Only 1Mb/s on a 2Mb line?

Gwynston

Just found out my phone line was recently broadband enabled, so I'm comparing the offerings.

Perlico's was the one site that couldn't tell me I was enabled, so I called them to check and they confirmed that my line is showing up as supporting 2.08Mb/s.

But in considering 1Mb vs 3Mb prices, the salesman said there's no point in choosing 3Mb because if you can't get that, it will revert to a max 1Mb connection anyway.

Is that right? Are they mutually exclusive protocols or something? So I can't get up to 2Mb on my line because that's not a specific protocol?

cpu-dude

Gwynston wrote: »

Just found out my phone line was recently broadband enabled, so I'm comparing the offerings.

Perlico's was the one site that couldn't tell me I was enabled, so I called them to check and they confirmed that my line is showing up as supporting 2.08Mb/s.

But in considering 1Mb vs 3Mb prices, the salesman said there's no point in choosing 3Mb because if you can't get that, it will revert to a max 1Mb connection anyway.

Is that right? Are they mutually exclusive protocols or something? So I can't get up to 2Mb on my line because that's not a specific protocol?

No that's not right, if you choose to pay for 3MB (it's up to 3MB), after it's all setup, just ring Perlico and ask them to drop your profile to 2MB.

It's probably because of procedure that they can't go straight to 2MB (it's not an offer with DSL providers any more, it's up to 1, 3 and 7.6).

Gwynston

I don't get it - why would he tell me what he did then?

Especially considering that up until the end of the month Perlico are offering new customers 3Mb for the same price as 1Mb, so it should be a no-brainer to sign up to 3Mb.

Except that I'm considering other vendors too, so I need to know whether to compare 1Mb or 3Mb offerings....

watty

If it's unreliable, you may get faster more reliable connection on 1Mbps. So do check regularly.

Gwynston

Sorry Watty - I'm not sure what you mean?
Check what regularly - whether my line's rated speed as gone up?

Are you saying that a 3Mb package on a 2Mb line could be unreliable?

jor el

Gwynston wrote: »

Are you saying that a 3Mb package on a 2Mb line could be unreliable?

Exactly. If you get 3Mbps and your line can't handle it, it'll keep dropping the connection, so it'll be worse than a 2 or 1Mbps line. It won't just happily drop back to a lower speed, it'll keep trying to go back to the faster one, which will fail.

If you do get broadband in, keep checking the speeds regularly, as even though they say it'll work at 2Mbps, that may not be the case and could change, especially if you're marginal.

Gwynston

Thanks, but what about what cpu-dude said?
Can I sign up for 3Mb and then tell them to change my profile to 2Mb?

How do I go about checking speeds regularly? Do you mean just go to speed test sites to check my actual connection? And what then can I do if it's not up to speed, as whatever package I choose, I have to sign up for 12 months anyway....

cpu-dude

Gwynston wrote: »

Thanks, but what about what cpu-dude said?
Can I sign up for 3Mb and then tell them to change my profile to 2Mb?

How do I go about checking speeds regularly? Do you mean just go to speed test sites to check my actual connection? And what then can I do if it's not up to speed, as whatever package I choose, I have to sign up for 12 months anyway....

Sign up for 3MB, you'll be on that profile but only getting the approx. speeds of 2MB (unstable). Trying to force too much down your line makes things worse. Once it's setup, just ring them and say I'd like to drop my profile to 2MB because my line can't handle it, it can be done in two minutes. When they sign you up to Broadband, they won't pick exactly 3MB, they'll pick the package Up To 3MB

http://www.speedtest.net - Don't get obsessed with it, it's not always accurate and your package will be UP TO 3MB (with contention).

Gwynston

Ah right, so for reliability, I can get them to restrict my profile to max 2Mb?

I'm kind of getting conflicting info on this from all the vendors! I would obviously like to get as fast as possible, but don't want to pay for more than 1Mb if it's going make things worse....

Checked with Eircom and they say my line is flagged as 'amber' which means they can't even guarantee that broadband will work on my line! :rolleyes:

lucernarian

You have an amber line. Forget about 3mbits ever working. You can try the 3 mbit order and see how it goes. Tell us what the connection statistics of your router are if you get it.

The worst that can happen is that you'll have to downgrade because of disconnections or else eircom will simply implement a 1 mbit profile on the line and you'll have to downgrade. 2mbps could work properly, if perlico are right.

I'm very suprised Perlico said it could support 2.08 mbps, as eircom wouldn't have said it was an amber line if that was the case.

Eircom are just telling you that it mightn't work, to dot i's and cross t's. It rarely doesn't.

Gwynston

Well, I've signed up to Perlico anyway, as their 3Mb offering is for the same price as 1Mb up to the end of July, so I don't lose anything if I have to downgrade.

It will take a couple of weeks, I guess, but what router stats should I check? Can I look up how good the line reliability is etc.? Will that show up in the some software that comes with the wireless router they're providing?

lucernarian

When you get the modem, it won't be too hard to set up. Especially if you just use a cable to connect modem and computer. Very often you wouldn't have to bother with the CD.

Well once you have all the stuff connected up and turned on at least, you can access the modem's webpage itself. You usually have to type in a number like 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254. Occasionally there's a username or password needed (rarely both). A common username is "admin" and a usual password is "1234".

If you have any uncertainties about getting the details of the modem, to see how well the connection is going, then post the model number here and we can help out.

Gwynston

Thanks, I'll give it a try when I get set up. I'm expecting it to be one of these:
Wireless Zyxel P-660HW
So I'll need to get a wireless network card for my desktop PC as the modem will likely get plugged straight into the eircom socket in the hallway. I think such cards are very cheap though....

lucernarian

Aye, you can get cheap USB wifi adapters aswell if you don't want to go to the hassle of opening the computer.

Most of them are fairly similar. I'm using a hawking technologies USB adapter (based on a Ralink chip) and it does its job grand.

The choice is yours:)

Gwynston

UPDATE

I got connected up with Perlico at the end of last week, so I thought I'd update you. I'm still waiting for my wireless network card to arrive, so I took my office laptop home to test it out, as connecting the desktop up to the modem by wire is impractical.

speedtest.net consistently reported I'm getting a whopping 0.58Mbps!

That's worse than I'd hoped for, but TBH normal web browsing performed fine - I'm not about to embark on marathon movie downloads anytime soon though! So much for Perlico stating my line's "capability" is 2.08Mbps :rolleyes:

I think what I'm seeing is about the best I'll get as we're 3 miles from the exchange, and that was early Saturday morning when I'd say there was little contention.

I'm still trying to work out from the modem's admin pages where to find the Attenuation and Noise Margin figures to plug into this page (http://212.23.23.177/adsl/) to get more info about the line.

dub45

Gwynston wrote: »

UPDATE

I got connected up with Perlico at the end of last week, so I thought I'd update you. I'm still waiting for my wireless network card to arrive, so I took my office laptop home to test it out, as connecting the desktop up to the modem by wire is impractical.

speedtest.net consistently reported I'm getting a whopping 0.58Mbps!

That's worse than I'd hoped for, but TBH normal web browsing performed fine - I'm not about to embark on marathon movie downloads anytime soon though! So much for Perlico stating my line's "capability" is 2.08Mbps :rolleyes:

I think what I'm seeing is about the best I'll get as we're 3 miles from the exchange, and that was early Saturday morning when I'd say there was little contention.

I'm still trying to work out from the modem's admin pages where to find the Attenuation and Noise Margin figures to plug into this page (http://212.23.23.177/adsl/) to get more info about the line.

In fairness to the Perlico person that you originally spoke to he was at least trying to help you in relation to the limitations of your line and the speeds it was capable of. We regularly berate isps on here for signing up people to a product that their line is not capable of.

The speed capability of a line is not 'scientifically' predictable as it does not take into account the internal wiring of your house and its contribution - the capacity of the router you will be using to deal with a weak signal (some are better than others at this) etc etc.

Calebmcd

Don't take the 1/2mb as your final speed. Do check you att/snr.
My parents leve that far away too. And get a stable 3mb(2.67). And low pings.(10 to boards)

A friend of mine lived 1 mile from the exchange. Perlico gave them a 1mb line. It gave him 0.128 mb sync. He never got any better, so he cancelled and got BT and has 3mb now and stable.

dub45

I wonder in those cases does the change of router even make a difference. For instance my line is pretty iffy but I have a netgear which deals with it very well.
I tried it with a vigor model which was very well reviewed but was a disaster - it kept dropping the signal.

Gwynston

Calebmcd wrote: »

A friend of mine lived 1 mile from the exchange. Perlico gave them a 1mb line. It gave him 0.128 mb sync. He never got any better, so he cancelled and got BT and has 3mb now and stable.

That sounds strange - could that be down to a different modem/router, as dub45 said? Surely the line itself is leased from Eircom and changing "supplier" couldn't affect the line performance that much?

Calebmcd

That and perlico not being of much help. Saying it wasn't enabled for broadband yet still selling it to them. As soon as they switched though BT had them up and running. Castlebar is well and truely enabled for broadband.

Perlico wanted more money, but instead lost what they had. Bad customer service thats all.