ADSL MAX - up to 8mb

[GrahamC230K]

I hope you have all requested BT to regrade your ADSL lines or are pestering your ISPs to do so. Some of the good ISPs are doing this automatically, but BT customers just need to request this.

I have gone from 1mb to well over 4, no increse in price.

 

[WLeg]

any links / phone nunmbers to where you make this request

 

[GrahamC230K]

Try here if you are with BT:

http://www.faster.bt.com/?showsub=b...1322&obsOID=-42321&obsType=LINK&obsNoSee=true

I would call them however, I have never had an online order ever go seamlessly with BT!

If you do not use BT for your ISP, I would call them. Not sure how all ISPs are handling this, but the reality is if you have at least a 1MB line, the odds are you can have faster.

 

[DieselE]

Thanks for the tip. I'm with BT Broadband and rang 0800 800 150. It took less than five minutes and the upgrade in speed should come into effect on Friday.

BTW don't be put off by all the answerphone messages warning of a very long wait. As soon as I pressed the button for an advisor, I was put through.

 

[GrahamC230K]

Well, you regrade activation happens on the day they tell you.

My understanding is:

After this time, for a period of ~10 days, your router will try and sync at the fastest speed your line can handle. You will get the odd drop out as the line syncs high during periods when you have good SNR and then drops as the SNR weakens.

During this period, your actual line will be capped at about 2-3MB. If you are coming from 1MB down and 1/4 up, then you will already see an increase. If you are coming from 2MB then maybe not.

After the 10 day period, BT decide what the maximum speed your line can reliably connect to is and cap you to that speed - this is when you will see the full speed increase.

However, I think even after this date, you connection speed may vary up to YOUR maximum line speed depending on the SNR when your router connects. If your router is on 24/7, this will not afffect you much.

To me the best improvement is the nearly 1/2 meg upload.

 

[Steve Chafer]

BT broadband speed increase

It look like you may have to buy a router or a hub if your current black box won't deal with 8mbps

I think i've read that having one of these can improve your computers security but I'd appreciate some advice here , also I see one of the hub offered is a wireless one which I've read can be less secure...

Whats the sensible way forward on the security front I'm a dad of two youngsters & recently affected by a coolweb search internet hijack "thingy" and I'd like to do more stuff like telephone banking from home etc etc but to date I've been reluctant to embrace the technology fully at home.

I can see the day when my kids will want a PC each soon hopefully the upgrade will make that easier

Steve

 

[SEM]

Yeah, My Demon ISP are rolling this in, over the next couple of weeks.. Thanks for the info Graham

 

[GSMGuy]

I'm already on 8mb with Bulldog - get just over 6mb, just regraded to
Doublespeed 16mb, so should get around 12mb

Mike

 

[mobeyone]

pipex are qouting a regrade fee of nearly £60..... not happy

 

[andy_cyp]

Any advice to us using aol bb with a bt line ??, im on a 1meg line at the mo.

 

[andy_k]

It look like you may have to buy a router or a hub if your current black box won't deal with 8mbps

I think i've read that having one of these can improve your computers security but I'd appreciate some advice here , also I see one of the hub offered is a wireless one which I've read can be less secure...

Whats the sensible way forward on the security front I'm a dad of two youngsters & recently affected by a coolweb search internet hijack "thingy" and I'd like to do more stuff like telephone banking from home etc etc but to date I've been reluctant to embrace the technology fully at home.

I can see the day when my kids will want a PC each soon hopefully the upgrade will make that easier

Steve

a router will indeed make your PC safer from hackers but it won't safeguard you against stuff you or your kids download - not much apart from keeping all your security measures up to date will really.

wireless is less secure as you are broadcasting (albeit encrypted) data into the ether and unless you really need to have the mobility then a wired network is safer, more secure and usually quicker.

Our desktop machines are all connected by wire and only the laptop and game consoles have wireless connections - that way we get the best of both worlds.

HTH

Andy

 

[saorbust]

I've gone from 1MB to 3.5MB, although of course this may change over the 10 day period. FOC upgrade - I just had to switch to Direct Debit for payment.

Excellent Work BT. Did I really just say that ! And thanks Graham for the tip.

 

[BTB 500]

Tiscali swear that my line won't support more than 512kb, despite BT telling me it's good for 5.5mb

 

[mobeyone]

whos the best at the moment then for reliability? i am warming to bulldog

 

[fred_raven]

"Tiscali swear that my line won't support more than 512kb, despite BT telling me it's good for 5.5mb "

I am also with Tiscali - on 1mb upgrade offered to 1 mB ??? BT says i should be able to go up to 3.5mB - think i may be defecting soon - never been happy with tiscali - sometimes very slow

 

[DieselE]

It look like you may have to buy a router or a hub if your current black box won't deal with 8mbps

I think i've read that having one of these can improve your computers security but I'd appreciate some advice here , also I see one of the hub offered is a wireless one which I've read can be less secure...

Whats the sensible way forward on the security front I'm a dad of two youngsters & recently affected by a coolweb search internet hijack "thingy" and I'd like to do more stuff like telephone banking from home etc etc but to date I've been reluctant to embrace the technology fully at home.

I can see the day when my kids will want a PC each soon hopefully the upgrade will make that easier

Steve

The only reason a router might improve your security is because most, if not all, of them have a built in firewall.

I installed a router for more or less the same reasons as Andy K would seem to have done which is a need to share the one broadband connection between both desktop and laptop machines. If you buy a router with wireless capability, you can always disable the wireless side if you do not currently need it.

As my current Linksys router claims (on the box) to be able to support 25Mbps I don't expect that to be a limit when BT activate the upgrade. Friday will tell me whether my confidence is misplaced or not.

My desktop has a software firewall in addition to the one on the router. There are various views (look through threads in this section) on which ones are good and which are not. I only mention that because I run three bank accounts on-line and have not had any problems so far. I find on-line banking far superior to telephone banking.

 

[toolman1954]

My current line is at 2.2 Mpbs, and using the supplied link I have "Registered Interest"--- so will now wait and see what transpires, regarding any speed increase. I am still using the green fish ADSL modem so perhaps I might need a router now??

Steve

 

[GrahamC230K]

AS far as I am aware most routers should be ok that are properly connected with a 10/100 cat5 canle - not via USB.

I believe BT are telling people that USB mpdems may be suitable.

For ADSL Max to work (up to 8MB) you only needs an ADSL compliant router - it does NOT need to be an ADSL2/2+ router.

 

[BTB 500]

After about 40 mins on the phone to their call centre I finally got Tiscali to admit that my line would go higher than 512 kb ... should be up to 2 Mb by Saturday. Moving house in September / October and will probably switch to someone else then.

 

[DieselE]

If you go to BT.com and select broadband it will take you to a page with a Broadband line tester. Feeding in your telephone number runs a test that says what broadband capacity your line has. I don't know if it works for non-BT landlines.