NTL 120 Modems DO NOT support 10Mbps

[Zee]

Ok, so lets say my 120 had an "accident" would i be charged for a replacement or be charged for the call-out?

We'd be happy to pay £50 to replace it, but because they are screwing us over each time we pay for a call-out i only find it fair that I do not pay for the modem or the call-out.

They could have saved me all these issues if they had just changed the modem on the first call out, but noooo .... 2nd callout noooo 3rd callout was only £20, £50 for the first 2, but nooooo they still didn't change it.

Damn woman on the phone had no idea what she was on about.

---------- Post added at 19:00 ---------- Previous post was at 18:57 ----------

By the way, i really do appreciate all the help you guys do on this forum, the mods and the normal posters, maybe i haven't said thanks in the past, but i'm saying thanks now!

[James Henry]

Were your modem to bizarrely fail there wouldn't be much that ntl could do if they couldn't prove that it was your fault.

Originally Posted by James Henry

The official word Neil is that they support 10Mbit fine.

As I recall - they need version 002 of the firmware to get above (about) 5.5 Meg. That was certainly the case with my 120.

[Zee]

How do i find out which Firmware i use?

[Dave2150]

Originally Posted by James Henry

Actually no, aluminium in itself doesn't kill the signal at all, so long as it's thick enough which all of the early aluminium build is. A certain period of network build where BT used a thinner guage of aluminium is the one that's caused a lot of the issues. The only thing that causes issues where the guage of the cable is high enough is any joins there might be between aluminium and copper.

You don't have to be that close to get 8Mbit, I have a full 8 as do people 2km and more away, and have worked on ADSL technology so have a bit of experience with it.

Think I've seen people with lines of around 3.5km who are able to get a full 8Mbps and a stable 8Mbps at that on ADSL. Introduce ADSL2+ into the mix and for those who have lines good enough to achieve 8Mbps it can make a substantial difference.

Still let's deal with worst case scenarios to make the cable look better I guess. At least with ADSL he'd be in with a fair shout of having a more reliable service that doesn't drop out, and he might even have decent support, my own provider's support is really pretty good. For instance they don't ignore me and will at very least check things out while ntl by the looks have totally ignored this guy to the point where they refuse to supply him a new modem at a cost of a few quid, which if nothing else can be proven wrong should be a standard part of trouble shooting and is the least they can do if they're charging him £50 for a service call. Way to get customer satisfaction.

Perhaps if they spent money on improving service rather than giving out discounts and reducing their own income while cutting back on service this chap wouldn't be encountering these issues.

I am 3.5KM from my BT exchange. I sync at 2300-2800kbps. A BT engineer who installed my second phone line (I bought a second line in the hopes it would have less attenuation that the first, and it was actually alot worse....) said that the line is exactly 3.6KM from the greenbox at my street to the exchange. My house is 60M from the greenbox.

He said that the reason my Attenuation is 58db is because of the alumimum lines installed decades ago. I can only guess that as you said, I got lucky and got the "special" low grade aluminium somewhere along the way.

You say that in the worse case scenario adsl is still stable. Lets use my line for example. I sync at 2800kbps during the day, but during the evening when everyone comes home, crosstalk or some interference comes into play and affects my SNR, causing my modem to loose sync, and resync at 2300-2400 etc. This can happen few times a day/night, depending on who is firing up their connectinos I assume. Loosing sync is a nightmare for me, being a heavy online gamer, or when im downloading overnight etc.

Also, as I assume you are unaware, when the sun does down ADSL SNR is affected - even on the really short low attenuation lines, the SNR drops a db or two. This can lead to more CRC errors, which will affect your throughput. BT have combated this by introducing interleaving, which increases our pings by 10-20ms Great if you are an online gamer.

As for ADSL ISP's service, check some of these forums out:

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...Board=talktalk

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...&Board=tiscali

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...=&Board=e7even

In fact our ADSL is so bad our estate of 7 newly built houses are in talks with NTL to costshare £5999 between us to have it cabled up.

[DieDieMyDarling]

Originally Posted by Jack001

How do i find out which Firmware i use?

http://192.168.100.1/ and put "root" in both boxes.
Then click on 'operation configuration'.
I had the dodgy firmware like everyone else on the 120, when they first took everyone to 10mb, then they rolled it to a 002 firmware, which worked fine. The problems have only started happening agian a few weeks ago, and i noticed a few days ago that the firmware is back to the dodgy 003 one.

I started a few threads about it, but not many people were interested.
I don't really wanna go through the hassle of getting out an engineer, making time to be here for them, hoping they come on time, on the right day, etc, all because of a firmware error. Surely they can just roll it back to 002? I passed on my details to one of the CF staff, but nothing has changed (been a few days now).

Also, the 003 firmware handles the speeds fine, i can get about 8mb, it just randomly cuts out, sometimes when i'm downloading at full whack, sometimes when i'm not doing anything.

[Zee]

The firmware version i have is 002, is this good or bad?

I only get 2-5Mbps when downloading files and on speed tests.

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by Dave2150

I am 3.5KM from my BT exchange. I sync at 2300-2800kbps. A BT engineer who installed my second phone line (I bought a second line in the hopes it would have less attenuation that the first, and it was actually alot worse....) said that the line is exactly 3.6KM from the greenbox at my street to the exchange. My house is 60M from the greenbox.

Unfortunate.

He said that the reason my Attenuation is 58db is because of the alumimum lines installed decades ago. I can only guess that as you said, I got lucky and got the "special" low grade aluminium somewhere along the way.

Yep probably.

You say that in the worse case scenario adsl is still stable. Lets use my line for example. I sync at 2800kbps during the day, but during the evening when everyone comes home, crosstalk or some interference comes into play and affects my SNR, causing my modem to loose sync, and resync at 2300-2400 etc. This can happen few times a day/night, depending on who is firing up their connectinos I assume. Loosing sync is a nightmare for me, being a heavy online gamer, or when im downloading overnight etc.

Nah I said you were quoting the worst case scenario Max can be painful and for some people has been, however a large number of people are getting better speeds on it. I agree it could have been handled better.

Also, as I assume you are unaware, when the sun does down ADSL SNR is affected - even on the really short low attenuation lines, the SNR drops a db or two. This can lead to more CRC errors, which will affect your throughput. BT have combated this by introducing interleaving, which increases our pings by 10-20ms Great if you are an online gamer.

Actually no I was quite aware of the effects, it's largely from increased RF interference from people coming home, switching their own DSL on causing near end crosstalk, switching microwaves, TVs, etc on and that causing problems.

Interleaving is a part of the DSL standards and is there to introduce stability. If you don't want the convolutional interleaving there you can ask your ISP to set your line interleave free. If it's a gack line though you may well see lower throughput from the CRCs you describe anyway.

Did you know ntl have *slight* interleaving on their network to combat noise as well?

As for ADSL ISP's service, check some of these forums out:

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...Board=talktalk

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...&Board=tiscali

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...=&Board=e7even

Again worst case scenario, find the cheapest ISPs with the worst service. You could just as easily have linked to someone like Zen whose customer service is very well respected, however rather than this you persued your own agenda by linking the cheap and nasty services.

In fact our ADSL is so bad our estate of 7 newly built houses are in talks with NTL to costshare £5999 between us to have it cabled up.

Sorry to hear that. You're the exception rather than the rule, I trust you realise this. There are millions who are quite happy, you may not be and that's unfortunate but not everyone is that way. Same with most things that have 8 million customers and counting unfortunately.

Fact is you're generalising. You know this and I know this and because DSL is a bad product for you it certainly doesn't mean it would be for OP. If he's in a similar situation to me he could obtain a far higher quality of service from DSL than ntl are providing at the moment.

[Chrysalis]

My 120 never crashed and rebooted but then again I was on the v1 firmware which maxed out at 6mbit

My 250 arrived before the dreaded firmware updates.

Originally Posted by Jack001

Ok, so lets say my 120 had an "accident" would i be charged for a replacement or be charged for the call-out?

50/50....

Not the best answer, but it’s the correct one. I wasn’t charged myself for either the call out or the replacement... might be the Cov engineers have big hearts - but I have heard others on here getting charged.

Personally if I was in your shoes, "If I got charged the call out of fee" it would still be worth it as it would ultimately solve all the issues.

I dont know how much the replacement modems cost, so I wouldnt like to advise you there, but personally I would bite the bullet either way.

[mcmanic]

your payment are for the rental of the goods needed to use their service, if they are not upto the job and you been paying years on rental charges then sorry IMHO you should get a replacement free of charge and with no callout, after all its them that want you to use their service

[Bytecon]

Originally Posted by DieDieMyDarling

http://192.168.100.1/ and put "root" in both boxes.
Then click on 'operation configuration'.
I had the dodgy firmware like everyone else on the 120, when they first took everyone to 10mb, then they rolled it to a 002 firmware, which worked fine. The problems have only started happening agian a few weeks ago, and i noticed a few days ago that the firmware is back to the dodgy 003 one.

I started a few threads about it, but not many people were interested.
I don't really wanna go through the hassle of getting out an engineer, making time to be here for them, hoping they come on time, on the right day, etc, all because of a firmware error. Surely they can just roll it back to 002? I passed on my details to one of the CF staff, but nothing has changed (been a few days now).

Also, the 003 firmware handles the speeds fine, i can get about 8mb, it just randomly cuts out, sometimes when i'm downloading at full whack, sometimes when i'm not doing anything.

I am also on the 003 firmware and am experiencing, is it possible to get downgraded back to 002?

[Zee]

Ok, just got off the phone.

Customer Services had a clue what i was talking about, but said they didn't have the tools to check my modem etc ... so they put my through to Technical Support.

She had no idea what i was saying or what she was saying, which was funny, but the good thing, and i'm gratful to her about it is that i won't be charged for it, or so she says.

She says if no one is in i'll be charged £10.

She said she can't promice they will change the modem, but she put it on her notes.

Hopefully they will change the modem this time around since i explained i'm on the 10Mbps service (Before was on 1Mbps then 2Mbps)

The guy/girl (?) is coming round to check it this Saturday, she said i could have it before then but i wouldn't be at home.

All in all i'm happy (so far) unless they don't change my modem, i'll be back on the phone to them and i won't be so nice this time around.

Originally Posted by Jack001

All in all i'm happy (so far) unless they don't change my modem, i'll be back on the phone to them and i won't be so nice this time around.

On the morning they are due to come, disconnect your modem and box it all up. Tell him the girl at CS told you to do this as the engineer would upgrade the modem.

Worked for me...

[Zee]

The guy came on went within 15 minutes, he changed my ntl: 120 for an ntl: 250 right away, he said they have thousands and thousands of the silver modems in storage now ...

Anyway, on speed tests there is a noticeable speed change, getting 9Mbps on tests, where as i was only getting at best 5.5Mbps with the old modem.

Seriously if you have an old 100 or 120 modem get it changed to a 250, you will notice the difference.

Thanks ntl: