costs verus speed

[#1]

I've been with you > 10 years but am considering moving on.
I have customers that I have recommended to Force9, that have higher up speeds than my down speed, and pay less!
I pay £32 a month for ~ 1.1 Mb at the moment.  The speed is slowly getting worse due to the soaked land.
I was on ~ 2Mb in November.

Quote

Modem report: > adsl info --show app: adsl info --show adsl: ADSL driver and PHY status Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 8000 Channel: INTR, Upstream rate = 576 Kbps, Downstream rate = 1344 Kbps Link Power State: L0 Mode:                  G.DMT Channel:                Interleave Trellis:                ON Line Status:            No Defect Training Status:        Showtime                 Down            Up SNR (dB):      11.4            10.0 Attn(dB):      63.5            31.5 Pwr(dBm):      15.9            12.6 Max(Kbps):      1568            744 Rate (Kbps):    1344            576                         G.dmt framing K:              43(0)          19 R:              16              16 S:              4              8 😧              8              4                         ADSL2 framing MSGc:          1              1 B:              67              17 M:              2              8 T:              1              1 R:              10              16 S:              2.1470          8.8888 L:              544            144 😧              16              4                         Counters SF:            44335018                44335121 SFErr:          1023            572 RS:            753695310              376848528 RSCorr:        106295          3015 RSUnCorr:      7150            0 HEC:            943            318 OCD:            15              0 LCD:            0              0 Total Cells:    2389063539              0 Data Cells:    104633972              0 Drop Cells:    0 Bit Errors:    0              0 ES:            4437            0 SES:            2690            0 UAS:            204            0 AS:            753698 INP:            1.17            1.77 PER:            1.87            1.94 delay:          8.58            8.88 OR:            29.80          28.80 Bitswap:        0              0

I can get better speed and all phone usage from Three for £25 a month.  I haven't tried mobile for serious stuff yet as the signal is low.  But with some work I can improve that..
I think my options are: buy another contract with a mobile company and drop BT /Plusnet, keep the land line and may be a cheap isp (talktalk) contract  and another mobile data contract.
I look after a few companies in the dales, who have much better broadband than me.  One is a Linux server so SSH is no problem, but another is Win2003 ... painful to administer at my speeds.  Hence this post.
Thing I don't know is how good are mobile operators at providing data?  My Three contract is 'all you can eat ' , but I rarely use it.  Can one use VPN and is it reliable?  Is mobile a viable alternative to broadband?

[#2]

50 views and nobody uses mobile for internet.
Today a big speed improvement, without doing anything.

Quote

> adsl info --show app: adsl info --show adsl: ADSL driver and PHY status Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 8000 Channel: INTR, Upstream rate = 512 Kbps, Downstream rate = 2208 Kbps Link Power State: L0 Mode:                  G.DMT Channel:                Interleave Trellis:                ON Line Status:            No Defect Training Status:        Showtime                 Down            Up SNR (dB):      5.8            11.0 Attn(dB):      63.5            31.5 Pwr(dBm):      16.7            12.6 Max(Kbps):      2400            704 Rate (Kbps):    2208            512                         G.dmt framing K:              70(0)          17 R:              10              16 S:              2              8 😧              16              4                         ADSL2 framing MSGc:          1              1 B:              67              17 M:              2              8 T:              1              1 R:              10              16 S:              2.1470          8.8888 L:              544            144 😧              16              4                         Counters SF:            1080466        1080468 SFErr:          61              22 RS:            36735856                9182975 RSCorr:        5988            105 RSUnCorr:      391            0 HEC:            51              17 OCD:            0              0 LCD:            0              0 Total Cells:    95651776                0 Data Cells:    344138          0 Drop Cells:    0 Bit Errors:    0              0 ES:            4519            0 SES:            2691            0 UAS:            292            0 AS:            18368 INP:            1.17            1.77 PER:            1.87            1.94 delay:          8.58            8.88 OR:            29.80          28.80 Bitswap:        0              0

max Kbps  from 1568 to 2208. The speed test goes from 1100 to 1600.

[#3]

Thank you for getting in touch.  I'm  sorry to hear you have been having difficulty with slow speeds.  Having run a complete diagnostic on your line today, I can see that historically your speed has fluctuated between 1 and 2 Mbps, which is on-target for your line estimates, which are shown below:
Speed:    1000
Min:    750
Max:    2500
When I tested the line earlier today, you were getting 1.3 Mbps, however I could see that the signal-to-noise ratio on the line had been higher than its target (at 12dB, with a target of 6dB).  This means there could have been some noise or interference on the line at the time.  On a line as long as yours, even the slightest noise could cause you a noticeable change in speed.
However, I can see from your newer post that the signal-to-noise ratio has gone down now, and hence your speeds have improved.
In future, if this happens again, in order to see if we can bring the noise level down, I would advise you to perform a few checks with the physical connection in the first instance to eliminate any potential sources of the interference from your end of the connection.  The checks are the following:
* Connect using a different router if you have one.
* Connect using a different microfilter.
* Connect into the test socket.  This is located behind the faceplate of the master socket, so you will need to remove the faceplate with a screwdriver first.
Allow the line chance to settle for 48hrs once these changes have been made, you can then raise a fault online via the member centre at faults.plus.net
As regards cost - business services do naturally have a higher charge than residential services, due to the level of support given, shorter call queues and fault turnaround times.
As regards to using a 3G mobile network as your primary means of internet connection, this is not a service we offer, so I would only be speculating and we are not really in a position to comment on how that might work.  There may be issues with certain protocols such as VPN as you mentioned.
Please feel free to give us a call on  0114 296 5182 if you would like to discuss the connection, or any other issues any further.

[#4]

Thanks for the answer OwenRPNET
Not really a tech query.  Thanks for the test, at least I know my modem is reporting the correct speed. I live in a group of houses ~6km away from the exchange and we all get these poor speeds.  I understand the ground is sodden (also I'm electronics engineer ) It is more about cost.  I can only see things getting worse and have to justify the cost.  I just think it is wrong to charge the same price for a service that is up to twenty times slower than the max.  I wonder what the UK average is? There should be some price bands.  I know Plusnet do not do mobile and understand the higher rate for business.  What I wanted to know is mobile (3G) a viable alternative to fixed line broadband (approaching midband) because the costs definitely are.

[#5]

I have to agree - pricing should be banded. That will act as an incentive for suppliers to get equipment and lines upgraded so they can earn more money by shifting customers into the higher price bands. In theory the market should do this automatically but only where there is genuine competition. In my experience the reliability of mobile data is simply not good enough, so we are all stuck to what BT provide. I am a little irritated that all my friends have cheap residential packages with FTTC getting high rates. I pay more for my business package and am getting *only* 8Mbps average. It does drop to 1Mbps so I do know what it must be like for you. But it is crazy that we are paying the same for quite different services.

[#6]

Maybe PN could ask Openreach to install ADSL Loop Extenders ... http://www.idpc.com/loop-extenders.htm just for these remote sites.