How does ADSL MAX differ from regular 1Mb or 2Mb broadband ?

Other than the obvious speed difference.

Is it as reliable as regular broadband if used to underpin a hardware
site to site VPN ?

Does the ISP make much difference ? especially if used as a site to
site VPN transport ?

Techincally how does it differ from regular broadband back at the
Exchange ?

We have had differing experiences with ADSL MAX recently, having
changed several customers over they appear to be experiencing much
worse performance than they did previously on the regular broadband
lines, with ever decreasing upload and doanload speeds and frequent
disconnections.

We've seen this at various locations.

We've hooked some of our customers back up to their original regular
broadband to overcome some of these issues.

We have had reports back from the ISP that BT have replaced 'jumpers'
at the Exchange in an effort to try and resolve these issues.

Bottom line is: Customers have a perfectly good working reliable 512Kb/
1Mb/2Mb broadband before they are upgraded to ADSL MAX, upgrades were
undertaken to try to take advantage of higher upload speeds, in some
caes this has dramatically backfired on us, why ?

Is this just an issue at the Exchange ?

We've swapped out routers and other hardware and it's made no
difference at all.

That said in other locations we have not had any of the above problems
or issues.

The locations are in small towns, where the customers with the poorly
performing ADSL MAX are not that far away from the Exchange.

Could this be an ISP issues or is it more likey to be the Exchange or
route to the Exchange ?

Jim.

jdr.smith@virgin.net wrote:

Precious little.

Google 'rate adaptive DSL'. That's basically what it is (plus some BT inspired
tweaks).

Graham

jdr.smith@virgin.net wrote:

There are so many possible factors involved that a complete answer would go on
forever.

Graham

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:469E7943.784FA471@hotmail.com...
Have a look around this site:

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/lowSNR.htm

Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> writes:

Then why do we hear of so many cases where someone had a 'rock solid'
fixed speed link but after 'upgrading' to ADSL Max the performance and
reliability get worse? There *should* be no reason why a rate adaptive
system should ever rate-adapt to a lower speed than the previously
reliable fixed rate connection[1]. If it rate-adapts to a higher speed
than the previous fixed rate then it is understandable that the
reliability might not be so good, but (unless there have co-incidentally
been other changes which affect the line quality) it should *never* give
a worse performance than the fixed rate line.

[1] And if it does rate-adapt to the same speed as the previous fixed
rate connection then it should be just as reliable.

Graham Murray wrote:

In a simple world what you say would make sense.

It's not that simple though. RADSL is jumping through so many technical hoops that
it's a miracle it works as well as it does. Add in very variable and inconsistent
line quality, environmental factors, any number of possibilities associated with the
end user's telephone wiring inside their home and a host of unknowns that accompany
100 or more brands of routers with various chip sets and firmware and what do you
expect ?

Time was when if you had a modem , it came from BT - Post Office Telephones actually
(and they were confident about its performance since it was made to their spec) and
that was that.

Graham

"Graham Murray" <newspost@gmurray.org.uk> wrote in message
news:87k5sxqt83.fsf@newton.gmurray.org.uk...
Yeah-but-no-but-yeah...
My previous fixed rate broadband was 512K with "no improvement possible"
(BT) - I'm on a long rural line. Admittedly, it was stable at that speed.
I then went to ADSL Max and my connection immediately shot up to 2.4-to-3.2
Gig (variable).
Disadvantages: occasional drop-outs/re-synchs, depending on time of day,
rain, thunderstorms, etc.
Advantages: up to 6 times faster, dependant on the variables above (I can
live with the variables).
No, it's not so reliable but it's a hell of a lot faster.
It's all down to BT realising that the demand is there for faster Broadband
and realising that the only way that they could economically meet it would
be by electronical trickery, if you will. However, when it comes down to it,
it's still the same old copper pair to your house/business.
You'll probably only get completely stable/reliable speeds if you go back to
fixed-speed Broadband (if your ISP lets you do that - and they probably
won't, 'cos BT won't let them) or if/when cable/fibre becomes available in
your local area, which again it probably won't.
Or if you have access to Be - and that's another story altogether - see
other threads....

George

Graham Murray wrote:
This is, in fact, a "should". I believe that BTwholesale still consider
it a fault condition if a line is regraded to MAX and you get a lower
sync/line rate as a direct result - check with your ISP to see if they
will get BTwholesale to investigate any such instance.

Using a decent router and decent filters, and connecting to the master
socket or using a faceplate helps. Also, google for 'dslmaxv4.wmv' to
get some tips on what to check.

George Weston wrote:

Sensible and very informative post George.

As for Be and the other ADSL2+ ISPs, you only see a useful advantage if you're
reasonably near to the exchange. They reckoned I'd be good for ~ 15Mbps for
example ( I currently get 'full bore' MaxDSL) and I'm about 900m from the
exchange as the crow flies (about 1500m of actual twisted pair apparently).

Graham

"George Weston" <geoweston@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:5g7l55F3ebqb4U1@mid.individual.net...

Wow! Thats one hell of an improvement. 512k to 3.2 Gig !

Are you sure about that?

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:28:25 +0100, "Geoff" <00000@000.00> wrote:

My partners line was similar 512k on Virgin, which they upped to 1mb,
which then went horrendously slow and intermittent, usually ending up
around 200k!!! she went with an ADSL Max provider and gets around 2.5
to 4mb now, certainly way better then she was before.

"Geoff" <00000@000.00> wrote in message
news:5g8p5pF3bj9taU1@mid.individual.net...
Oops - sorry. Meg!
Too much of the amber liquid...
George

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:469E93E6.FA7C7D69@hotmail.com...
I recall a 2400 bps Post Office modem which I worked with (for back up
purposes). It came in two parts. I can no longer recall whether it was two
or four wire.


--
Michael Chare

On 18 Jul, 22:47, Graham Murray <newsp...@gmurray.org.uk> wrote:

Max trades off low speed high reliability for high speed lower
reliability. Sometimes modems ca'nt hack the Max regime and go all
wobbly, the internal wiring that you may get away with on a fixed
speed becomes a nightmare with a low margin rate adaptive service, etc
etc.

All solvable, especially if you get a router or modem where you can
limit the downstream speed or manipulate the margin higher.

The number of reliability cases you hear of have to be viewed in the
context of 4m MaxDSL lines.

Performance is often down to ISPs getting overloaded by increased
capacity end user circuits hitting the same infrastructure.

if the fixed speed service was running with a low SNR margin then the
MaxDSL service can quite easily come in at a lower speed in order to
achieve its target margin. This is especially the case if the line is
then unstable and the target margin gets increased. The speed could
drop from 1M to 512k quite easily.

Phil

On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 00:13 +0100, George Weston wrote:
Hm, interesting. Mine was 1Mb/s before "upgrading" to Max but now syncs
at 1120Mb/s or lower often enough that I'm constantly capped at 512Mb/s.

Attempts to get BT to switch me back to a fixed-rate line have failed --
we tried various ways, including a cease and reconnect.

After the morning where the DSL stopped working and I found a BT
engineer up the pole putting me back on a DACS because their database
said my line was no longer active, I gave up on trying to get them to
restore the level of service I used to have.

Telcos. When I'm Queen, each citizen will be allowed _one_ 30-minute
spree through a telco office with an AK-47, per annum. It'll be good for
the species, overall.

--
dwmw2

So in a nutshell...

ADSL MAX may not be a good idea for site to site VPN connections/
running multiple RDP sessions over it where up-time/reliability is an
important factor ?

That is unless you are very close to the exchange and are getting top
notch performance..

Jim.

<jdr.smith@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:1186064511.056262.4440@22g2000hsm.googlegroup s.com...
No ADSL service would meet those requirements AFAIK.

That doesn't guarantee any reliability or up-time so its irrelevant.

dennis@home wrote:
The only thing which would affect both the reliability & uptime is the
network. It doesn't matter whether you're within 500mtrs or 5Km if
you've got bad network you're not going to have reliability. Know of
one road within 500mtrs from it's exchange & can't even get a 576
fixed rate package & on the other hand I have come into contact with
circuits which are over 5Km long & yet have had very little down time
at all.

On 20 Jul, 01:47, "Michael Chare" <MunderscoreN...@chareDOTorg.uk>
wrote:
I think that was the upgrade from the 300bps model.

--
WH

"William" <william@lowerknowle.com> wrote in message
news:1186703565.836174.184720@z24g2000prh.googlegr oups.com...
Ah yes, the old "Datel" range - I remember it well from my days in BT sales.
Datel 100 - telex really.
Datel 200, 300 and 600 - modems that worked over PSTN or private circuits,
followed later by the then almost unbelievable speeds of Datel 2400 and
4800.
Then came the advent of the "dirty" baseband modems - whatever happened to
them?

George