On 23/03/2008, Tony Whitmore <tony@???> wrote:
> I also checked the Bethere site and it is promising "up to" 24Mbps
> connection on our line too. Now, I realise that our line probably won't
> deliver the full speed. It's never been the same since the builders put
> an angle grinder through it. But the Bethere product is about the same
> price as I pay for the current connection, even if I only get half the
> maximum speed, I'd be happy.
You will certainly get a much better outbound bandwith - I had
1.3Mbit/s up and (IIRC) 12 Mbit/s down, albeit in distinctly urban
North West london. I don't know anyone who has had 24 Mbit/s and
several people I know are with Be, mainly for the outbound bandwidth,
which is unusual and great for running services etc.
> So.... have people had good experiences with Bethere? Or are people like
> A&A worth the better service at lower speeds?
I was with them until August. I can't recall any network problems, the
DSL line itself was pretty solid once the speed had negotiated over
the first few days. I didn't notice any network contention, but you
might want to consult forums for more current information on how
they're running their network.
Support was prompt, on the occasions I had to use it (enquiring about
transferring to my ex-flatmates' names, removing static IP).
However, you should be aware that they have a history [1] of shipping
Alcatel routers in a ridiculously insecure configuration:
- With telnet and FTP enabled and accessible to the entire Internet.
- With a backdoor username and password, which is the same on every
router and is now well-known on the Internet.
Apparently they still haven't fixed their customers' vulnerable
routers [2], despite having an account set up for the very purpose of
making configuration changes. So I would advise disabling telnet from
the Internet as soon as you take delivery of the router and thoroughly
portscanning the router from the Internet.
Regards,
Graham
[1]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/17/hackers_service_terminated/
[2]
http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/1048
