ADSL Access

Currently there are two phone lines into the property. Being a long term subscriber to BT the main line is provided directly by them, and features BT Business broadband which also provides a fixed IP address to the house. lsces.co.uk is hosted here while the other websites are hosted at 1 and 1 in Germany. There is just not enough upload speed to support them from here and the box in Germany has a very wide pipe. But this line as been less than reliable this year, and I suspect that it is the load now being applied to the local exchange. However we have picked up a second telephone line, mainly for Victoria and Damian's businesses, but also to provide a second broadband. This was picked up from Sky, but as UK readers will know, they just subcontract that from BT.  At the moment this is not achieving the 7Mb bandwidth of the first line, being limited to some 1.5Mb. Sky are claiming that the bandwidth is out of their control and that it is the distance from the exchange. A little strange then that the BT line can get 7Mb at times ( the average has dropped over the last six months ) while the sky on can't? It may have something to do with the BT speedtest reporting that the sky line is a 2Mb capped service? But Sky refuse to accept that is the case.

I suppose the question is what alternatives are available? Mobile broadband can get me 3.5G ... if I drive up to the top of the escarpment near by and park up. I've HAD to do that on occasion to get VPN access to customer sites, but from the house some network signals even have trouble with running a telephone.

So currently moving to internet based services is simply out of the question ...