As in the title... I go to http://www.metronet.co.uk/adsl/exchangeChecker and enter my phone number and the grid is a complete Red block except for the days when there has been a major outage.

Does this mean my exchange is a load of tosh?
What is VP congestion?

your line goes to the DSLAM in the exchange and your data will go along a "virtual path" from the exchange to the BT ATM network, that's the BT Wholesale constant wherever you connect to, whichever ISP (though different ISPs may be on different virtual paths).

Once on the BT ATM network your data goes to your ISP via a "BT Central" which also happens to be managed by BT Wholesale. For the speedtest login it goes direct to a BT Wholesale server.

So testing with your standard login an the speedtest login may show a difference in performance if the BT Retail Central Plus pipe or onward internet connection is congested. Congestion in the exchange, VP congestion or a dodgy line would be common to both.


BTW fix VP problems by upgrading the backhaul on that VP to give it more bandwidth.

Thanks for the info Savannah2 :thumbs: but does this mean my connection is knackered? We seem to have quite a few drop offs. I've checked everything i can and this seems to be the only thing left :?




BTW fix VP problems by upgrading the backhaul on that VP to give it more bandwidth.

How'd i do that then?

How'd i do that then?

BTW,this means BT Wholesale....soz..... do these VP upgrades when they are needed
Mine's showing red at mo but speeds arn't to bad
You can check if the problem is at your end or BTW end...use the BT login (http://usertools.plus.net/tutorials/id/27)

Problems tend to reside the Multiplex side of the DSLAM. Where as cable modems are usually on a local loop, so more users means less perfomance on that loop. DSL works by having each line have its own connection to the DSLAM. Congestion usually begins to show when the the multiplexed link to the backbone becomes saturated, thus they need to increase the capacity of the multiplexed line, and can reside even further down the line. Backhauling just helps by finding alternate routes or adding routes to send the data back though the system that may be longer, but faster.

BT seem to be managing the capacity of their network quite well, considering the speed of uptake of DSL services in the past year or so. BT managing something effectivly, whatever next, ADSL2.

Joel