120M : (Advice) Thinking of leaving Virgin Media 120mb for BT Infinity up to 76mb

[qasdfdsaq]

Openreach allow 90 days to cancel if your speed falls below half of that advertised last I recall.

[kwikbreaks]

It's not up to Openreach as they are not public facing and you have no contract with them at all - your contract is with your chosen ISP.

Things can and do go badly wrong with phone lines.

If there is audible noise on voice you can report a voice fault and the phone provider will get Openreach out to check and fix it. They don't always succeed. I had a bad joint that caused problems with the internet but also noise on voice which was causing me earache from my wife. I reported this as a voice fault and had 5 different OR blokes out none of who fixed it. The last one was smart enough to spot that there was only noise with the router connected and told be I had to report it as a broadband fault through the ISP (O2 at the time).

Now those symptoms are spot on for what is known as an HRDIS fault - high resistance disconnect - the ADSL signal gets rectified by the bad joint and you hear this as an audible noise - it's just like the old crystal sets from the early days of radio. Sadly the O2 CR were useless and first increased the target noise margin which drops the speed but doesn't alter the noise on speech. Their next idea was to swap out the router - another pointless thing to do. They then sent the replacement to my old address. I gave up on them at that point and took cable instead.

I knew from the outset what the problem was and that ISPs will try to avoid calling out OR because there can be a penalty charge if the fault is with the customers kit and that always creates bad feeling.

Even after all that hassle I still took a chance on FTTC again. I made sure I didn't cancel cable until it was in though. I was lucky - my new phone line from the cab to my house is fine. The hops from the exchange to the cab may well be as dodgy as hell but I don't care as I now use a VOIP phone for the landline so for me the bit of line upstream of the cabinet never gets used.

[blue166]

Hi guys, I am taking a look on ebay with a view to pick up a cheap openreach modem. I have no idea on release dates on any of these models/revisions

Does it not matter at all what I buy for upto 80/20mb service?

[qasdfdsaq]

For the third time, any VDSL2 modem will do.

[blue166]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

For the third time, any VDSL2 modem will do.

Many thanks.

How would I set up say the openreach ECI modem to my Asus RT N66U router. What settings would one have to enter?

[qasdfdsaq]

username: bthomehub@btbroadband.com
password: anything.

[blue166]

Thank you.

Do you have to set PPPoE?

[qasdfdsaq]

Yes, PPPoE

[blue166]

Also I am reading alot about unlocked modems. Is this a big deal? What can you obtain/do with it?

Should I be fussed?

[qasdfdsaq]

No.

[AbyssUnderground]

Originally Posted by blue166

Also I am reading alot about unlocked modems. Is this a big deal? What can you obtain/do with it?

Should I be fussed?

It allows you to get your line stats, that's all. The HH5 will get this info for you from the internal modem but the modem and other HH setups won't.

[blue166]

Originally Posted by AbyssUnderground

It allows you to get your line stats, that's all. The HH5 will get this info for you from the internal modem but the modem and other HH setups won't.

Many thanks for your answers, I think I will try and get a standalone openreach modem to hook up to my ASUS RT N66U router (I like it alot). I also have a HH5 coming. I guess if I do have line problems I could always hook the HH5 up to gain access to the stats - Could I also connect the HH5 direct to the seperate modem to prevent disconnecting the modem so that the DLM would not kick in - Just to have a nose at the stats? (I know there would be a double modem going on there so not sure if that would work?) Just trying to cover all bases.

[kwikbreaks]

Short answer no. Don't worry about DLM issues if you are just doing the one swap and back. I doubt you'll need to do it anyway but if you choose an HG612 you can unlock it and get the stats from that.

[AbyssUnderground]

DLM exists to prevent the IP profile issues you would normally have had in the past with ADSL, so don't worry about it. I've reset my router/modem about 5-6 times in a row with no loss in speed. Just don't do it in the first 10 days when there is a learning period.

The HH5 does have a WAN port so you could use it the same way the HH4 and below were used from a standalone modem should you want to.

[kwikbreaks]

Yes he can hook up the HH5 to an external modem but it won't show the stats from it sfaik which was the only reason he had for doing that.

The only way to get the stats if using the Asus router would be to use it with an unlocked modem.