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Faster ADSL than FT/Orange will provide?


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After the recent post on ADSL line speeds, I checked my line - currently, it's officially 1meg.

Degrouptest say I have attenuation of 54dB, and could get a speed of 1.9meg. The router says I have attenuation of 51dB, and am actually getting 1.2meg (so, good news there). The internet sites say that with attenuation of 51dB, I could get 4-6meg.

Armed with all this, I went to speak to FT/Orange today. Waste of time. The system says I can only get 1meg - that's it, end of story, have a nice day.

Do I have any other options? Will any other (reliable) ISP give me an uncapped service that will (possibly) run at 4meg?

Thanks
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The 4-6 Mbit quoted is a theoretical maximum.  You know, like the consumption figures for cars [6]

It might be possible with new cables with perfect joins and no kinks but in practice that ain't how the world works.

I would doubt that changing the ISP would improve things

You can get uncapped 3.6Mbit from a GPRS Dongle for about the same price as a fixed line

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[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]

The 4-6 Mbit quoted is a theoretical maximum.  You know, like the consumption figures for cars [6]

It might be possible with new cables with perfect joins and no kinks but in practice that ain't how the world works.

I would doubt that changing the ISP would improve things

You can get uncapped 3.6Mbit from a GPRS Dongle for about the same price as a fixed line

[/quote]

Not, unfortunately, an option. Mobile phone reception in/around our house is almost non-existant.

Oh, well (gallic shrug of shoulders).
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Whilst you might be achieving a synchronisation speed of 4mb or more unfortunately that does directly translate to download speed and no ISP is ever going to offer you that as a package nor can they override the limit that FT has dictated for your line which is based on the statistics they have on record for it.

If you have read the other thread dealing with line stats you will appreciate how FT arrive at those numbers.

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2/2183414/ShowPost.aspx#2183414

In practice I think the only way you are likely to get more out of your line is if/when your exchange goes full degroupee and the likes of SFR move in as they will be free of any FT imposed limits and can configure the line to work to the maximum it will actually reliably support.

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[quote user="Théière"][quote user="Pierre ZFP"]

You can get uncapped 3.6Mbit from a GPRS Dongle for about the same price as a fixed line

[/quote]

How much is said dongle per mb and where to obtain dongle please?

[/quote]

I got the PAYG Bouyguestel dongle as the tariff suited me best (limited during the week, unlimited at weekends).  IIRC it was €59 with €30 cashback so only paid €29 in total plus a couple of € each day I use it (which isn't many)   This offer untill the end of 2011 I think.

They do an abonnement version for €39 per month with a free dongle.  This is unlimited but there is some 'fair usage' policy which I can't remember.  

You can find out all about it  www.Bouyguestelecom.fr  and look for 3G clé.  I actually got mine in a Le Clerc hypermarket but you can order online.

Orange/SFR do dongles also but for me they were more expensive, just like mobile phone plans you have to do a bit of reseach to see what suits you as it isn't a straight like-for-like comparison.

As for using it, dead easy.  Stick the dongle in a USB port (actually I use a short extention lead as it's very easy to knock and damage it) all the software is in the dongle so a box pops up for your SIM code, then another box, click 'connect' and there you are, it takes only a few seconds and you're motoring at a rock-solid 3.6 Mbit/s.  (I use a different dongle in Luxembourg and get 7.2 Mbit/s for €18 per month [:'(]  )

I was told that you can't use Skype with these dongle connections due to latency but in practise I have had no problems, well OK not quite as good as a fixed line but perfectly adequate for voice calls, video not so good, surprise, surprise!

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[quote user="Ian"]

Do I have any other options? Will any other (reliable) ISP give me an uncapped service that will (possibly) run at 4meg?

Thanks[/quote]

-check if you actually can completely move to another provider (dégroupage total)

-if not, check the equipment that FT has installed in your exchange (ariase.com). It might only be capable to deliver a maximum 2 Mbit  ADSL connection. In that case 1 Mbit is the maximum on your location

In case of no "dégroupage total" any provider will have to use FT's equipment and if that equipment is technically not able to deliver more speed, then that is it for now. You'll have to wait or change to another infrastructure (wimax, satellite etc)

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  • 2 weeks later...
[quote user="AnOther"]

In practice I think the only way you are likely to get more out of your line is if/when your exchange goes full degroupee and the likes of SFR move in as they will be free of any FT imposed limits and can configure the line to work to the maximum it will actually reliably support.

[/quote]

Thanka, A N Other and Jako, too. It was the "degroupage total" possibility I think I had in mind. However, it looks like my exchange is non-degroupee at the moment, as nobody offers more than 1MB, so I must stay with it for the time being.

At least I have ADSL.

Thanks for everybody's advice
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[quote user="AnOther"]

In practice I think the only way you are likely to get more out of your line is if/when your exchange goes full degroupee and the likes of SFR move in as they will be free of any FT imposed limits and can configure the line to work to the maximum it will actually reliably support.

[/quote]

Thanka, A N Other and Jako, too. It was the "degroupage total" possibility I think I had in mind. However, it looks like my exchange is non-degroupee at the moment, as nobody offers more than 1MB, so I must stay with that for the time being.

At least I have ADSL.

Thanks for everybody's advice
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I was cold called by SFR who told me that they could provide a faster service than Orange even though we are not degrouped, they claimed that they used adsl2+ which would be better.  They also claimed "up to 5mb" would be possible because of their system.  I spoke to an Orange engineer who was working nearby and he said that is not possible as they would be using all Orange's equipment and not their own.

However, when we signed up for the package with Orange, we got a 2mb service, a test I just ran shows just over the theoretical maximum figure for 2 mb download and just under for upload.  But when I check periodically on the Orange site, they say I can only have a 1mb service !!  even though I am paying for, and receiving, a 2 mb service, it is just that they do not offer my current package any more, so how can you really trust what any of them say?

If anyone sufficiently technically minded can offer a proper explanation, I would be delighted to hear it.

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To be honest I think they'll say anything to try and sell a subscription.

I braved the Orange/FT shop in Trelissac (we're with Alice at the moment) a few weeks ago and I was informed that my current speed of 472 kbps would be increased to 1 Mbps if I moved to Orange Decouverte  (an option that was not offered on the internet sign-up system,   but I was assured it was available if I signed up in the shop).     With regard to the speed I find this promised increase very hard to believe, given our great distance from the exchange and resulting attenuation figure.    I said as much,  but was told that because FT would be providing the service they were better able to increase the speed.    (As they (FT) already provide the Alice service in our non-degroupée area it doesn't exactly ring true).

I still was sceptical as I know of other people in the village with Orange and their service is as lousy as ours with Alice.

Better the diablette one already knows.....

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There may actually be something to this.

After Teleconnect (spit) screwed me Degrouptest et al' all said 512k max but when I phoned FT/Orange to sign up with them they instantly told me that they could give me 1mb and that's what I got.

The cynic in me finds it hard to believe that this is down to anything other than monkey business on their part as clearly potential customers are always going to opt for the higher speed but obviously they can't advertise it on Degrouptest without other ISP's crying 'foul', and rightly so.

 

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We were with Neuf/SFR and downloads varied in the 3-6 meg range against a nominal 8 meg. Degrouptest forecast 5.6meg

As we aren't around all the year it seemed excessive to be paying 34 Euros a month, but I couldn't face going back to their 512k service.

So we transferred to the base 8 meg Orange service  expecting to get the same 3-6 meg service.

I was surprised to find that thanks to Orange's ADSL2 system we in fact get a rock-solid 8 meg, day in day out. I assume that this is  we now  a 20 meg service but capped at 8meg.

 

 

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That's an interesting thought Ernie.

My figures are

Ligne ADSL

État de la ligne Synchronisé
Protocole ADSL2

Statistiques

Voie montante Voie descendante
Débit ATM 164 kbit/s 616 kbit/s
Atténuation 24.7 dB 55.4 dB
Marge de bruit 5.4 dB 2.7 dB
FEC 0 37981
HEC 0 689970
CRC 10 2080

Configuration de la ligne ADSL

Protocoles autorisés

ADSL1

ADSL2

ADSL2+

ReachDSL

T1.413

and degrouptest

Informations

techniques

central téléphonique :

longueur de ligne :

6340 mètres

affaiblissement théorique : 65.302 dB

état de la ligne : ACTIVE

Does that tell you anything about whether it would run at 1 Mbps...?

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The first set of figures are copied and pasted from the Alice router (ie local 192.168.1.1) statistics,   and presumably show what the lovely girl with the long hair (Vanessa Hessler) who I'm convinced lives in the box is getting.

The second set is from http://www.degrouptest.com/

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