Deceived on Speed

[#1]

I very rarely visit the F9 website etc so this might have been talked about before.
I pay £21.99 a month and although I think the service I get from F9 is good I am still waiting for the 8mb broadband they keep bragging and advertising about..... but you know what? I am supposed to be already getting and I apparently am! Yes I was told you should get an average of 4mb and if you do then that shows your activated for 8mb. I'm puzzled! I live less than a third of a mile from my local BT exchange, so I must me in a minority here as I would suspect most people live further away than that, so how come I dont actually get 8mb and I might add I never have done...never had 5mb.
To tell you the truth 4mb is quite fast enough for me,but I just don't like being deceived, if F9 said the fastest you will get is 4mb then fine. My friends ask me which ISP I am with but i never recommend them to F9, as I have two grudges one is the speed lie and the other is the way they keep moving the goalposts on when peek download time is.
Thanks

[#2]

They're probably not lieing about the 8mb speed - all of the adverts I have ever seen referred to up to 8 mb - with the variances being due to a variety of reasons such as distance from the exchange, the quality of the phone line to the house, the wiring in the house and the router/modem (my new router syncs slightly higher than the old one and both are higher than I had on a USB modem).
As to peak download times, not being an F9 user, I can't comment, but I know that Plus did give warnings whenever they were going to change to allow customers who weren't happy to move elsewhere (or in the case recently with the product refresh - stay on their old package with the larger off-peak period)

[#3]

Hi, thanks for the reply, but like I said I live less than 1/3 mile from the exchange yet I have only had 4mb but thats all the time tho. Who lives nearer than me,bet there aren't many. Anyway I will be sticking with F9 for the time being until they change the rules again...might try Sky broadband in a few months when its hopefully improved.
cannylad

[#4]

We are all being lied to here.  Its not down to F9 but BT and how the service as been setup. ie distance to the exchange mines across the road but used to only get 0.5mg.  So  i complained and did this for 3 months and in the end their was a fault on my line.
F9 are never at fault they tell you to re-boot your router check wiring inside out side change cables plug in to your master socket etc etc.  They think I never had a brain whan it comes to problems and fixes.
The asa are considering the up to 8mg adverts being changed
Now at times I get 8mg download speeds.
Michael

[#5]

Hi,
The speed you get is determined mainly by the length of the phone line from the exchange. That won't always be a direct route, a short distance by road or as the crow flies could still mean a lot longer route for the copper cable.
There are other factors as well, interference from external influences (e.g. electrical interference from lights, sub-stations) can play a factor as can the internal wiring in your property. Any unfiltered device (phone, fax, Sky box, alarm, etc.) can cause the line to sync at a lower speed.
This is certainly worth a read:
http://usertools.plus.net/tutorials/id/13

[#6]

see what I mean customer has no brain
My line lenth is direct to the exchange a cross the road no crows here F9
also see above its never F9 fault?  They tried all this [Censored] about wind sub stations etc
it would have been quicker for F9 to phone BT and put a fault  report in instead of blaiming the customer
I did the work for them and BT fixed the fault in 20 seconds
Michael
cp:blue Full quote of the preceding post removed, as it is unnecessary. mod:end

[#7]

I've just installed Broadband My Way. ( half an hour ago!)
It was quite easy, (after re-booting because my wireless mouse wouldn't work!)
The system connected itself with alacrity. Amazing!
And it downloaded a 5Mb prog in about 10 seconds.
And then I went really adventurous, and downloaded a 45Mb prog ... in about 3 minutes.
Very fast! ...but I am surprised it is not in the Megabite league. (yet?)
I'm not totally dis-satisfied. It's fine, better than dial-up (or whatever it should be called.)

Doubtless the system will tune itself up and it'll be really wizzing along in a few days.
Are my expectations realistic?

[#8]

Michael what are you on about? No-one's blaming anyone and certainly not saying someone has no brain. Just because the fault you had was a BT line fault doesn't mean that every other case must be the same. You'd be amazed at how many faults that are reported to us turn out to be something that the customer can fix themselves.
If we report it to BT and an engineer comes out and finds that the problem is something the customer should have fixed, e.g. incorrect wiring or faulty filter then BT will charge nearly £200 for the call out. We don't want any customers to be charged this so in all cases the questions need asking and the tests need doing.

[#9]

Quote from: Brian

Doubtless the system will tune itself up and it'll be really wizzing along in a few days. Are my expectations realistic?

45MB in about 3 minutes works out at roughly 2Mbps, so there's room in there for a bit more speed. As it's a new install then speeds may fluctuation over the first 10 days as the BT systems work out the maximum stable rate for the line. May also be worth doing a bit of tweaking to get a bit more speed:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/troubleshooting/rwin_guide.shtml

[#10]

Good man!
It's great that you guys work a 24 hr shift!
I'll try your hyperlnk.
Regards

[#11]

Oh! It looks complicated!
I think I'll go to bed now and have a look in the morning!
Good-night all!

[#12]

Quote from: Brian

Oh! It looks complicated!

Could I draw attention to this post?  The message there might help reduce the fog-factor.

[#13]

cannylad - If you post your stats someone will be able to say what speed you can expect.
Also, what modem or router are you using?  If you're using a Speedtouch 330 USB modem you'll need to download the 8meg drivers from the Thomson website otherwise you'll only ever get a max of 4meg

[#14]

cannylad - I've just done a quick test of your line and it's only syncing at 5152 with the exchange. This means the highest profile you are going to get is 4500 unless the sync speed increases.
I'd suggest having a read of this blog to see the quirks of MaxDSL.

[#15]

Hi, theres always an excuse no matter what you buy or get, its funny tho how in Japan they get 24mb +, I read that our broadband is one of the slowest, anyway if what you say is true and F9 want to hide behind that excuse then F9 etc should say so in their adverts or tutorials.
Cheers

Quote from: dave

Hi, The speed you get is determined mainly by the length of the phone line from the exchange. That won't always be a direct route, a short distance by road or as the crow flies could still mean a lot longer route for the copper cable. There are other factors as well, interference from external influences (e.g. electrical interference from lights, sub-stations) can play a factor as can the internal wiring in your property. Any unfiltered device (phone, fax, Sky box, alarm, etc.) can cause the line to sync at a lower speed. This is certainly worth a read: http://usertools.plus.net/tutorials/id/13

Moderators note by James_H : Fixed [quote tags]