Posted on January 28th, 2010 by David Bayon

Dreading the move to ADSL

Internet cables In a few months I’m buying a flat. It’s not quite finished yet, but I’ve been inside it and I’ve seen the specs, all of which look impressive, except for one tiny problem. The block will have a communal Sky dish and connection points in every property, but I was told this week that cable won’t be an option.

This is bad. Very bad.

I’ve been with Virgin broadband in various properties for nearly four years now, and I’m genuinely despondent at the thought of switching to ADSL. Some of you will probably bring up traffic shaping, customer service and other less appealing aspects of Virgin’s offering, but I’m not listening. The blinkers have gone up and my opinion is set in stone: cable broadband just works, and I can’t live with anything less.

I know it’s an irrational stance, but it’s borne out of my experiences. In those four years it’s only failed once, and that was fixed within a couple of hours. At all other times it has reliably given me speeds close to what I’m paying for, with little slowdown at peak times and no need to worry about distances from exchanges or ageing copper wiring.

That always-there reliability, to me, is worth more than anything else a broadband provider can offer, and it’s something I’ve convinced myself – more so after listening to Barry bang on about it in what seems like every podcast – that ADSL services in this country can’t match.

Now, I know there are millions of people in the UK using ADSL, in all likelihood having experiences every bit as good as mine with cable, but all I can think about is my new flat being tarnished by this country’s inadequate infrastructure and I’m helpless to stop it.

So please, come forth and reassure me! Am I being overly pessimistic about ADSL? Do you get a reliable, always-there connection at good speeds, and if so which company provides it? I’ll be taking the plunge far too soon for my liking, so let me know your experiences in the comments below.

Tags: ADSL, broadband, Virgin

Posted in: Random, Rant

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40 Responses to “ Dreading the move to ADSL ”

MilesR Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
I live about half a mile from my local BT exchange, which was upgraded to ADSL2 in 2009.
I am supposed to be on an “up to 20Mb” service and I get 16Mb download and 1Mb upload, which I’m pretty happy with.

It’s provided by BT (Business Broadband) and it’s only ever gone down once and that was for 2 hours. Even when the power was out for 3 days I was still able to get online using a USB ADSL modem.

So I’m one of those very happy ADSL customers! (Although perhaps in the minority).
JohnP Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
I can’t recommend Be Unlimited (bethere.co.uk) more highly, Bayon. I’ve been with them for a few years now and have never had a problem with them. Firstly, there is absolutely no traffic shaping. I get a solid 12Mbps/1Mbps down/upstream at all times (admittedly under 0.5km from my exchange but this is on a pretty shoddy BT line – I did a poor DIY job on it!). Latency is also low so good for some online gaming if that’s your thing.
They have a great customer service – I find the smaller ISPs are more responsive to individual customer needs in general. They also keep users well informed of any issues that may affect the line (e.g. exchange upgrades).
I used to be with Zen and can’t fault them either on any issues except perhaps value for money (haven’t checked their prices in a while though).
Philip Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Much like yourself, I found Virgin cable to be reliable and provide the advertised speeds – no “up to” nonsense there.

However, I will say their ADSL department is a complete shambles. Our new flat has a land line, but it’s “inactive” and therefore BT wanted £120 to plug it back in at the exchange (something I think somebody should look into personally, as I feel this is a way BT are screwing money out of new tenants). Virgin offered to do it for £40. Shame then that nothing happened on the first line activation date (they’d told me I didn’t have to be at home, and then told me off for “missing” my appointment). On the second date a full month later I waited at home but nobody turned up. When I complained, they had no record of my appointment, at which point I hit the roof and cancelled.
Si Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Hi
I noticed in your post you stated “The block will have a communal Sky dish” you may want to think of taking your broadband out with sky, I have found that for an extra 10 per month I have unlimited access at a fast speed with no downtime since I joined them, but that might be as I am less than 1/2 mile from my exchange. Find out how far you are from your exchange.
palorx Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I have to say actually, up until a few months ago I would have recommended BT hands down, expecilally since they prvided the iPlate for free. But recently they have been very heavy handed in their traffic shaping, even tough I don’t use P2P (honest!), my high use of YouTube and Podcasts causes me to have a high traffic usage and even on an Unlimited connection O am being heavily throttled in the evnings (from about 6pm). I ahve to say, don’t go with BT at the moment for speed, but I have never had a reliability problem (minus the time the router blew up!)
Dan Rickard Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I used to be you! And I had to make such a move.
I’ve been with Tiscali (now TalkTalk) “up to 8mbps” (I get 4) and it’s not been that bad.

But if a Virgin rep knocked on my door tomorrow and said they were cabling our street, I’d be first to sign up!
greemble Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Check the nearest exchange on the samknows.com site

- see which LUU operator is present
AnonnyMuss Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
I had ADSL for several years (for a long time I could get cable TV and phone but not broadband). It was always perfect with no slowdowns, customer service never went wrong. Only one outage which was a major one affecting half the country. I even switched ISPs which was completely painless.

Upon getting Virgin cable broadband in the same property and in another elsewhere in the country, I have endured several dropouts, highly variable speeds and incorrect billing.

Perhaps I was lucky to have a really good BT phone line that whilst not near the telephone exchange still gave me the full 8Mbps all the time.
Daniel Bates Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Previous posters are correct. You should only worry once you’ve determined how far away your exchange is! I’m close to mine, and have BeThere, and I regularly hit 18 meg with a decent upload, which is better than many of of my cable-connected friends. Only costs circa £17 per month too…
James Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
I too get the Be Unlimited service (www.bethere.co.uk). I’ve had it for years and it has been super reliable. I get consistent 13Mb/s downloads, with low latency and pings. I’m 1 mile from my telephone exchange. I did however make sure that BT strung a new section of copper wire from the nearest cabinet to my house though – you can do this by adding a second line to your house, and then cancelling the other…. A bit of a pain, but worth the extra speed!
James A Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Since I came to London five years ago I’ve been with Be Unlimited or O2 DSL it’s been great. Possibly could have been been faster in one flat but overall I can’t complain. Fast and reliable.
Charlie Maitland Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Think of it as a positive. As a journalist you will be in a much better position to understand and empathise with the 99% of your readers stuck on ADSL through a shared experience of disappointment and frustration as you find you are all on a shared loop and the contention really kicks in.
“Let it make you stronger Grasshopper”
R Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Go for Be but ditch their Thompson modem in favour of a Netgear DG834 GT. It is more reliable.

Be allow you to change your latency and have no shaping, limits, and customer service is good. If you are a cheap skate (sounds like you might be) then go for the £7.50 package. Otherwise the unlimited package works for most people.

All the other ISPs are a waste of time and space. Enta ISPs are full of P2P people. BT is BT…
AnonnyMuss Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
@Charlie – Virgin broadband is also shared, it’s even more shared than xDSL which is point-to-point until the exchange.

@R – How about O2? Same network as BE, potentially cheaper prices, UK call centres.
Rederick Says:
January 28th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Use the websites http://www.thinkbroadband.com and http://www.samknows.com to determine how far your property is from the exchange and which LLU providers are available. O2 or BE are the best, but Sky can be cheaper for similar service. If no LLU then go for a non traffic managed service from Newnet, Zen, IDNet or similar; but be prepared to pay £40/m+ for large usage.
Nynex Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 1:14 am
I remember cable. I loved it. I was first in my lot to get 512kps. I’d have it back in an instant, trouble is I moved and now suffer with Sky. I love cable. I understand you’ve moved on and now get from Virgin and all the fancy stuff they do.

I miss cable.
Anteaus Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 6:41 am
Worst thing about ADSL is the delay involved in getting it connected at the exchange if it’s the first time it’s been used at these premises.

Service-wise I use Plusnet and have found them very reliable. As with most things you get what you pay for, and cheap/nasty ISP accounts have heavy traffic-shaping – A fact which the specs may not show.
Graham Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 9:15 am
I’m with TalkTalk, and despite their reputation I’m very happy with it. I’m paying for an “up to 8mb” connection, sync at 10mb and consistently get >8mb download and 0.75mb upload according to the test sites. It’s had one problem in 3 years and that was sorted by tech support in one phone call.
Greg Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 9:51 am
I wish I could get just half the speeds most of you guys are getting, when the best I can get is barely above 1Mb (about 3 miles from the exchange) – I would be so glad to be in a cabled area.
milliganp Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 10:50 am
David, check you’re going to have a BT phone line! It’s the responsibility of the company building the flat to put it in. My son recently moved to a new flat and it took 3 months, dozens of phone calls and 3 visits -each a day off work – to get a phone line installed.
Iain B Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 11:02 am
My group of friends all have ADSL with no problems. One did have Virgin but it couldn’t handle online games that used P2P protocols (Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2, Demigod) and Virgin said they couldn’t fix it so he switched to ADSL. PC Pro always seem pretty pro-Virgin on the Podcast but my experience has always been ADSL is better overall.

Obviously there are problems with ADSL if you are far from the exchange, have a bad ISP or the copper under your street isn’t up to scratch.
Peter Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Well it’s nice to know that there are some satisfied ADSL customers out there!
I note that the enthusiasts tend to live within a couple of miles of the exchange, and I hope that you do too David, or you’lll join the rest of us in slothful misery!

Aparrently people like me shouldn’t complain about paying through the nose for a slow connection, I am “compensated” by my better lifestyle obtained through Rural living……
stokegabriel Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
It depends on how much of the A in ASDL you are prepared to accept, my download speed is fine, my ping sometimes dives from 70 ish to 180 but mostly it’s the upload speed of barely 256 Kb/s that kills it for me.I’ll bet going backwards will be an unpleasant experience that will constantly irritate. You are going to need some tranquil sounds!
Dan Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
There is no way I could live with ADSL. Anywhere that removes my choice in provider would seriously worry me.

This is a consumer market and I only want the best. How good a remote support service could I provide down a phone line?

I suppose cable is hard to install in appartment blocks but its not only your choice of broadband that is affected, but also your choice in digital TV. It sounds like a designated captive market. Is that not a step back in society?
Pdfisk Says:
January 29th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
ADSL doesn’t have to be abyssmal. Out here in the countryside about 5-6km from the exchange I get a tolerable ADSL2 service from PlusNet (aka BT!) for only £10 a month. The router quotes a download speed of 5Mb, but the actual data rate can be well below 2Mb except around 02:00-07:00 . Generally its fine for browsing, email and software updates and even BBC video clips most times. The neighbours swapped from Plusnet to Sky and seem to prefer it, though.
Tibs Says:
January 30th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
I’m on Talkatlk ADSL and get an average of 17Mb download and 1.25MB upload.(1 mile from exchange)
Customer service is on par with Virgin media, so you still get the same poor customer service, but cheaper.
AndyC Says:
January 30th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Look at idnet.

http://www.idnet.net/solutions/home/broadband/

We are on the “home super pro” plan and it is a fantastic service. We run three VoIP lines, CRM, Exchange server & VPN over the connection for our business and I love them to death simply because it works.

I don’t even mind the price – although I know a lot of people who balk at 35 a month – but hey my connection works and I am happy and they complain about theirs!

Admittedly I do live about a quarter mile from the main exchange in the area so I may be getting unusual treatment!

The only downtime I had was when they upgraded me to 24+ and I routinely get 20′ish speeds and a rock steady 1mbps up!

Andy
AndyC Says:
January 30th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Forgot to mention IDNet tech support actually know what they are doing AND call you back when they say they will – I found that out whilst figuring out an intermittent problem with my router.

clear concise help from people who actually care – it was a breath of fresh air from script driven trouble shooters!
Alan Says:
January 30th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
I’ve been a Virgin cable customer since the early days of Telewest, and I cannot fault it. The only way it goes down is if a bulldozer physicaly digs through the cable. Even then, they have an automated answer system which tells you, when you call, that there are issues in your area, so that at least you a/ don’t have to wait for a call centre operative for hours and b/ you instantly know it is not your PC or modem which is at fault. The only issue I have with them is their puny upload speed. I get half a meg up, and ten meg down. A bit pathetic if you want to work from home and send large graphics or video files. I’d like at least 5 meg up, but Virgin doesn’t really want to know, unless I am prepared to pay all sorts of silly money! As for ADSL, you have my sympathy, if I was going to move I would make sure the new place was cabled up before signing the contract… fibre optics or old corroded copper wire? Give me fibre everytime!
John C Says:
January 31st, 2010 at 11:33 pm
I was in the first batch of people who signed up to Talk Talk when they offered ‘free’ broadband.

It was a nightmare at first as they couldn’t cope with the demand. Within weeks I had a rock solid connection. My router is permanently on and, when I check the router status, I have often seen it connected for a few months with the same IP address.

I live 0.6km from my exchange and almost always get a speed (via speedtest.net) of 6.85 upload and 0.84 download.

I hammer the BBC’s iPlayer and hardly ever get a pause due to streaming difficulties.

All this for less than £22 per month with free calls to 36 countries! I’m well chuffed that Talk Talk entered the market.
John C Says:
January 31st, 2010 at 11:39 pm
Should have been 6.85 DOWNLOAD and 0.84 UPLOAD!!!
Stephen Says:
February 1st, 2010 at 10:34 am
I can highly recommend Be There broadband.. I get 12Mbps on my old copper line compared to the 10Mbps service I did have with VM (And it’s cheaper with no traffic shaping). I moved from VM because they we’re incompetent.. I had two visits from ‘engineers’ to ‘fix’ an intermittent issue with the modem loosing upstream sync. From my own analysis it was due to a high power transmit level.. VM failed to see this as the wouldn’t acknowledge this if they could not see this when they visit. They obviously haven’t heard to the term intermittent before..
Not really Says:
February 1st, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Hi I moved from an area with Virgin Cable to an area with BT dsl line. I am with O2 now and my speed is better than with Virgin. As good as you say they are they left me for 2 weeks without a phone line due to a fault in the cables in the area. No I mean 2 weeks for reconnecting me is it not awesome? And I was sick as well so I had to rely on Skype for my phone call…strangely enough while the tel line was not working wtih them the DSL was not affected…No wonder I was not impressed by their service.
Bert Says:
February 1st, 2010 at 5:24 pm
There’s a real digital divide demonstrated here: those that live in the cities get access to deals denied us country bumpkins; and the services we are offered (1.5km from exchange = 1.85MB max download for me)are at best just about usable. We wouldn’t stand for snail mail taking ten times longer to reach the country, so why must we put up with these broadband differences?
Chris N Says:
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I’ve been with PlusNet/Force9 since 1997 – hardly have any problems with them. Fast and reliable. Six people are with them on my recommendation who also never have problems.
paul Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 4:19 am
Talk-Talk or not When they put n the LLU in L/Spa my father lost his phone line for 6 weeks, then he went Virgin. On the Speedcheck last week he got 17mbps download on the 10mbps service at 10 in the morning. I managed 28mbps on the 20mbps using Cisco’s Speed Test Pro (free for 30 days) Warwick to London.
IF I ever move again it WILL be to a cable available property.
R. James Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 9:34 am
ADSL on the whole is pretty miserable. I’m currently with Tiscali (now TalkTalk who are dire) and the service is abysmal.

Lastnight, at peak time, my speed test showed 36kbps download, slower than dial-up.

If you don’t want to fork out plenty of cash on cabled/fibre optic broadband then you’re stuck with ADSL which is hardly beneficial unless you live very close to the exchange.

That said, even I don’t live that far from the exchange but thanks to the appalling state of Britains copper infrastructure, coupled with ISP’s overactive throttling methods, using the internet is more of a chore than anything else.
Kimball Johnson Says:
February 25th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Can I highly recommend A&A ISP http://aaisp.net.uk/ as an ADSL provider that are excelent. They do’ t haev any traffic shaping and are very open about bandwidth costs. At first glance they ma seem expensive, as they have high peak time usage charges, but their peak time is daytime, when presumably you are at work. They also offer BE Wholesale, which is more reliable and has greater bandwidth allowances. Also the Director of the company sits in IRC and will help out on problems
Dan Says:
February 25th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
@ R. James

36kbps? Not 36KB/s I’m just wondering as there is a difference (8 times). 36KB/s (288kbps) is bad enough, but 36kbps is an absolute joke. If I were you, I’d switch asap.
fix m23 Says:
November 14th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
I would defo dread having to use ADSL, virgin aint perfect but its defo the best, being a computer repair tech, im always fixing other peoples flaky adsl connections, on and off, and slow