Broadband info please

[muddyjames]

At the moment I have a 2gb download speed. is gb right?  :-k Anyway. It is fine but I feel the doanload speed is a tad slow as streeming things off the web on sites like you tube, bbc i player etc are either very close to stream max or I have to pause it for ages (like I am doing now) and then play it later once all down loaded. Web site like Veoh seems ok until I use bbc i player then I get put on the user fairness scheme by tiscali and the last 15mins of i player on a hour long program and anything after that for the rest of the day I cant even streem veoh. Takes about twice the time to watch anything. Highly annoying!

Now, I am limited to tiscali or bt internet as the exchange in the next vilage is still an old style one so I cant get trusty Tesco broadband. I used to have Tesco and found it great and want it back again  :'(

If I were to speed up my connection to say for an example 4gb would streeming be better and would it stop tiscali putting on this fair user scheme after 45mins of i player?

symptoms of why I think I go onto friendly user scheme.

I can watch the first 45minutes of bbc i player with no fault. After 45minutes I can only down load in 15 second chunks and it takes 8 seconds to down load those 15seconds. I know i player is high download size too, hence me thinking I am on fair user policy.

Your thoughts. Please do this all in English as I am a complete utter novice atmost things pc! I know how to do very basic things like surf the net and install a program! After that I hate them and dont want to know. And yes, I know a 25yr old should be a whiz on pc's!!! :lol:

[V8MoneyPit]

The speed limitation may not be the ISP. If you are in a rural area at the end of a very long line, you may not be able to get any faster speeds. Also, ADSL is severely affected by how many people are using the line at the same time. At peak times, our rural connection grinds to a virtual halt.... slower than our old dial up connection.

Our Virgin package is a 2gb, but we rarely see more than 500k  :roll:

[electricbluebadger]

The speed they quote is the maximum you should get, most of the time it is far slower due to the number of people 'sharing' that bandwidth.

As an example I am on 8MB with virgin, lucky to get 5MB when benchmarked at various speed test sites and at peak times of the day can be a lot slower

If BT can provide broadband I am surprised no one else can they simply take over the broadband supply???? try virgins site as they can do a postcode check for service as can sky etc etc

I wouldnt touch Tiscali if they are running this fair usage rubbish still thats why I avoided them when I went from AOHell..... Virgin apparently have a fair usage policy but I have downloaded 60+Gigabytes so far this month and have had no issues thats approx 80+films worth

Steaming such as you tube etc isnt that bandwidth intensive so if you are having trouble due to net speed then they need a rocket up their proverbials....

try and aearch for a few internet / broadband speed test sites, there are loads of free ones and post the results on this thread so we have a better idea of the issues.

Cheers Steve

[muddyjames]

Results of 3 speed testing sites.

Speed test.net (It said test from Maidenhead server. Sems closer than London if this has any effect?)

373kbps download
242kpbs upload

the other 2 I have written on the images.

[Edge]

"Which?" best buy is waitrose internet (no fair usage policy :clap:).
http://www.waitrose.com/internetaccessfromwaitrose/index.aspx

[Evilgoat]

The speed limitation may not be the ISP. If you are in a rural area at the end of a very long line, you may not be able to get any faster speeds. Also, ADSL is severely affected by how many people are using the line at the same time. At peak times, our rural connection grinds to a virtual halt.... slower than our old dial up connection.

Our Virgin package is a 2gb, but we rarely see more than 500k  :roll:

Dropped them over that, switch off in a few weeks. Virgin (and a lot of others) Do traffic shaping which doesnt help things.

[Silvery Thing]

.... Virgin (and a lot of others) Do traffic shaping which doesnt help things.

"Traffic shaping" :-. I have never heard that term before.... what does it mean :?

[waveydavey]

Where is your modem plugged in?
I know a guy who moved it from a  phone extention to the main incoming socket, changed the ADSL splitter (the little box between the modem and the phone line) and got about a tenfold speed increase.

Worth a look?

[Evilgoat]

.... Virgin (and a lot of others) Do traffic shaping which doesnt help things.

"Traffic shaping" :-. I have never heard that term before.... what does it mean :?

The idea is that different types of traffic use the line differently.

HTTP or Web traffic is 'Bursty'. This means you can give the illusion of 8Mb downstream while in reality you have a lot less or its shared between users, this is the Contention ration, how many people you are 'sharing' with.

As long as this is the way it stays, just programs like MSN, chats, web traffic and games, everyone wins.

HOWEVER

Streaming, Peer to Peer and most downloads are sustained transfers, this means the line becomes tied up for the duration of the transfer, with Peer to Peer the story can be much worse. Obviously, you tying up all 8Mb effects the other people that are on that connection.

Its possible to classify what traffic is flowing down a line, and its possible to prioritise some traffic, and rate limit others, Thus, its not impossible to see huge transfer rates for web stuff, which is what most people want. Then <20K speeds for peer to peer to keep line speeds up artificially. This means that they can keep most customers happy while only the tech savvy actually click whats happening., My employer write such software so I know how to see it in action.

Virgin do this and make no secret about it, although they wont tell you if you ask. Many other low cost ISPs doo too. I was getting amazing speeds browsing the net. Fire up anythign else and it was slower than dial-up.

So thats traffic chaping in a nutshell.

Other tricks I've seen include dropping line rate when you hit your cap, or changing the traffic profile completely to really clamp down.

[Bouncy]

ermmmmm richard at what point did "make it simple" pass you by ?   :doh:

 

[Ja1983]

for us Pipex internatonal.

-unlimited 8meg broadband (his 1.5 normally, but perfectly adquate)
-free daytime, eve & weekends to uk landlines
-international calls cheap (Greece - 2p/min)
and best of all line rental included (hate BT!)

£30mth

beware of the deals that seem cheap, most go up after the first 3 mths.... then its a 2 year contract

[Evilgoat]

for us Pipex internatonal.

-unlimited 8meg broadband (his 1.5 normally, but perfectly adquate)
-free daytime, eve & weekends to uk landlines
-international calls cheap (Greece - 2p/min)
and best of all line rental included (hate BT!)

£30mth

beware of the deals that seem cheap, most go up after the first 3 mths.... then its a 2 year contract

Pipex, by a round about route, are now Tiscali. Have seen a lot of issues with certain types of connection the last week that are slowly driving us insane :)