Camera Labs

Hey everyone,

I know this question is a bit of topic but I couldn't find a forum I thought could help me and I know there are quite a few people on this one who could help.

I currently live in an area where I do not get fibre optic broadband and as a result my internet speeds are very low. Until now I have lived with the constant slow speeds but am now fed up and am asking for some help. I have to use my phone line to receive internet connection and normally get about 3mb download speeds. I have rang all the internet providers and they have all said they can't offer me anything better. I am quite far away from the exchange and live in a small close. This close was not fitted with fibre optic cables but I think the main road it connects to may be. I live about 30m from this road. Do you think I could get a fibre optic cable put in?

Also BT are improving are local exchange in December to support their Infinity broadband. Without fibre optic cable will I notice any change in speeds or will I be stuck with the same old 3mb

I would really like to solve this problem before I set up my new network using a Time Capsule and so I can buy a Sonos S5 with confidence it will stream music quickly.

Any help would be much appreciated

P.S I found a site saying I should check my wifi router is not causing the problems. I tried plugging my laptop into the modem via an ethernet cable and the speed test results where basically the same.

_________________
Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

Sadly this is the state of the UK's broadband infrastructure and as with most things it comes down to cost.

The telecoms companies have no incentive to install higher cost fibre unless the end user pays for it.

If you do not pay for a business class connection with lower contention rates and guaranteed service levels then you are going to be sharing your bandwidth with lots of other consumers (in most cases you are looking at 50 to 1 contention).

Even with a fibre connection you will still experience fluctuations in connection speed as bandwidth is shared between users.

_________________
Nikon D90
Nikkor AF-S DX; 18-105 f/3.5-5.6G VR, 55-300 f/4.5-5.6G VR, 35mm f/1.8G
Speedlight SB-700

http://keystrokesukimages.com

Hi James,

With no immediate prospect of "Infinity" arriving at my own small local exchange I've not followed the technology too closely but I've heard the phrase "fibre to the cabinet" used in that context and I thought that that was as far as the fibre went with the last few metres using the existing copper - maybe I've got it wrong. So if there is fibre to the cabinet on the main road just 30 m away from you why is it that your home doesn't get its telephone service from those cabinets? BT would be the people to ask about that.

Do you have cable TV in your area as that's one way of bypassing BT's copper altogether! From what I've read I wouldn't bother with satellite for the down-link (latency issues, particularly with video) and I don't think 3G is going to get you any improvement even if it were rock solid and cost effective.

Update: There is a way to bond ADSL lines. If you have two ADSL lines then check out the Shareband website. I've no idea how good they are or whether there are other similar providers - I just offer them as an example of what might be possible. Discovering that option also got me wondering if there could ever be a community approach using such technology. As each ADSL router talks to the other routers forming the bonded connection via Ethernet the range would certainly be good enough to use Cat 5 cable to connect different households in an urban setting. Obviously everyone couldn't simultaneously take advantage of the combined bandwidth (contention) and there would certainly be "trust" issues concerning improper use but, in principle, I don't see the legal situation as being hugely different from pay as you go wifi hotspots. OK, maybe bonding with your neighbour shouldn't go quite so far as getting all intimate with his or her ADSL connection and I somehow doubt there would be sufficient demand for companies to offer the service in a domestic setting but I thought I'd share the technology.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Thanks for the comments!

@Bob I am pretty sure the road would have fibre optic because it is a pretty main road. However when they built my close 10 years ago for some reason (probably cost) they decided not to fit the cable.

I don't have cable TV as I went with Sky because I prefer their menu design. I am interested in getting TV in my bedroom and was going to go with Sky because I can get the multiroom discount. But if I went with Virgin would they fit a cable there for free.

I did check out Shareband but am trying to get away from ADSL completely.

_________________
Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

Hi James,

If Virgin provide a service to anyone else in your road then maybe they would. Otherwise I doubt it.

In the grand scheme of things I'd wait until December if at all possible and then see what speed BT believe they can offer you with Infinity. I'm luckier than you in that I have a very good ADSL connection (not ADSL2+ unfortuntely) but I suspect I'll be lucky to see Infinity's "up to" 40 Mbps speed in my area by the end of 2012. Maybe by then they'll be installing the "up to" 80 Mbps service they have already trailed.

You might find the BT Broadband help page has some useful answers.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Thanks for the advice Bob. The thing is my close is very small, 10 houses, so I doubt I will see any fibre optic cables put in unless I ask for it.

_________________
Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

Just did a quick check on house number 1 in my road which is the nearest one to the main road. They get an average of 6.5mb. I live at number 7 and get 3mb. How does that work? If I get my conection up to those speeds would this be enough for gaming and music streaming. I currently lag out quite a lot on online games and have to wait ages to buffer music from the likes of spotify

_________________
Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

Hi James,

Have you measured the speed with the computer connected to the router directly and not via WiFi? If not then try it out - if you see a big speed improvement then that tells you that the WiFi needs tweaking.

The fibre optic cable only runs, as I understand it, to the local cabinet and not to the house - that last stretch uses existing copper cable. Unless your Close has a cabinet all to itself then I think it likely that you'll be offered the same options as the folks on the main road.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

You can also have a look on

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search
and
http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

To see which companies have equipment at your local exchange. Any companies with an LLU presence have their own equipment at the exchange. These sites will also estimate when BT 21CN is due to be installed.

_________________
Nikon D90
Nikkor AF-S DX; 18-105 f/3.5-5.6G VR, 55-300 f/4.5-5.6G VR, 35mm f/1.8G
Speedlight SB-700

http://keystrokesukimages.com

Thanks for the comments

@Bob I have tried plugging it directly into the modem and the speeds were only 0.05mb faster so I think my WiFi is ok. Hopefully the time capsule should make the speeds slightly faster especially when I am not sitting next to the router with my laptop. Does anyone know how good the range is of the time capsules?

@keystrokesuk thanks for the links. TalkTalk are the only company an LLU and that is who I am with. Do companies with an LLU get the same speeds as BT?

_________________
Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

Possibly the wiring in your building? Check the attention ratio and noise margins on your router.

If the attention is below 30dB, there is definitely something wrong. if it's over 60dB then you might be as far as you can get.

Plug the router into the test socket behind your main bt phone socket, that should cut out all the interference to see if you can get a better speed. Possibly use a new ADSL filter too, sometimes the filters they give you aren't as good as they could be.

with Sky they set their noise margin ratio at 7dB. As your speed increases the margin drops. They find a stable mix between the two to stop disconnects and lost packets but giving you the fastest speed they can. If it is a fault with internal wiring, then it should eliminate that and if the noise margin increases, then you can phone up and ask your ISP to re-activate the DLM (Dynamic Line Management) to automatically test your line and give you the highest speed possible for the improved line quality

This should help

_________________
Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

They still use the same wire from the exchange to your house. But they have their own kit at the exchange so you are not sharing BT kit with BT customers at this link in connection chain.

_________________
Nikon D90
Nikkor AF-S DX; 18-105 f/3.5-5.6G VR, 55-300 f/4.5-5.6G VR, 35mm f/1.8G
Speedlight SB-700

http://keystrokesukimages.com

I used to have BT, I had an Internet speed of 7.5Mb, then one day I got .5Mb so I complained to BT there engineer told me that i was capped at the exchange, they put it back @7.5Mb after a couple of days.
I switched to sky and I still got 7.5Mb but after a 12 months lapse I'm now getting 5.2Mb.
BT rang me up with there new package the other day Blah Blah Blah and said: they would give me back the 7.5Mb for BT customers because they CAP all the other providers!