Well, my Be connection went live today.

I had been getting 3Mbit on BT. I fiddled with the wires for about the 20th time and managed to get 4.5Mbit. But the connection was so hammered/throttled in the evenings that it was almost useless.

I'm now getting 7Mbit, and that's using a Netgear DG834G v3 which isn't supposed to be the best in terms of compatibility. I'm planning to replace it with a DG834GT so should hopefully see another increase in speed.

But the best thing for me is that there appears to be no throttling at all in the evening. I'm actually getting proper speeds.

The order process was great. I got an text and email at every step of the way.

Couldn't recommend Be highly enough.

The only small downside is the shockingly awful BeBox they give you free. Bloody horrible thing to configure. I'll leave it in the box and stick it in the cupboard.

If anyone wants a "Recommend a Friend" just let me know.

 

Hoi! That's my line...!



I got my biggest boost by tweaking the SNR on the modem (using the bebox) and then asking BeThere to set it permanently.

 

I had the DG834 (still have it, but don't use it anymore as I bought a Draytek) and got better speed with BE* by replacing the firmware: [DG834GT/PN/N] UNOFFICIAL FIRMWARE - DGTeam

Steve

 

Ive had the old black box modem that was poo im using a small neat modem tompson and thats spot on

 

yeah I plan to use one of the custom firmwares for the the DG834.

I really couldn't get on with the BeBox. It was so slow to configure and not intuitive at all.

Hank, did your free month go through OK?

 

Never had any probs with the BE box

if you do some digging, there are several utils around that can do lots of

stuff for you


Mart

 

I'll probably try plugging it in just to see what speed I get with it but the fact they I have to give it back if/when I leave Be means I'd rather just leave it in the box and stick it in the cupboard.

 

sweet, sounds like i will also be getting around 7mb when mine goes live

 

AFAIK, once your minimum contract is up, the box is yours to keep

who wants old potentially faulty equipment back


SNR tool for be modems

THE DMT TOOL For DUMMIES - The ADSL2+ User Forum

Mart

 

i dont think that SNR tool works on the current Beboxes ?

 

No it doesnt it worked with my old black box but not my new one

 

managed to get it up and running around 5 mins ago

not sure if there is a settling in period with the new broadband setup?

but i am getting these speeds at the moment

 

I have so far had a good experience with Be, their customer service is bollox but so is everywhere else.

The only thing I had to do was to change my DNS servers on my Be router as I found the Be DNS servers to be ****e, I was getting a healthy 18mbit download speeds but seems to have tailed off at the following:

Gonna contact Be and find out if it can be sorted out as I was getting much faster speeds.

What is interesting, if I run the test through Ubuntu, I get between 17 and 18 mbit speeds so Windows is obviously adding a shed load of bottlenecks.

 

are you on the "Pro" setup ?

i am and i am wondering if its worth me paying for the top package with me not getting what i would consider "hyper speeds"

its vastly improved over BT, if it sticks at 5mb all day long including peak hours then i will be a happy bunny.

 

if you sign into the be website you can adjust your profile there which can increase your speeds, I think there is a gamer setting for low pings, fast setting which reduces your snr and a reliabilty setting which increases your snr

 

oh yes I changed my dns as well, using the open dns as the be ones do sometimes have issues

 

What router are you using Sticky?

 

Another vote for O2/Be. I was with BT for years and only got around 3 -4 Mbit. This is now typical for my "Up to 8 Mbit" service


But it gets quicker, my son regularly downloading his Ubuntu updates amazingly quickly at weekends.

 

i am using the stock BeBox at the moment, i went to the website and tweaked the profile settings to "speed" and "gaming mode on"

the bebox then spazzed out, constantly connecting and dropping the connection, i am not sure if this is supposed to be the case, does it constantly drop and reconnect to find the best "speed" connection ?

the webpage told me i would have to confirm the change within 30 mins or the profile would go back to standard.

the problem was i could not confirm the change because the connection kept dropping and reconnecting?

i waited around 15mins with no joy so came into work, checking the Be webpage now its still asking me if i want to confirm the change, this is hours later

i will have to check what router is actually doing when i get home at 6.30pm and see what the deal is.

will gaming mode drop my ping any further? the 50ms i was getting on the speed test website seamed ok to me?

ps. this is the up to 24mb Pro service, would the Be 8mb service give me the same speeds?

 

As you're only getting 5Mbit I'd assume the Be Value (up to 8Mbit) service would be OK and cheaper.

I assume you've already tried the router in the master socket and removing the ring wire to get the best possible sync speed?

 

I was like you on the 24mb package at first as I only got arerage of 6mb so I downgraded to 8 meg value service is exacly the same but your tied in to a 12 month contract - my ping is about 22 which is spot on for gameing like cod 4 etc - 50 odd is ok but lower the better really

Ive been with be for 3 years and when I said I was leaving they dropped my line rental from £13.50 a month to just £10 bargin

 

i will be trying the router in the master socket over the next few days, i dont have any free time until thursday morning now, so i will give that a try.

does the 8mb service have a worse upload speed?

the faster upload speed should mean i have a much better gaming experience when hosting games.

i am a bit reluctant to buy another router, i have just cleaned out the office at home this morning and found, 2 bt home hubs, 2 bt voyager routers, and a wireless access point, along with more dsl filters and cables then i can shake a stick at

 

Looks like same upload speed for Value package. Up to 1.3Mbit

If you've got the NTE5 master socket then it's worth popping the lower half off to reveal the test socket and plugging the router in that. Then your phone extensions are isolated.

You'll also need to log on to the router webpage and check the sync speed manually because it could take 24 hours to see better speeds on the speed testing websites.

 

off the top of my head

synch speeds (before i started meddling) were 1.3 upload and 5.8 download

 

I've easily seen 2Mbit increases by plugging in the test socket and removing the ring wire

 

Got home and the router was still going nuts, plugged it straight into the test socket and it synched at 8.2mb, but was constantly dropping the connection every few seconds, i had to login via the be webpage (next doors unsecured wirless lol), then select the standard speed mode + switch off "game mode" it then sorted itself out and download speeds went up to 6.1mb.

Be thought i would get speeds of around 7mb so its not to far off, if i can suss out this speed optimising malarkey i might just reach 7mb.

need to have a bit of a think about where is best to put the router

 

Righty, been having a play, changed the DSL cable for a 3 meter one so i can move the router into a more suitable place, and plugged it into the test socket, it synched at 6.5mb, this is on the standard BE profile with a SNR of 6-6.5

i then added a BT I-Plate that i was sent in error (ordered a bloody filtered 2 socket faceplate and they sent the wrong one instead)

adding the I-Plate dropped the synch speed back down to 5mb

removed I-Plate and synch speed went back up, not sure why, will try the proper filtered faceplate when its delivered, and then try adjusting the speed profile again via the Be website, hopefully i will get to around 7mb

even when i was running 4.5mb down a shonky telephone extension cable, it was still 4.5mb at all times during the day, a recommended swap

 

I just got my bill from Be*, with a discount of 1 day as it was my Birthday last Thursday. A nice touch

Steve

 

does anybody know why adding the BT I-plate would drop the sync speed ?

i repeated the test, maybe the I-plate is faulty?

it now sync`s at 7mb (still on the stock SNR speed profile)

and just had this result from a speed test site


its still a hell of a lot better then what BT were giving me (4mb now and again and around 1mb during peak times)

i need to test this sucker out and download some large files from somewhere.

 

Downloading flight simulator X demo from MS @ 740 kBs

this is to addictive, i want more speed tweaks