuse to help you with it. In other words they are simply ducking around what they are really doing and that's shaping and blocking. Which you won't find in your contract because it's not there.

 

[toonshorty]

I'm in the same situation, only 8Mb BT IPStream out here.

I'm with a brilliant ISP - Fantastic speeds (6Mb at 2.6Km from exchange!). They have no port blockers or traffic shaping. Their support is UK based and is excellent (I've had a response time of four mintues at 11PM on a Sunday) My affiliate link can be found here: http://goto.xilo.net/x/167/ - If you don't want to use my link check out http://xilo.net/ however using my link wont affect you at all and gives me a little spare change in my account - I'd be very grateful if you used the link if you were to sign up.

Check out http://www.talktalkm...t/view/142/156/ - It will tell you if your exchange is due for LLU by TalkTalk any time soon. If it says unplanned hover over the question mark for more info. I know TalkTalk suck but XILO sell a package that uses this equipment so you'll be able to get 24Mb with a great ISP.

Also, BT don't do LLU. They install the exchange and possibly their new 21CN network for 24Mb but all the LLU is done by companies like CPW, C&W, O2 and so on.

 

[alienware]

I would sign up but sadly it's a complete ripoff. 50gb usage cap £21.69. That's more than every one else I have looked at.

TBH I'm either going to go with Virgin XL ASDL which is uncapped, unshaped and no fair usage for £35 or just go with Plusnet 60gb cap for £13.

It's going to be all or nothing really. Right now for my £19 I am getting the internet but nothing more, so I would rather pay £13 for that. With Virgin I will either get it all or if it is crap get out of the contract.

 

[toonshorty]

I would sign up but sadly it's a complete ripoff. 50gb usage cap £21.69. That's more than every one else I have looked at.

TBH I'm either going to go with Virgin XL ASDL which is uncapped, unshaped and no fair usage for £35 or just go with Plusnet 60gb cap for £13.

It's going to be all or nothing really. Right now for my £19 I am getting the internet but nothing more, so I would rather pay £13 for that. With Virgin I will either get it all or if it is crap get out of the contract.

They're very expensive but they're worth it.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php

Rated 2nd best in the UK at the moment, usually first though.

I've heard some really bad things about Virgin ADSL too, I'd avoid them personally.

Look at some reviews on ispreview.

 

[Bungral]

Can't believe they are actually capping you and have even blocked sites. That's crazy.

 

[milka]

I've just been searching to find a better ISP, cause I'm really fed up with Virgin Media!

I stumbled upon this: http://www.smithmediagroup.co.uk

Their "flexi broadband" package is £24.95 (although they do charge a connection fee).

It is non LLU and even though you'll only get the maximum speed possible depending on your line, up to 24MB, at least they won't block any sites and they have no fair usage policy, i.e. unlimited usage!