BT :( help please

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yep I know they're the same but Virgin describes the group and services as a whole - NTL Infrastructure , Blueyonder infrastructure, ADSL and Cable. I say Blueyonder to allow people to pinpoint the part of the group that I get my service from.

 

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Hmm, I recently signed up but when I connect to IRC it says my provider is blueyonder.

Not overly sure what you mean but it's the same package now for every1 afaik?

Either way I think Virgin is very good in comparison to BT.

I used to used only the top ISP's for gamers (less customers, less traffic shaping, better connection) e.g. Multiplay.co.uk which charged me £35.99 for premium 8meg/880kb before they removed the 8meg due to bandwidth reasons. They then only offered 2meg/256kb for £28.99 iirc with something like 20gb dl limit. This might seem like a lot of money for such little speeds and low limits but it was for the lowest Ping time (~18ms from Scotland) and stability while gaming.

I then moved house and got BT, as mentioned earlier, I suffered insanely high Ping time (45-100 in UK!) before finally getting out of contract.

Virgin have been great, I have a low as ever ping time from 18-20 UK and never get dropped, get ping fluxes and there's no download limit. As far as I'm concerned they are doing very well for such a large company.

 

No you can't Dave, ADSL uses telephone lines which only carry the things you would expect ie voice calls, fax modem and other modem traffic and ADSL broadband etc.

 

Ah, I did wonder.. thought they might provide a satellite alternative for those who can't get cable.

 

What I meant is that the infrastructure I connect to is/was Blueyonder's. They're UBRs are different to NTLs infrastructure UBRs and they both have seperate backbones. They may come under the name "Virgin" but they are seperate network infratructures where cable is concerned. The ADSL line is provided by BT Wholesale and uses the same BT DSLAMs in the exchange. Unlike Bulldog etc Virgin do not have their own kit in the exchange, they are in effect a BT service reseller.

Hope that clears things up.

 

Not really

I didn't know cable was a resell of BT.. Seems odd that BT don't provide cable to areas that can get it

 

No...cable don't resell ADSL - Virgin Media resell ADSL provided by BT Wholesale...just as do 95% of ADSL ISPs.

It costs too much to dig up the roads to deliver coax cable to the houses in the UK. Telewest (Blueyonder) did a few regions in 1995, NTL did the same for other regions. Cable Broadband is provided through the exisiting cable Television infrastructure (where installed) and has no relation to ADSL.

Why should BT provide cable when they have an exisiting twisted pair network that is installed into 99.9999999% of uk homes; the phone system.

 

<Cough> - BSkyB is looking to change this.....

Harry.

 

Ah, seems odd you would add in that the ADSL part of virgin service is a resell. It can still be better than BTBB as is most other ISP's.

I did already know that BT are the wholeseller for ADSL lines..

Edit: And I didn't say they should provide cable to every1. Due to the resell misunderstanding, I asked why they would not offer a cable service to areas that could get it.

 

Why would that be odd???? It's how it works in the UK, local loop unbundling has still not penetrated far enough to knock BT off the top of the food chain! This is how it works:

BT owns the exchange

BT owns the DSLAMS

BT owns the line going to the house

BT sells this service - rather reluctantly - to other suppliers under the Local Loop Unbundling Agreement - this is law. ISPs purchase or rent the lines from BT Wholesale - they then RESELL it to their customers at either below or above the wholesale price. All that happens is that BT forwards traffic via their BACKBONE to the ISP where the ISP takes care of the rest. Either way you still use 80&#37; of BT's Infrastructure.

Nothing is odd about this; this is how it's done in the UK. Virgin provide ADSL that is purchased/rented from BT Wholesale. So if BT's DSLAMs in a local exchange are max'd out then EVERYBODY suffers no matter what ISP you are with.

 

BT have nothing to do with the cable infrastructure so they do not have any rights to it. BT is seen as being at an advantage as they already have an exisiting huge network hence the advent of the local loop unbundling to allow further competition in the market.

 

Yea but you can still have a better connection with other providers. You are on their networking not BT's and so you can have totally different download speed higher/lower as well as, lower/higher (lower from my experience) ping time. Or am I missing your point?

 

Yes.... As I said, I questioned why they wouldn't when I had misunderstood you saying that Cable is a resell...........

 

You've had that cough for a very long time Harry, must be all that smog pollution in the garden of England nowadays

Care to elaborate on the BSkyB ideas?

Pete

 

I never said that cable was a resell? I said Virgin Media resell ADSL lines. Apologies if I have misunderstood.

When you slate BT which part are you slating? BT Broadband - an ISP that resells BT Wholesale products or BT themselves - this includes BT Wholesale, BT Ignite, BT Business, BT Broadband etc etc...which one?

BT Broadband is also a customer of BT Wholesale - both are seperate enitities and yes BT Broadband has it's own network just like Virgin BUT they are subject to the limitations of the exchange etc.

Yes you can get different results through the ISPs but they are still using BT Wholesale's products. All that varies is most likely the traffic shaping policies and posssibly contention - I'm not sure if that is at the exchange or at the ISPs point of presence. BT Broadband maybe over subscribed - just like a lot of idiotic ISPs...they're a lot worse out there then BT Broadband.

Check out www.thinkbroadband.org and you'll see lots of people praising one ISP whilst lots slag the same ISP off!! It's a jungle out there...

 

Yea, as I said, I misunderstood cable as a resell earlier and you continued the confusion by misunderstanding me. I'm slating the BT Broadband side, it's rubbish.

The main reason I brought Virgin into this is because for a large company, with many customers, they maintain a high quality service.

 

The best way to get a new/free modem/router is when they call you to renew your contract(12 or 18 months), my mates getting one of those black things they are giving away these days, and he's been with them for years

 

I've maintained a diplomatic silence on this thread as its gone into a debate over the merits/demerits of BT/Telewest/Virgin et al.

Dave, your post above finally made me spit me coffee all over the monitor

As a longstanding Telewest cable customer (almost seven years) who had very, very few complaints in the six years prior to Virgin taking them over, I have to take issue with you. Virgin's service is absolute, utter shite. If it weren't for the fact that I absolutely DETEST adsl, I would have left in a heartbeat. Over the past six months I have seen the service degrade to the point where it is as reliable as an old dialup, Traffic Shaping implemented during peak hours - and not just Torrents either, ping responses go through the roof and their 'support' is completely shite. In fact, it's actually WORSE than BT's support.

Quite frankly, Virgin sucks - but they have a captive audience, and they know it.

 

I need to grow up and stop taking things so seriously!

 

I would like to speak up in BT's defense here, since everyone seems to be on the bt-bashing bent.

I have been a BT broadband customer for over a year now (Infact, I think its been closer to two). And havent really had much in the way of a problem with them. Initially I had a lot of noise on the line, but after talking to support we discovered that the microfilter was faulty. A quick replacement and problem sorted.

I received a free router when I signed up (Which I quickly swapped out for a netgear to get extra ethernet ports (One ethernet and one USB wasnt enough for me). When I upgraded my service, I was supplied (again free) with a BT Home Hub. Now I didnt really use this Hub, prefering to stick with my Netgear (Although I did attempt to briefly use it as a WAP on my network, but it didnt seem to like not being DHCP or the internet interface so I stopped using it).

Although I personally didnt use the free routers, they were both adequate for the average user.

I pay for "Up to 8MB Broadband" and, according to the stats on my router, I get close to this on my average downstream rate. Before I upgraded the firmware on my router this weekend, my uptime was significantly high on the router.

I made the choice not to use their standard router, because I have different requirements than the bog standard user, but that doesnt mean that BT is crap.