[Ql-Users] OT - Proposed cut to BT broadband charges in rural areas
Hi, This will be of interest to some of you in the UK, in rural areas ... including the most rural Wales. From ZN News: Ofcom proposes BT wholesale rural price cuts BT should cut its wholesale costs by between 10 and 14 percent in rural areas, where there is no wholesale broadband competition, according to the regulator http://nl.zdnet.co.uk/matBcBDaic/ihBhH -- Malcolm Cadman ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] OT - Proposed cut to BT broadband charges in rural areas
Re: Malcom's and Dilwyns recent references to Wales and broadband speeds. I pay for 'up to 8Mbps' About 20% of the time I get a reported (and experienced!) '8.1' This, I have enjoyed for about 15 months. Lucky me. '5.8' is the lowest report I have seen - and there's a constant display in the Xp System Tray. Have fun 'plastic user' Avergoodaye all. John in Wales. P...t In a reasonable North Easterly wind, I can spit as far as the local telephone exchange. :) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] OT - Proposed cut to BT broadband charges in rural areas
On 22/01/2011 14:15, QL-MyLink (f/fh) wrote: Re: Malcom's and Dilwyns recent references to Wales and broadband speeds. I pay for 'up to 8Mbps' About 20% of the time I get a reported (and experienced!) '8.1' This, I have enjoyed for about 15 months. Lucky me. '5.8' is the lowest report I have seen - and there's a constant display in the Xp System Tray. Have fun 'plastic user' Avergoodaye all. John in Wales. P...t In a reasonable North Easterly wind, I can spit as far as the local telephone exchange. :) ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm I pay for up to 8Mbps - they don't offer a up to 2Mbps package nowadays, otherwise I might as well be on that - I am lucky to get 1.5Mbps - 2 on a good day with a wind and no-one else in the surrounding area using Broadband from BT. The best I got was with Tiscali - 2.5Mbps. When they got taken over by Talk Talk it dropped to 384Kbps - they would not investigate why as they (in common with all other broadband providers) estimated my max line speed as 512Kbps.Oddly enough other houses on one side of the village all seem to get 512K or less, yet they are probably as close to the main BT box in the village as I am ! Guess that is an issue with the trunk line from the junction box, but as all the online tests show we are too far from the exchange for anything better than 512K, BT will not investigate. Switched to BT so they would investigate my own line (as it was a lot less than 512K) and it was corrosion where it comes into the house! Guess if I had not switched my phone line rental to Tiscali, BT might have come out to test the broadband line but who is responsible in those instances - I am sure Tiscali (et al) don't have their own phone engineers, yet still rent the phone line to you! What amazes me is how they can still claim up to 8Mbps service when the vast majority of houses (except in cities) seem to get a lot less - after all my 8Mbps which is promised by Talk Talk / Sky / Orange etc supposedly can only reach 512K here (1/16th of the advertised top speed) - you would think I must be miles and miles from the local exchange How far am I? An amazing 3Km in a straight line !! Sorry - enough of a rant just somedays I wish we could have just installed a massive QL network between all the houses! -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk http://www.rwapservices.co.uk -- Try out our new site: http://sellmyretro.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] OT - Proposed cut to BT broadband charges in rural areas
Hi Rich, > What amazes me is how they can still claim up to 8Mbps service when the > vast majority of houses (except in cities) seem to get a lot less - Welcome to the worldo slightly unscientific claims. Much loved by the "woo" trade in health supliments, and Gillian McKeith, Patrick Holford etc - who use words to con people into parting with their hard earned cash for little or no benefit in return. Read Ben Goldacre's blog (Bad Science) or better still, his book. Basically, "up to" means anything from minus infinity through to the quoted figure. Only one person needs to get the quoted figure to make it accurate and all the rest who get less are still "legally" covered because they are in the "up to" band. It's a con. Much like hard disc manufacturers quoting Gigabytes when they really mean gigabytes. 1024*1024*1024 seems to be quoted but actual capacity is less as they are talking about 1000*1000*1000. Advertising - legal lies! Cynic? Me? But of course! > after all my 8Mbps which is promised by Talk Talk / Sky / Orange etc Remember, 8 Mbps is not promised, only "up to" - that's the con. > Sorry - enough of a rant just somedays I wish we could have just > installed a massive QL network between all the houses! Isn't there a limit of 64 devices on a QL network? Cheers, Norman. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] OT - Proposed cut to BT broadband charges in rural areas
Norman Dunbar wrote, on 22/Jan/11 15:50 | Jan22: Hi Rich, What amazes me is how they can still claim up to 8Mbps service when the vast majority of houses (except in cities) seem to get a lot less - Welcome to the worldo slightly unscientific claims. Much loved by the "woo" trade in health supliments, and Gillian McKeith, Patrick Holford etc - who use words to con people into parting with their hard earned cash for little or no benefit in return. Read Ben Goldacre's blog (Bad Science) or better still, his book. Basically, "up to" means anything from minus infinity through to the quoted figure. Only one person needs to get the quoted figure to make it accurate and all the rest who get less are still "legally" covered because they are in the "up to" band. It's a con. Much like hard disc manufacturers quoting Gigabytes when they really mean gigabytes. 1024*1024*1024 seems to be quoted but actual capacity is less as they are talking about 1000*1000*1000. Advertising - legal lies! Cynic? Me? But of course! after all my 8Mbps which is promised by Talk Talk / Sky / Orange etc Remember, 8 Mbps is not promised, only "up to" - that's the con. Sorry - enough of a rant just somedays I wish we could have just installed a massive QL network between all the houses! Isn't there a limit of 64 devices on a QL network? Even worse to my mind is the re-definition of the word 'unlimited'. Very very few limits are really that. Giffgaff was but they are stopping that in March. I complained to Virgin that their 'unlimited' was 1GB. They hid that in a "Fair Use Policy' that did not have a link on heir pages. I created quite a stink, and I hope it was me that prompted them to now have "1GB internet" on their marketing pages - six characters less! They still have 'unlimited texts' which is actually 3000. Now *that* 1GB is, I am sure, 1000MB. Tony -- QBBS (QL fido BBS 2:257/67) +44(0)1442-828255 t...@firshman.co.uk http://firshman.co.uk Voice: +44(0)1442-828254 Fax: +44(0)1442-828255 Skype: tonyfirshman TF Services, 29 Longfield Road, TRING, Herts, HP23 4DG ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] OT - Proposed cut to BT broadband charges in rural areas
On 22/01/2011 15:50, Norman Dunbar wrote: Hi Rich, What amazes me is how they can still claim up to 8Mbps service when the vast majority of houses (except in cities) seem to get a lot less - Welcome to the worldo slightly unscientific claims. Much loved by the "woo" trade in health supliments, and Gillian McKeith, Patrick Holford etc - who use words to con people into parting with their hard earned cash for little or no benefit in return. Read Ben Goldacre's blog (Bad Science) or better still, his book. Basically, "up to" means anything from minus infinity through to the quoted figure. Only one person needs to get the quoted figure to make it accurate and all the rest who get less are still "legally" covered because they are in the "up to" band. It's a con. Much like hard disc manufacturers quoting Gigabytes when they really mean gigabytes. 1024*1024*1024 seems to be quoted but actual capacity is less as they are talking about 1000*1000*1000. Advertising - legal lies! Cynic? Me? But of course! after all my 8Mbps which is promised by Talk Talk / Sky / Orange etc Remember, 8 Mbps is not promised, only "up to" - that's the con. Sorry - enough of a rant just somedays I wish we could have just installed a massive QL network between all the houses! Isn't there a limit of 64 devices on a QL network? Cheers, Norman. Hee hee - I don't mind advertising cynics.. I understand about the advertised "up to" but more my point is that if someone next door to the exchange can get 8Mbps, someone 3Km drops to 0.5Mbps - I feel sorry for the large number of people who must live 5Km+ from the exchange - surely they must be on less than the old 33.6K dial up speed if 8Mbps can drop by 1/16 in 3Km (using a straight line graph, that gives a drop of 1/256 over 6Km) - now surely something is amiss if the loss of speed is not based on a straight line graph. I think a lot of it boils down to the rusty old BT phone lines, which no amount of unbundling of the local network will overcome (as no-one else is going to replace the BT phone lines). I also know about the contention rations (1:50 on ADSL), which means I could be sharing whatever line speed I get with another 49 households. Maybe the government could give rural communities a boost by insisting that the contention ratio is reduced once the line speed drops below 2Mbps so that you get a 1:12 contention ratio (1/50th of 8Mbps is roughly 1/12th of 2Mbps). That might then improve line speeds on an evening when more people are sharing the bandwidth. After all ADSL2+ "will probably not significantly increase the speed when you are this far from the exchange" and I can't see BT ever getting around to laying BT infinity in rural areas - especially when such a large percentage of the population no longer rent the line from BT. At least the QL network could handle 64 households on the same loop (back on track tentatively) ! -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk http://www.rwapservices.co.uk -- Try out our new site: http://sellmyretro.com ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
