Be Internet

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Anybody using the Be 24 Meg broadband service?  I was thinking of switching from BT and was curious as to the actual speed both upstream and downstream.
Thanks
Simon.

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I've been using them for two years now, and other than the customer service (which has become extremely poor since they were taken over by O2) it's an okay provider.

At best, you'll get 3.5 to 4Mb though so if you're signing up for speed I wouldn't bother (and SKY is cheaper anyway). The only benefit I get from them is unlimited downloads (I'm on the 24Mb Pro package).

D

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Cheers Dempers. 

Do you know what your upload speeds are like?

My BT internet is generally ok but this week the QOS has been awful with my bandwidth dropping from 2.4mbps to 400kbps.

I often work from home and my apps. are bandwidth critical so these drops in speed are not good.  I was wondering if it was weather related.

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The upload speed tends to vary quite a bit I find, but I've had up to 1Mbit upload (though that could be compression as well) at times. BE are also quite good if you use torrents (e.g. I use torrents quite frequently for Linux dists etc) as they don't speed restrict based on type of traffic.

I've never experienced any significant speed drops with BE (and even had 12Mbps with them at a previous flat).

From what I understand, they are better than most provider (BT included) in reliability…

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Simon – curious to find out what download speeds you getting with your BT broadband ?

I get anywhere from 1.8MB (maximum – early morning and off peak) to 700kbps during evening and peak times.

Was wondering if this was purely due to the Bermondsey Exchange that we are on ? I confess I don't know too much about it…

I looked on the Virgin website but the site says our postcode is not covered by their fibre optic route….

Any ideas for increasing the speed would be useful…

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Hi Stuart, we got low speeds at rainbow because we are such a long way from the exchange.  Unfortunately there isn’t a lot you can do about.  The best thing you can do is make sure you use the master socket in your house for connecting your router to and ensure all other sockets with equipment have micro filters.  I understand that the Bermondsey exchange is due for an upgrade on 31st March and this may help speeds but I am not going to hold my breath.  I have attached a print of my speed tests.  I generally find the day to be ok and constant around 2.5MBps, but it drops off most evenings. 
I also looked into the virgin Fibre route but it’s not in the area and they don’t have a department where you can find out how much it would cost putting it in.  Apparently it has to be arranged in tandem with the council.
An alternative you could use is Vodafone Mobile broadband as I seem to always have 3.5G available on my mobile and this is supposed to offer 7.5Mbps.  I require a VPN for work and cannot chance mobile broadband hence going for the old fashioned wired route.
I suppose the final alternative would be to find out if there was enough demand at Rainbow and explore a leased line option, although this is very expensive.  Hope that helps.  If you have any other questions please free to ask away.
All the best
Simon

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Thanks for the info Simon.

One question – Which site do you use to test your internet speed ?

I would like to do the same and then compare with your printout.

Thanks
Stuart

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I use a couple of sites, the main one is Thinkbroadband http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html as you can register and save your results over time.  The other is visualware http://myvoipspeed.visualware.com/servers/lhr.html as this sometimes helps pinpointing how my line is performing with data errors.

Just to warn you BT will not accept evidence of a neighbours speed being higher as a reason for investigating your speed as they will just point out that its down to the physical line and these will of course differ.

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Our telephone/broadband master socket is ADSL V 1.0.

Is this the standard socket in all the flats?

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I am not sure if all flats have the same, but this is the design that I have had in the ones I have been in.

Are you thinking of trying a BT IPlate?

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