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USB FAQ

My voice line is 'noisy' after installing ADSL?

Try disconnecting your modem to see if the noise disappears. If yes, you may have a faulty micro filter, or a technical issue with your phone line. If no, any number of factors may be creating noise. We suggest talking to your ISP who will be able to submit a fault report to BT.

Why do Cable Modems have lower pings than me, I thought ADSL was faster?

The "ping time" with ADSL is governed, in the main, by the latency between you and the local exchange. Data is encoded using an interleaving technique to make it tolerant to noise which takes a little time.

BTignite chose to use a very noise tolerant algorithm to ensure the minimum of packet loss between the user and the exchange. The connection after the exchange is over an ATM network which has a negliable bearing on the ping times. Once your connection reaches your ISP, latency within their internal network comes into play.

My connection seems slow?

If you are only getting around 6KB/sec then your connection is very slow! The question must be asked did you run any software to optimise your connection for an old dial up modem? If so a visit to http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks may be in order. This will advise and discuss tweaking of your connection. Note you should tweak according to what your needs are, gamers will use a different set of tweaks to heavy downloaders. There are no hard and fast rules, experimentation seems to be the key. Users of extremely nervous dispositions may prefer to perform a clean re-install of Windows.

What sort of speeds can I expect?

Assuming optimal conditions, USB modems will not compromise the speed of downloaded or uploaded files. Data should be transferred as fast as your line will permit.

Windows 2000 keeps hanging after installing my USB modem?

Users with multi-processor systems, and the Alcatel SpeedTouch USB may experience this problem under Windows 2000. Alcatel report that the problem is due to a Microsoft bug (the problem has been fixed in XP). Try installing the latest drivers from Alcatel to solve the problem (v1.4 or better).

I’ve heard that VIA motherboards dont work with the USB modem?

The VIA chipset used in a number of motherboards (KT133, KT7, Asus A7V) has exhibited problems with the Alcatel modem and a number of fixes have been know to work. The list is:

  1. Try newer drivers for your modem
  2. Turn on 'Enhance Chip Performance' in the BIOS via CPU Soft Menu
  3. Turn off 'Assign IRQ to USB'
  4. Download the latest BIOS upgrade for your motherboard (it's reported that upgrading to the ZT bios can help)
  5. Download latest 4 in 1 drivers from VIA Hardware
  6. Try a different USB port
  7. Add a powered USB hub and plug the modem into this
  8. Remove other USB devices from the PC
  9. Use an additional PCI->USB adapter card that does not have a VIA chipset, Belkin and Lucent cards have been found to work well.

I’ve heard that USB modems can slow down my PC?

USB modems will consume CPU cycles to perform their work. They consume some CPU cycles even when not online, since they attempt to remain sync'd with the exchange whenever plugged into the PC. On a Pentium 200 using 512kbps download the CPU load is around 30%. On a Pentium-III class system with an Intel USB controller such as the 82801BA/BAM, CPU load will be less than 1% - this varies according to the chipset used. If you have a reasonably fast computer (Pentium 4 or Athlon), you're unlikely to experience any discernable CPU problems.

Why are USB and Ethernet services so differently priced?

The 'Home' (USB) services run at a 50:1 contention as opposed to 20:1 contention for the 'Office' (Ethernet) variety. Therefore, it's cheaper to provide the bandwidth from the local exchange to your ISP because more users are sharing the same capacity. Additionally, Office based services are being marketed as a premium business product, BT traditionally charges more for business products.

The cost of hardware also enters the equation. Engineer assisted installations of Office 500, 1000 and 2000 based products are supplied with an expensive Ethernet router, hiking up the initial setup cost. With self-install products, there is less of a distinction between initial costs because the user purchases his/her own kit.