DrAwesome's Useful ADSL Info & News

[DrAwesome]

**Bumping this post back to the top of the forum again

If your interested in Bulldogs ADSL service & you have done a phone number/post code check & your local BT exchange does not support Bulldogs adsl service you can pre-register Here

it also could speed up your local BT exchange being adsl enabled.

Link provided to Bulldogs Frequently asked questions

"I want PrimeTime 1000, 2000 or AllTime 2000 but itâ₠¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s not available at my exchange... Customers are encouraged to register interest for products so their exchange is prioritised in the next block of releases. Customers can pre-register their interest in a particular product. Bulldog will then contact the customer as soon as the service becomes available at their exchange."

[DrAwesome]

A good website to test your ADSL (or cable) connection


here is the link
Also useful if your complaining about your speeds
(you can cut & paste the link in an email & send the test to your isp to show the time, date & speed as visual proof as the result is retained by the website)

[DrAwesome]

Another UK ADSL Bandwidth Speed Test* page
(This was past onto me by an NDO adsl customer claiming that theres no link on NDO's web page) maybe its to be added later or its just for NDO customers

*Not tested using an NTL connection

[DrAwesome]

Yet another Bump!! for this thread

Here are some more useful links

If you find your connection is slowing down at peak times
(the Internet Peak is normally from 19:00 to about 23:00)
use this Capacity Local BT Exchange Report link to find out if your exchange is affected.


Very handy to monitor the status of your ADSL line when first getting your BT line ADSL activated i have used this util myself & it works also very easy to understand.
Nifty ADSL Availability Tracker Util (well i think so)


Oh & this link might come in handy

Latest virus info

[DrAwesome]

For the people that couldnt work out the codes for the ADSL Availability Tracker

If you getting your ADSL installed & you wanna track the status/progress.... or maybe you think that you have been put on the wrong tier?

Ok here we go..... Here is an example {AGEI}

Explaination

A = Amber On 1 or 2mb Products.
G = Green For 512kbps
E = The Phoneline is connected to an ADSL Enabled Exchange (the 1st step)
I = ISDN Line

Soooooooooooooooooo now you all understand...
Btw Cheers all for letting me know it is useful & yes just pm me for the util if the thread/post gets deleted later on

[DrAwesome]

**Bumping this Thread upto the top Again**

Looking around for usefull links i came across this neat website

Broadband Checker

Compare UK Broadband Providers available in your area.

Easy comparison of broadband services from UK Internet service providers.

Broadband Checker performs a live availability check for broadband ADSL, Cable & Satellite.

Compare offers from several major service providers including BT, Tiscali, ntl:home, Telewest blueyonder & more.

You can save yourself endless hours checking & searching for the best offers available in your area.

Broadband Checker is a free service provided by Networking Links Ltd, UK based networking and security consultants.

Hopefully Broadband Checker will have more BB ISP's added to it in the near future

[DrAwesome]

While reading through some of the ADSL forums i came across a very interesting post that had me wondering if the poster/poste assumption that some ADSL isp's lock the MTU value to control bandwidth/speed.
As the poster could not alter his/her mtu from 1448 to 1500 (checking each time after using various utils such as DRTCP021 also the util/patches that are on Speedguide.net) which increases or decreases the mtu.

==============================
Speedguide TCP/IP Analyzer
(test your own TCP/IP see what your MTU is running at)


TCP options string = 020405800103030201010402
MTU = 1448
MTU is not fully optimized for broadband. Consider increasing your MTU to 1500 for better throughput.
MSS = 1408
MSS is not fully optimized for broadband (although it might work well for slower connections). Consider increasing your MTU value.

Default Receive Window (RWIN) = 256960
RWIN Scaling (RFC1323) = 2 bits (scale factor of 4)
Unscaled Receive Window = 64240

For optimum performance, consider changing RWIN to a multiple of MSS.
Other values for RWIN that might work well with your current MTU/MSS:
518144 (MSS x 46 * scale factor of 8
259072 (MSS x 46 * scale factor of 4
129536 (MSS x 46 * scale factor of 2
64768 (MSS x 46)

TCP Optimizer is very easy to use http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php but after setting to optimal mtu1500, apply, and then XP Pro re-boots my mtu is still at 1448 the only conclusion i can come up with (after re-installing XP Pro several times and trying to increase my MTU to 1500) is that my present isp runs their dhcp pppoa service where the MTU setting must be 1448 i wonder if they have deliberately done this to save on bandwidth?

I guess when you find that your connection is slow and you take into account that the internet does slow down from time to time and the possibility that your local BT exchange trigger level may be full but when you test your connection at non peak time 3-4am in the morning and you cant achieve a sensible speed even to your isp's web page or the bbc web page i guess its time to look at other areas of where a problem may lie?

I know adsl bandwidth is contend service/ratio is setting/locking the mtu value of ensuring that bandwidth is evenly distributed?
==================================

Hmmm interesting i know from my XBL & PS2 days of gaming setting a lower mtu value than 1500 was better for my gaming needs especially at peak time & Sat/Sundays when i was using NTL BB... I wonder if anyone else has any thoughts on the above has the users isp locked the mtu so he/she cannot change it, another thing i noticed was that the user provider uses PPPOA as their DHP which is an oddball? as i always thought PPPOE is the most common used.
PPPoE stands for point to point protocol over ethernet. It is a method of encapsulating the data for transmission to a far point. PPPoA is PPP over ATM.. from a software point of view, this is very similar to PPPoE .. in this case though, a DSL modem pumping ATM is internal to the computer, rather than being a short ethernet cable away.

If the isp cannot control/limit the bandwidth through lowering/locking the mtu i wonder why the isp decided to favour PPPoA over PPPoE?

[DrAwesome]

To answer my own question the reason most ADSL isp's favour PPPoA over PPPoE is probably why NTL favour telling a new customer that plugging an usb cable from a cable modem is far easy to get on line than installing & using ethernet.

PPPoA is normally used for a USB connection
PPPoE is normally used for Ethernet connection

[DrAwesome]

Here is another (witi) useful ADSL/cable util for monitoring your speed of your connection.

Have you ever wondered just how fast your network connection is? Not just how fast the modem is connected at, but how much data you can actually get? Does your internet connection sometimes seem slower than normal?

Forget hacking the registry or using counter-intuitive tools to get the information you want - enter the world of AnalogX NetStat Live (NSL)!

NSL is a small, easy to use TCP/IP protocol monitor which can be used to see your exact throughput on both incoming and outgoing data - whether you're using a modem, cable modem, DSL, or even local network! NSL doesn't just stop there, it lets you see how quickly your data goes from your computer to another computer on the internet; it even will tell you how many other computers your data must go through to get there! But wait - there's more! NSL also graphs your CPU usage of your system! This can be especially useful in identifying if your computer is what's slowing things down, or if it's your internet connection.

=============================
No Post specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster

[DrAwesome]

Forgot to add to the above post that you can also keep track of your down/uploads with this program (if you wish to keep within NTL's Download Restrictions)

[DrAwesome]

Bumping This Thread again into view

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by DrAwesome

Yet another Bump!! for this thread

Here are some more useful links

If you find your connection is slowing down at peak times
(the Internet Peak is normally from 19:00 to about 23:00)
use this Capacity Local BT Exchange Report link to find out if your exchange is affected.


Very handy to monitor the status of your ADSL line when first getting your BT line ADSL activated i have used this util myself & it works also very easy to understand.
Nifty ADSL Availability Tracker Util (well i think so)


Oh & this link might come in handy

Latest virus info

That is an excelent little util, anymore like that?

[DrAwesome]

Originally Posted by dellwear

That is an excelent little util, anymore like that?

Not at the moment, i will keep a lookout, anything that is useful/interesting i will post.

I will however be posting some more useful ADSL information to keep my ADSL info threads from getting lost.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by DrAwesome

Yet another Bump!! for this thread

Here are some more useful links

If you find your connection is slowing down at peak times
(the Internet Peak is normally from 19:00 to about 23:00)
use this Capacity Local BT Exchange Report link to find out if your exchange is affected.


Very handy to monitor the status of your ADSL line when first getting your BT line ADSL activated i have used this util myself & it works also very easy to understand.
Nifty ADSL Availability Tracker Util (well i think so)


Oh & this link might come in handy

Latest virus info

Have you got any links that let you track how far your order has got with BT Wholesale???

[DrAwesome]

Originally Posted by dellwear

Have you got any links that let you track how far your order has got with BT Wholesale???

Just the util that checks that BT have switch on activated your adsl service and the only other web site i have is a pre-registration - registration check web site i remember checking on the http://www.bt.com/broadband/ site for a customer order checker & couldnt find one i did however find a checker that tells you if the trigger level is upto its limit i think i posted that link earlyier as some people were complaining that their 512k/1meg services dropped to 56k speeds after just getting their adsl line activated and with the link i provided they found out that the trigger level at their local BT exchange was waiting for the trigger levels to be raised (something that can take BT upto 4 months to do).