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In October, I signed up with Orange for their offre Zen; in discussion with Orange at the agence in Perpignan I was told that because of the distance from the hub, which is at St Genis, my max speed would be 2Mbps (which I knew).

Two days later (yes, I got fantastic service!) a guy came to reconnect our line, which had been 15 years out of service (he also set up my Livebox and 2 tablets). Speed at that point was indeed 2Mbps.

Disconnected the Livebox when we left the house to go back to the Ariège; when we got back here, 2 weeks later, speed had increased to a bit over 4Mbps.

Disconnected the box again 10 days ago and got back yesterday. Speed is now hovering around 7Mbps .

Has there been some kind of service upgrade around St Genis/Villelongue, does anyone know? Or should I just keep coming and going until I reach fibre optic levels?

duplicate Post...sorry

triplicate post even more sorry.

Result!! i suppose Orange are slowly upgrading their Network and probably you were LUCKY.

Perhaps all the rain cleaned out the cables

Russell.

Count yourself lucky!! WE have been at Oms near Ceret since 9/13, have needed internet speed checking relative to poor internet UK TV standard on a number of occasions and have had Livebox tested - max megabite we get is 2 - 2.4 having had 3 separate 24 hour checks by Orange and visit to house.

You can check the theoretical capacity of your line eg here

http://www.degrouptest.com

It depends on your distance from the exchange and to a lesser degree on the thickness of the wires and the number of joints between you and there.

That seems unlikely to have changed much. But the line upstream from the exchange can get saturated (eg around 1700, when teenage boys do whatever teenage boys do) and Orange may have upgraded that.

If you are getting better than the theoretical maximum (or anywhere close), congratulations.

Something must have changed, because the degrouptest I did before I moved showed around 2.4, whereas it now shows 7.04. I usually manage to get a bit more than that.

It's the same here in the Ariège - my theoretical maximum on degrouptest is 6.8, yet I mostly run at around 8. Which is pretty amazing given that I'm nearly 4km from the hub, last but one house down a forest track with the wiring caught up in the branches of 100 trees ...

Thanks for replies - only reason we had Orange do various tests was because after 9 months of trouble free internet TV problems of buffering etc started (and continue unabated) and, following loss of electricity supply due to high wind cable damage thought same might have happened to phone lines, but it seems not to be the case. Don't know how far we are from hub, but neighbours slightly out of village don't have problem and we are not aware of any great likely usage by 'teenagers' in village itself. Obviously no point in moving from Orange as presumably SFR etc use same cabling to supply line.

Ariègeoise wrote:Something must have changed, because the degrouptest I did before I moved showed around 2.4, whereas it now shows 7.04. I usually manage to get a bit more than that.

It's the same here in the Ariège - my theoretical maximum on degrouptest is 6.8, yet I mostly run at around 8. Which is pretty amazing given that I'm nearly 4km from the hub, last but one house down a forest track with the wiring caught up in the branches of 100 trees ...

Serves me right for being condescending. They can of course make your internet quicker by effectively moving the exchange closer to you (or at least the junction between the slow bit and the quick bit), and maybe that has happened to you.

At my other place, in 76, I am 6.5 km from the exchange and at the extreme theoretical limit of very slow internet. In practice, of course, zilch. And every hunting season some knuckle-dragging idiot uses my line for target practice and I lose the phone as well.

For 6 months we were getting no more than 1.5/2 Mbps we called Orange who told us we were getting 20 although we only pay for 8. After a couple of engineer visits we now get no less than 5 and regularly get 15 hence no buffering.the whole village is the same, think Orange might have upped their game.

Have previously posted regarding Orange internet speed here in Oms at or about 2megabites thus interfering with internet TV service even though we are now on alternative low speed service via Skydigi. Went into SFR at Auchan, they did immediate test and say they can provide 12 - 20 megabites to our address, am like some others a dimbo at all this - don't they use same overhead lines etc as Orange and is it therefore worth changing including swapping email address and all the hassle or are they having me on?

As already suggested Speed is not the only factor.
we have a regular 1.9 - 2.1 mb connection and our TV Streaming is pretty acceptable with just occasional Buffering.
(we use an Android IPTV Box accessing HD Filmon with no subscription via XBMC Addons).
It is always woth contacting the Provider to see if they can improve things. I have had many clients who have had improvements made to their connection after a call to see if there are any problems or if the speed can be improved.

I am with SFR in Saint Laurent de Cerdans. They also promisec me 12-20 but I get 2 or less. They all use the same lines so there is no reason to change.

Pearson

Many thanks for replies, regarding the first, Orange have tested line for 24 hours on three occasions, an engineer has been out to house and tested livebox and line with no adverse findings, of course their ultimate attitude is that they are not contracted to provide an internet TV service (we declined the Orange TV service). When 'pestered' if they can increase speed they say no.

Info from St Laurent de Cerdan very useful, a not dissimilar location to us, guess we will stay with Orange.