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| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 09:51 #620 | |
Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
I have NTL broadband and when testing it using various sites it was coming out at around 1Mb but it did vary- however, by and large I was able to surf the net without much problem. Last Saturday NTL rang me up and offered me a guaranteed 10Mb for an additional £5 (or there about per months and 'free' anytime phonecalls- the two more-or-less cancelling out. I confirmed the term 'guaranteed' with her several times and was assured with no qualification that that was correct. Anyway I can get the meter to read a consistent 9.8 or there abouts (never 10 so far) which I guess is OK unless I feel particularly like making a fuss. The point that I'm really interested in is what difference should I see when surfing the net? Because so far it seems much the same time to get between pages etc. I'm wondering if the speed is more of importance to people who download stuff in vast quantities rather than just reading forums and stuff- in which case I'm not sure there is much point in this for me. Anyone able to offer some advice here? Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 09:51 #6297 | |
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Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
I have NTL broadband and when testing it using various sites it was coming out at around 1Mb but it did vary- however, by and large I was able to surf the net without much problem. Last Saturday NTL rang me up and offered me a guaranteed 10Mb for an additional £5 (or there about per months and 'free' anytime phonecalls- the two more-or-less cancelling out. I confirmed the term 'guaranteed' with her several times and was assured with no qualification that that was correct. Anyway I can get the meter to read a consistent 9.8 or there abouts (never 10 so far) which I guess is OK unless I feel particularly like making a fuss. The point that I'm really interested in is what difference should I see when surfing the net? Because so far it seems much the same time to get between pages etc. I'm wondering if the speed is more of importance to people who download stuff in vast quantities rather than just reading forums and stuff- in which case I'm not sure there is much point in this for me. Anyone able to offer some advice here? Peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 10:42 #6298 | |
AnyFile
101 posts |
The time you need to get a page displayed depends not only on the speed of you connection. You have to add the time between the server received your request and the time it serve it (and also the time you have to wait before the server accept to listen your request).. The speed the server feeds the answer packets can be much less than your maximum speed. And up to this you have to add the time your browser need to display the page. This last point can be rather important in my opinion. Several web page are getting rather long and full of client-side computations. And in some case, to display a page, the browser has to ask a lot of pages (not only images, but also css, js pages and similar).I also found my browser to sometime struggle when it has to display very large images. If the speed you get a page is mostly constrained by client side reason, you surely will not go faster with a faster connection. And of course if the server you are asking is not answering you any faster you would not notice any difference. Where you should notice the most difference is when you are downloading a big file form a fast server. Another good difference is that you should be able to request in a easier way many pages/files at the same time (and also that you can connect more computers in you LAN). Also a higher download speed usually came also with a higher upload speed (this is not only important if you are actually uploading large files, but also if you are downloading at high speed, because you need to send a packet each time you have downloaded a packet (or a bunch of packets) to confirm you have received them before the server will send you the next packet). About the guaranteed 10 MB, what they are really guaranteeing you? That you can actually have a download throughput of 10 MB (or is it actually 10 M bit/s?) or that you will have a carrier of 10 M? When you said Quote: I can get the meter to read a consistent 9.8 which meter are you using? Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 10:57 #6299 | |
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nickp
30 posts |
Peter, I'm currently running off 16Mb (as measured by speedtest.net) on a BT line. Was previously getting 6Mb (off a supposed 8Mb). BT then 'upgraded' my local exchange to ADSL2+ and I went down to about 1.5Mb. I really noticed the slow-down, both for web browsing and, more particularly, for downloads. I would say then that you should notice a significant change. You are of course correct about dependency on the speed of the other end, plus all the other nodes the info goes through, so no absolute guarantees. One caveat here is upload speed: this is a much lower figure and will see a correspondingly smaller change - in my case I've gone from 6/0.5 to 16/1.2. A point to note is that the slow-down appears to have been caused by my router's incompatibility with BT's implementation of ADSL2+. I had a newish Belkin which claimed to be ADSL2+ compatible. The problem was (eventually, after 3 months of pushing) fixed when BT replaced it with one of their HomeHub 2 models. Regards, Nick Oops. Just re-read the original post more thoroughly. If you are currently getting 9.8Mb, don't pay more for 10Mb - you would never notice the difference. Even if you got an actual of, say, 13Mb from a guaranteed 10Mb, that's only about a 40% uplift. Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 11:51 #6300 | |
GeoffM
6376 posts 
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I've just signed up for BE Broadband (currently on BT) (LLU at the exchange). I would have switched earlier but BT hadn't updated their records correctly and had me shown as connected to a different exchange. Cue line test engineers, local MPs, BT CEO's office, etc to get it sorted out. Anyway, though the exchange is less than 1km away, my pipe varies from 6-7Mb - but the actual throughput is more like a tenth of that/ I suspect part of the reason is BT's traffic shaping, particularly in the evenings. All speculation but I am hoping that BE's service will be better, and with the price being about the same I don't have much to lose. Estimate of around 13Mb with BE.
SimSig Boss Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 12:19 #6302 | |
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razgriz33
42 posts |
The site i administrate had an event sponsored by o2/be broadband last year i can tell you now be is brilliant. Sadly i live far from the data centre so the 20mb connection i pay for usually results in it only being 5-7mb if that. If you're guaranteed this 10mb its worth the money if you download lots of stuff or you play intensivle online games on a network at home with teamspeak/skype/ventrillo running. for SimSig and websurfing you could do it probably with a 3mb line, dont waste your money on a connection you may not need if you dont need it. that's wat i would say, (on an un-related and off topic issue, peter i tried to priv message you but it didnt work unless you havnt checked it?) Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 12:23 #6303 | |
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GoochyB
222 posts |
Peter As has been said, it's on large downloads that you are likely to notice any difference, or also if you are surfing with automatic updates (windows. anti-virus, etc) running in the background they should slow the surfing down less. Other scenarios where a higher speed might make a real difference are with multiple computers accessing the connection at the same time, or TV streaming services over the internet. For 'normal' surfing the difference will not be significant - certainly not like when changing from a 56K modem to broadband. Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 12:53 #6304 | |
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caedave
142 posts |
For normal surfing there are too many outside factors (Site speed, usage, com-links) to notice much difference. My ISP line was originally 3Mb but they have steadily increased it to now 10Mb (off there own bat) and shortly, so they inform me, too 20Mb. As I run a full AVG security/anti-virus in the background, I don't expect to see much change in throughput speeds. Dave M. Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 13:07 #6306 | |
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Peter Bennet
5402 posts |
Thanks, Just to clarify the 'meter' I refer to was that given on three different speed check sites- reasonably consistent across all 3 so am content that I'm getting more or less 10Mb. The 9.8 is the general reading since I changed, it was around 1Mb before although I was notionally on 5Mb without a 'guarantee' according to the lady on the phone. As I say I'm content that what I'm getting is more or less what they said I would, just that it's not actually making any noticable difference! peter I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs! Log in to reply |
| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 15:29 #6310 | |
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Sacro
1171 posts |
I wouldn't expect much difference for small downloads like webpages, there's not much change to get any real speed up. You should notice that downloads are faster, streaming doesn't buffer as much, things like that.
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| Broadband speed 29/01/2010 at 17:06 #6313 | |
postal
5265 posts
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razgriz33 said:for SimSig and websurfing you could do it probably with a 3mb line, dont waste your money on a connection you may not need if you dont need it. that's wat i would sayAs a word of comfort for people living in the internet "not-spots" like us at the end of a long copper wire from the exchange (and who have no LLU so have to live with BT and their profiling and traffic-shaping), BT fixed my BRAS profile at 1250 kbps for a long time (i.e. actual download of just over 1100) and this was perfectly adequate for surfing and SimSig multiplay. Tweaking the firmware on my router means I have now reached the giddy heights of a 1500 kbps profile. JG “In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe Log in to reply |