Ukonline to Sky

[MAN WHO]

Hi

Although I haven't had the letter from ukonline yet, I phoned the number on the website to speak to the sky sales people.

The guy I spoke to was really cagey! The only information I could get out of him was that there was 3 packages.

He wouldn't tell me the contention ratio of any of the packages. When I asked if they were fastpath or interleaved mode, he just kept repeating that there were 3 packages.

He also mentioned that there was slowdown at peak times. I didn't get that with ukonline, and seeing as they use the same equipment in the exchange, I thought sky LLU would be pretty much the same. He then pretended to not understand how LLU works.

Couldn't get him to tell me anything, what was he hiding? Makes me wonder if this free 6 months is a bit of a red herring. Maybe it would be better to go with 'BE'

[tommy t]

Hi,it's a sad state of affairs the closure of ukonline, as for sky i for one wouldn't touch them with a barge poll, even though there is the offer of 6mths free as a GWG by ukonline, they like most other mass market isp's either don't know what contention ratio is never define a set level,

the reasons i would not migrate to sky are
1, no static I.P address
2, no uk based tech/customer service
3,no custom profiles ,sra
4, They use DLM
5,No option of fastpath
6 Are insisting on customers using the supplied router

Ukonline /easynet has a defined contention ratio of 20:1 on it's llu products, sky could be higher,as the also use their bb for v.o.d. it they currently share much of the same infrastructure easynet network, but are managed in completely different ways

[MAN WHO]

Didn't bother with sky in the end.
I decided that if their sales people couldn't give me basic information about their service before signing up, then I wasn't going to touch them with a bargepole either!
I also spoke to 'Be' on the phone today, they were able to answer all my questions until I asked about dynamic line management, they put me on hold and went and found the answer for me. Didn't bullshit me like sky did!
I was impressed by 'Be' and signed up with them.

PS - Only thing they couldn't give me a definite answer on was the contention, they said it was difficult to say because they changed it around a lot to make sure there was no slowdown.

[silver]

humm., it's a shame sky are not an option, they don't really have anything aimed at 'power users' (well no fixed IP for a start!)

Be broadband looks to me a reasonable option, I don't need a high speed, just something solid and fixed IP (and preferably tech support who won't run you through a script for an unrelated issue)

[silver]

went with Be in the end, they are offering 2 months free if you do it over the phone, Be unlimited (~18 quid/month) is static IP and rdns can be set on it, they do allow payment via direct debit

the bits I am less keen on are that it's a 12 month contract (you can get a 3 month min term but it's more expensive)

if you phone ukonline and ask for the MAC code thing it gives you a number at sky to call, actually ignore that as sky don't have the MAC code so it's better to press option 2 on ukonline and ask for it direct (0800 053 2222 ukonline)

sky number they give you, it has the most menu option system I have so far encoutered, like a text based adventure game there's so many options and sub menus to pick between..

[silver]

my line is crappy but will post number for current ukonline

22-November-2010, 16:02

Upstream Speed: 768 kbps
Downstream Speed: 2976 kbps

noise margin upstream: 14 db
output power downstream: 18 db
attenuation upstream: 19 db

noise margin downstream: 5 db
output power upstream: 11 db
attenuation downstream: 37 db

previously the connect speed I think I had set to be 2 meg or something to keep the adsl connected, not sure but as it is currently the link will likely drop out as the SNR gets worse toward the end of the day...


30-November-2010 ukonline

Upstream Speed: 768 kbps
Downstream Speed: 2976 kbps

noise margin upstream: 14 db
output power downstream: 17 db
attenuation upstream: 19 db

noise margin downstream: 9 db
output power upstream: 12 db
attenuation downstream: 36 db





ukonline 30/11/10

DL 2.43 Mb/s
UL 0.62 Mb/s
ping 154ms
newbury/50mi

[tommy t]

Didn't know you where with ukonline, well they will certainly be missed, as was definitely one of if not the best isp around, there is no direct alternative isp,
be comes pretty close, failing that there are a few other options available through resellers, but are dependent of which llu providers are in your exchange some use the c&w llu others tiscali/opal llu, but it only the network, the isp (reseller, xilo,Vivaciti )has control over the profiles and traffic

[silver]

yep, one of the rare cases where an isp actually has customer service, ok we can say most times you don't need to contact the isp but when you do it's nice to be able to speak to someone who has 1/2 a clue

I have / had been with ukonline since 2008,. so far I am not overwhelmed by Be cust services but they have been ok,. will see how it works when they send over their router and switch the connection,, fingers crossed

[tommy t]

I have been with them since i got away from tiscali will /would of been 3 years in may2011,I wish that i had known about which router's to use with uko when i signed up,
i started with a edimax ( Alcatel-Lucent) chipped, gave me a poor sync on adsl2+ i think was only around 11mb so i switched package to the pro (8mb) but when i finally found out about what matched the easynet dslams , i re-graded once i had a conexant chipped router (Netgear dg834 v5) i got a increase of 5mb + on the default 5db snrm, capped at 16mb, which was improved yet again when they assigned a adsl easynet engineer to basically set a custom profile,that worked as well as poss,whilst being acceptable to me,and also uncapped it too, but that is a real isp for you , "better than sky"

[silver]

that is interesting how much difference the right hardware will make,. will give the router that Be supply a go as have heard it's well matched to the dslam whatever

[tommy t]

From what i have read, it doesn't perform too bad, just not that user friendly, for certain things, the netear dg834 v4 or dg834 gt's work well as do some of the other netgears with a broadcom chipset in them, as the be exchange kit is broadcom also

[silver]

modem arrived today, so waiting to see when they will switch it over

[silver]

connected

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 0:12:29
DSL Type: G.992.3 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,308 / 7,797
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 35.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 7.0 / 6.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 8 / 11,426
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 8 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 5,547 / 0




DL 6.5 Mb/sec
UL 1.05 Mb/sec
ping 23 London < 50 Mi

[silver]

one other thing, despite them giving me 2 months free they also honoured a referral cashback of 15 quid, if you know somone on Be they can send you a referral invite and both you and they get 15 quid, no idea how that works because I signed up via phone - but it worked anyway

(if anyone wants an invite let me know - lol)

[tommy t]

connected

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 0:12:29
DSL Type: G.992.3 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,308 / 7,797
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 35.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 7.0 / 6.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 8 / 11,426
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 8 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 5,547 / 0




DL 6.5 Mb/sec
UL 1.05 Mb/sec
ping 23 London < 50 Mi

Originally Posted by silver

mmm, from the stats quoted Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 35.0 the downstream seems a bit low for 35db, it could be the be box reporting the value incorrectly as my netgear also does, i know that my attenuation on adsl2+ is 29db, the router currently is reporting it as 22db but has in the recent past reported 35db
I would of thought around 12mbit sync based on your attenuation, you probably would gain a bit by changing to fastpath (gaming mode in the web user control panel, the ping isn't bad for interleave , you must be close to one of their pops

[silver]

am quite a long way from the exchange, the SNR SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.5 am fairly close considering it tends to get worse at night and might drop, will see how well it hangs on, definitely an improvement over old router / adsl

[MAN WHO]

I thought it was Silver that referred me to ukonline years ago but it was long before 2008!
It was some one from this forum!

Anyway... I think Be was a good choice!
I have the 'be box' but I'm still using the old netgear 834gt to connect
Syncing at 21858 kbps download and 1408 kbps upload.

Fastpath mode working great, which is weird because ukonline said they had to cap me at 8mbps to keep it stable (either that or use interleaving)
No such problems with BE :-)