Choosing internet speed package.

[BoltonSte]

Oh mighty org, I really need to sort this out today.

We're looking at rolling all our phone/internet/tv in with sky.

I've done an online speed test and we are getting ~2.5Mb. I can either, go with basic sky package which is up to 2mb or pay a fiver/mo and get up to 10mb.

Considering we're only on 2.5mb is it worth goiing for the more expensive deal, will I notice any real difference if I went for 2mb over what I'm getting now?

Mostly this is used for work, bikes, 4OD and i-player on occaision.

Cheers

Ste

[slark01]

IMO if you are not doing any serious downloading and just browsing the net then no, it's not worth it.
However if you use things like iplayer, torrents then yes it's worth it.
Remeber you will not get the actual speed thats advertised unless your right next door to the exchange.
Ste.

[timwilky]

I have a 50Mb package from Virgin. great for some things such as multiple downloads. But to be honest my real reason for getting that speed was

1) it is not subject to their hobbling tactics
2) upload speed of 1.5Mb

Virgin have real trouble understanding people require a decent upload.

Before anyone posts get this or that I cannot get ADSL. So Virgin is the only provider I can use

[suzsv650]

Go with Virgin, best deals imho, Sky is to expensive and only gives you up to 20MB

I have 20MB with virgin....(will be upgrading to 50 once i get my moneys sorted)

[wyrdness]

Oh mighty org, I really need to sort this out today.

We're looking at rolling all our phone/internet/tv in with sky.

I've done an online speed test and we are getting ~2.5Mb. I can either, go with basic sky package which is up to 2mb or pay a fiver/mo and get up to 10mb.

You might be able to increase your broadband speed by disconnecting the bell wire. This is very easy to do, but if you don't fancy messing around with disconnecting wires, then BT sell a master socket faceplate with the wire already disconnected. They market this as the 'BT Broadband Accelerator'
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=25075

[keith_d]

I have a "Large" connection from Virgin but the available bandwidth is very time dependent. Between 4pm and 10pm it can be really crap, 1Mb or less, but at 6am it's brilliant...

In the case of the original poster, the difference between 2Mb and 2.5Mb is not worth bothering with. I'd stick with a 2Mb package unless you can get the line upgraded or get a cable connection on your street.

Just my thoughts,

Keith.

[BoltonSte]

I'll drop down to 2mb then, what we have is ample for what I use it for.

Cheers

Ste

[Lost@Home]

IMHO....

Virgin offer the fastest, most reliable internet service. If you download a lot, use torrents etc then I would recommend this.

Sky I do not have any personal experience with but I believe their service to be almost as good as Virgin.

BT/Any internet through a phoneline can't not offer anywhere near the capability of the above services. The cables BT installed in the ground between your house and the telephone exchange are years old and not capable of handling the data bandwidth of fibre optic. The further away from a telephone exchange you are the poorer you connection will be. Too many phones, answerphones etc connected in your house will impair you connection. If everyone on you street used this type of connection and was online at the same time there you connection will slow to almost a stop.
My father works for BT and has all the little devices and equipment they supply to boost your connection.. he is meant to have an upto 20Mb broadband speed. The best speed test result he's ever had was about 1Mb his speed is usually barely over 56Kbps dial speed. Having said that however a college of his gets around 11Mbps but he lives much closer to a telephone exchange.

In short BT/Telephone connection internet sucks big fat hairy donkey nut sacks.
Sky and Virgin offer reasonably goods services but no really point in going above 5Mb unless you want to download large files or stream video content.

That was my two bits worth! lol

[Sudoxe]

...A load of old b0llocks


BT/Any internet through a phoneline can't not offer anywhere near the capability of the above services. The cables BT installed in the ground between your house and the telephone exchange are years old and not capable of handling the data bandwidth of fibre optic.

Do you see virgin installing fibre optic in the home? Nope. It's all spin, every other broadband/LLU provider is "fiber optic" in the same way virgin is, i.e. to the point before it goes off to your home.

Any ISP/LLU provider with the right kit has the ability to deliver (line quality dependent) 24mbit/s down and 2.5mbit/s UP with ADSL2+. These lines can be bundled togeather for 50mbit/s 100mbit/s whatever you want as long as you pay for it.

To be honest, in reality anything over 10mbit/s you are going to struggle to notice a difference at home, with current technology. Unless you are downloading every movie on the Internet at the same time.

[timwilky]

Before internet "broadband " to the home. I had 2 ISDN connection ie 4*64k and ISDN router to connect me to work.

Call costs were horrendous and often in excess of £1000/month, I saved a fortune getting my initial 2Mb connection. Work eventually refused to allow me to have Virgin and forced me to BT. BT declined as their copper to my home was out of spec. So reluctantly I am on Virgin and have to submit expenses monthly to recover the cost.

I work with Swedes, Swiss etc who think of Gigabit to the home as being normal. They suggested I should just have dark fibre connections between our UK office and home. Oh how ignorant they are of Britains decrepit communications architectures.

When the fore fathers of Virgin (Telewest in my case) were digging up our streets, had they only known that people would want more than cable tv I am sure they would have routed fibre to the home instead of terminating at street cabinets and running coax to the home.

Still they tell me the Docis 3 equipment I am now on is capable of delivering 300Mb. When?

[Lost@Home]

In short,

I'm sorry you clearly know so much more about this than me and as I said at the start it was In MY Honest/Humble Opinion.

I was however mainly referring to the cable used outside the households as this is where the BT service fails and the Virgin service does not. The line quality is what lets BT down. BT's service does lag under user load a lot more than Virgin does. The cables original installed by BT were not designed for the large amount of data they are now required to transmit where as the cables original installed by Virgin/NTL/Cable & Wireless etc etc are designed to be cable of much greater data transfer. Maybe if 20years ago, or whenever it was, when BT originally considered replacing their existing cables with fibre optics they would be able to offer a better service and value for money. Unfortunately they didn't and now it would be an enormous expense to do something, something which BT can not afford.

But then again I may be wrong about all this so I bow down to your greatness and I still rate Virgin over the others!!! lol

[madnlooney]

im with virgin on 20mb and cant fault them. if i download anything i do get the full 20mb. Although they do traffic capping through out the day which is a pain

[Lost@Home]

Yeah man, big up the Virgin Massive!!

...or maybe not, kinda wrong on so many levels.