Professional Geekism

Finding the connection

It’s taken a little time, but this Saturday saw the installation of a BT land line in my flat. It’s not going to be used for calls though, no, this is purely for Broadband. And that means, the best broadband I can lay my hands on.

I had originally anticipated ordering a connection from BeBroadband, which would give me an ADSL2+ speed of up to 24Mbit/1.4Mbit on a 3-month contract, with no fixed download limits and all for £25/month. There was a £25 connection fee but that included their ‘BeBox’ ADSL modem, so not at all unreasonable.

But to my utter disappointment it appears that they haven’t enabled my exchange. The centre of Birmingham - B1 for crying out-loud - and they haven’t bothered! Here at work we have a fantastic Be connection, as does a colleague (or two) of mine. All located in other parts of Birmingham. Yet I’m not eligible, apparently? Considering where I live, and what sort of area it is, it makes little to no sense.

So I had a look at SamKnows, whom state that only Easynet and Bulldog have actually installed their LLU equipment into my exchange. Bulldog wouldn’t be bad, though their ADSL2+ service is limited at 16Mbit and also requires that you transfer your landline over to them, which isn’t something that I can do.

So UKOnline, whom re-sell via Easynet, were my choice. One of the companies my employers deal with often do actually have a UKOnline ADSL2+ connection and it’s been quite favourable. Granted though, the connection is definitely down on Be’s; only 22Mbit/768Kbit. Kilobits? IN MY UPSTREAM?! And to add insult to injury, any customers wishing to join on the ADSL2+ connection must purchase a Netgear DG834GT wireless router, or you don’t have the connection.

Now their reason for forcing a £59.99 router on you is purely because the current state of ADSL2+ modems is a little shoddy. Supposedly, at least - my only back-up story to support this was my colleague’s testament on Cisco’s ADSL2 WIC, which for some unbeknownst reason only ever sync’d at 7Mbit/sec - and even now with firmware upgrades, maxes-out at 14.1Mbit/sec due to a physical limitation. If Cisco can’t get it right, what on Earth is going on?

After weighing it up, I didn’t have much choice. Thankfully UKOnline are currently waiving the £25 connection charge, and were very quick and friendly to help me through my order. I really did grill the poor bastard on the end of the phone, but it’s what he’s paid to put up with at the end of the day. Indeed it was nice of him to go the extra mile and arrange for my router and welcome pack to be sent to work instead of the flat, where I’ll actually be around to collect it.

And after some investigation, the router isn’t meant to be all that bad. More-over, even Ebuyer aren’t selling it for less than £60.

So in about 2 weeks I should have something to say about my new connection.