best broadband around

[s4woody]

so come on then you I.T. guru,s..whats the best broadband package at the moment..im currently with talk talk and my hair grows faster than my broadband speed..
i need a change...and fast..(no pun intended)

[VARSITY]

Orange.

[S4TAN]

Depends whether you live in a 'cable' area or not ...(HFC as opposed to TP) - Cable is better than ADSL, ADSL2+ can be as good as Cable, but then VDSL is better than Cable ... especially VDSL2+ (best of all is an Ethernet WAN cct - but your monthly bill would be very different to your current one)

Even then this is only "access" cct speed and has little, if anything, to do with your e2e session transfer rate with a web server/FTP server etc (I could explain why but you'd go into a coma) - basically with a high speed access cct your packets just get to the "traffic jam" quicker ...

And FYI - it's not I.T. - it's Network Engineering ...!

[lemond]

I've got Sky and it is farquin wonk... I like abot 2 miles from the exchange and can get maybe 2MB download gubbins, but I never realised this (until BT Whooosh tested the line cus Sky ...who are crap... did I mention this? said the line was at fault) and paid the 10er a month over the free option....

I will change next month cus its crap (did I mention this) and I will be out of contract.

So Sky are total crap and they could not organise a wonk.

To be honest I don't know who to go to!.. I was with Onetel (Talk Talk I think).. I thought they were dirtbox, but now they rule in comparison to Sky (who incidentally are crap....I said this didn't I?) ...

I had to reboot the router thing to send this!

[musty1]

nether had any problems with tiscali

[VARSITY]

Depends whether you live in a 'cable' area or not ...(HFC as opposed to TP) - Cable is better than ADSL, ADSL2+ can be as good as Cable, but then VDSL is better than Cable ... especially VDSL2+ (best of all is an Ethernet WAN cct - but your monthly bill would be very different to your current one)

Even then this is only "access" cct speed and has little, if anything, to do with your e2e session transfer rate with a web server/FTP server etc (I could explain why but you'd go into a coma) - basically with a high speed access cct your packets just get to the "traffic jam" quicker ...

And FYI - it's not I.T. - it's Network Engineering ...!

You got telephoney where you live now?

[S4TAN]

You got telephoney where you live now?

I have a tin can and a piece of string that goes off into my garden .... I don't how it works, I just shout into it and I hear voices shouting back ...

[musty1]

satan been smoking them funny cigarettes again

[johnny11]

The way i see it if you get your Phone line through BT might aswell get the B/B through them as its going over the same pair of copper cable and less hassle IF you get any problems,

but thats just my opinion

[S4TAN]

The way i see it if you get your Phone line through BT might aswell get the B/B through them as its going over the same pair of copper cable and less hassle IF you get any problems,

but thats just my opinion

There's another very good reason to do this - all to do with packet prioritisation for alternative ISP's within the BT network ....

[s4woody]

oh boy...now i am confused..can somebody put whatever he said into english..

[S4TAN]

oh boy...now i am confused..can somebody put whatever he said into english..

Get cable if you can, or ADSL2+ if you can't. Either way DSLAMs and CMTS's are all pretty much over-subscribed and your bandwidth is contended. That's why ISP's market broadband as being "up to X Mbps" - the operative part being "up to" - during periods of peak utilisation your bandwidth gets throttled down as the DSLAM/CMTS uplink b/w to the core network is dimensioned such that there is a contention ratio - i.e. there isn't enough b/w to give every active user the peak b/w that their service level describes ...

[VARSITY]

oh boy...now i am confused..can somebody put whatever he said into english..

Get cable if you can, or ADSL2+ if you can't. Either way DSLAMs and CMTS's are all pretty much over-subscribed and your bandwidth is contended. That's why ISP's market broadband as being "up to X Mbps" - the operative part being "up to" - during periods of peak utilisation your bandwidth gets throttled down as the DSLAM/CMTS uplink b/w to the core network is dimensioned such that there is a contention ratio - i.e. there isn't enough b/w to give every active user the peak b/w that their service level describes ...

Your sat in that shed with your can and string banging the crap out of it, aren't you?

[Nige_RS4]

You'd better not believe the hype around contention ratios. Yes they can be the cause of poor service, slow download times, but due to all you p2p skanks out there, it's the core networks that are suffering more than the 'last mile' of copper string.

I was on Orange, but moved to BT. They may not be the cheapest, but they have a better relationship with the local exchange team if anything goes wrong (and I speak from experience!).

[S4TAN]

You'd better not believe the hype around contention ratios. Yes they can be the cause of poor service, slow download times, but due to all you p2p skanks out there, it's the core networks that are suffering more than the 'last mile' of copper string.

Sorry dude - simply not true on the Core networks front, well certainly not Virgin Media's IP/MPLS core. Believe me - I KNOW*, that thing is massively b/w over-engineered, to such an extent that CoS/QoS packet schedulers feeding egress queues on Core and Backbone routers NEVER kick-in. And there are many measures you can take on a Core network to limit p2p hogs at ingress...

Also, it's not the 'last mile' copper pair that is the problem for ADSL users (unless there are length issues or the 'copper' is actually old BT aluminium, or is HR etc) as the b/w isn't contended there - it's contended at the DSLAM back-plane to the uplink (which is ALWAYS over-subscribed - they're not economically viable otherwise), and given crappy CoS (BE) and/or b/w guarantees through BT's back-haul network to the interconnect hand-offs.

*I had 'a bit' of a hand in its development and evolution.