I'm back with dial up

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citroenzx
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Post by citroenzx »

i went with virgin purely because there is no 12 month contract, no problems with them at all.
DervDonkey
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Post by DervDonkey »

Interesting. What sort of speed do you get? When I looked, they were only offering a 512K service and I want at least 1M. I also want a router, not just a modem which is what swayed me to stick with BT - after all, the cost of buying a DSL router is somewhat more than the difference in subscription charges over 12 months. I actually use Virgin as my backup dialup ISP, no problems.
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Post by citroennut »

i was with tiscali on 150kb when 512 was still expensive, went to change and tiscli not having signed up to broadband agreement don't have mac codes which means you have to go back to dial up until line clears, about 2 weeks. tried a couple of dial up co's then went back to tiscali dialup as they have a free 'accelerator' ended up as fast as 150kb. now with talk talk on 1mb, good service and seems to run at fairly good speed
cheers
simon
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Post by Homer »

Dervdonkey: Regarding your speed problems.
If the contention is at your local exchange then it will not matter which ISP you are with because at that point <b>everyone</b> goes through the same BT network.
Put your phone number in the checker here, which will tell you if there is spare capacity at your exchange. If there is then it is very unlikely that you are seeing contention. It would be worth you signing up at the www.adslguide.org forums to get some excellent advice.
I have never noticed any contention on my own 2MB line, ever, not a sausage.
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Post by citroenzx »

speed with virgin is adequate for what i want, it is a 512 connection (even though xp says 2.2mb?!) download speeds are usually about 70 - 80 kbps. as regards to a router, the wireless able ones start at around £25.
my theory on going with virgin was that if prices dropped again i could sign onto another tried and tested ISP instead of having to live out the contract.
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Post by DervDonkey »

Homer, at the moment contention is not an issue. Our local exchange was only broadband enabled last week, and I'm in the process of upgrading from a BTY dialup. I posted the problem I'm having on ADSLguide.org last week ( see here ) and unless BTY come up with a generous compensation offer, which I've actually had verbally but not in writing yet, I'm going to cancel my broadband order tomorrow and go elsewhere, after all I've waited years for DSL so another couple of weeks isn't going to kill me.
citroenzx, you're probably right about the speed being adequate - I've been limping along at an average 26.4K on dialup, anything's an improvement.
As I write this, the phone line has just died - just walked to the other side of the house and noticed the BT engineer up the pole outside, looks like he's rewiring it and removing the dastardly DACS box...
Well, I've just heard V90 tones for the first time in 3 years, now connecting at 45.2K. Progress.
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BX16RS (two of),
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Xantia 2.0 Exclusive CT turbo Break,
Peugeot 807 2.0 HDi 110,
Renault Grand Scenic, 2.0 diesel (150bhp)
C5 X7 2.0 HDi 160 which put me off French cars possibly forever
x 16

Post by Homer »

Dervdonkry: Oops, seems like I was posting crosseyed this morning. Obviously not enough coffee.
You were on a DACs, you have my sympathy. I had one of those but at the time the only way to get rid of it was to sign up for Home Highway. BTs minimum service for a home phone line was (and probably still is) 2600baud (i.e 2.6k)
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by citroenzx</i>

speed with virgin is adequate for what i want, it is a 512 connection (even though xp says 2.2mb?!)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
That'll be because you are connected to the exchange at 2.2MB (i.e. a 2meg line) and your ISP is throttling you down to 512. Makes it much easier/quicker to upgrade. Eventually every line will connect as fast as it is able any speed restriction will then be down to your ISP.
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Post by DervDonkey »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> BTs minimum service for a home phone line was (and probably still is) 2600baud (i.e 2.6k)<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Close. 2400baud, I believe (<i>not</i> the same as the bit rate!). Which means you should, theoretically, be able to achieve V34 speeds - i.e. 33600bps - on a DACS line. In practice the best I ever achieved was 31200bps, and only for one session.
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Post by citroenzx »

cheers homer thats a useful bit of info
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Post by Kowalski »

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Post by citroenzx »

Coor this really is turning into a tekkie topic [:D]
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Post by bernie »

I................wish.......................
......could...............read...........it[}:)]
31.2 today[:(]
2048 Thursday[:)]
citroenzx
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Post by citroenzx »

nah i dont think you do
Homer
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Previous:
BX16RS (two of),
BX19TZI,
Xantia 2.0i saloon,
Xantia 2.0 Exclusive CT turbo Break,
Peugeot 807 2.0 HDi 110,
Renault Grand Scenic, 2.0 diesel (150bhp)
C5 X7 2.0 HDi 160 which put me off French cars possibly forever
x 16

Post by Homer »

Interesting I had always assumed baud was bps.
From the BT page (which I can no longer find):
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Why can't I achieve Internet speed of 56k?
While it is usually possible to achieve speeds up to 56K, BT only guarantees its Public Telephone Switch Network for speech transmission and for data transmission up to 2400 bits per second. Customers who wish to use higher speed of data transmission may wish to consider alternative technologies such as Home Highway, ISDN, or Broadband
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I had it in a text file at home and you are correct it's 2400, not 2600.
So there you go. If you are getting more than 2400 bps you are laughing.
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

I wouldn't be doing a whole lot of laughing at 2400bps.
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