Quick broadband question

[c4koh]

All,

I live out in the stix, and our exchange is finally getting broadband enabled on 28-july...

Now, my question is: it states that we can only get the 500KBps service...

Does anybody know how this is "set": is it to do with line quality (and hence perhaps a test on my line may mean it's OK to go to 1Mb or above)... or is it that the actual pipe out of the exchange to whatever BT's core network will only allow 512K per user???

Any help appreciated... in any case, 512K is still 8x faster than my ISDN!!

[alexkp]

I would have thought this is more likely to be a restriction placed by the ISP. However, if your main infrastructure is still old copper cable, then that might also place some restrictions.

A half meg link is still very quick for domestic use - I have one and don't see any need for an upgrade for the forseeable future.

Hope that helps.

[docevi1]

ADSL is limited by the distance it needs to travel - it may be you are too far away from the exchance for > 512mbps transfer. I know when we got ours we are on the edge of the exchance distance and several tests had to be conducted to ensure we could get a reliable 512 (otherwise we would be dropped to 256).

As alexp says, 1/2mbps is fine for home use!

>> Edited by docevi1 on Thursday 22 July 13:25

[malman]

The availability check is based on line length from exchange AFAIK but they will do a proper test on the line when you order the product. If it fails the test its no broadband for you

I think you need to be within 3.5Km of the exchange to get anything more than 512. www.adslguide.org probably has more info on this

There is a number you can ring to find out your line length, please hold ..........aha found it

Distance From Exchange

Dial (17070). Then press option 3 (fast test) then press option 1 (to say you are authorised). The press option 2 (ring back test). Then put the phone down.

You will get called back by the test facility within about 10 seconds, one of the bits of information given will be distance from exchange (in kilometres).

*The distance result may not be accurate if you have a 'DACs' fitted. It is not 100% accurate but does serve as a guide.

HTH

Neil


>> Edited by malman on Friday 23 July 16:06

[raceboy]

Quick thread hi-jack for my own means

Just about to sign up for some internet action, narrowed it down to BT Broadband, but just wondered how big 1Gb actually is in downloads, for domestic general internet useage and a few emails is this enough as the next step up seems massive (15Gb), but it's only £5 more a month

www.bt.com/btbroadband/ns_presale.jsp?targetSection=PRODUCT_COMPARISON

[pdV6]

For the uses you describe, 1Gb would seem to be plenty (unless "general domestic use" includes downloading enormous quantities of filth )

[plotloss]

raceboy said:

Quick thread hi-jack for my own means Just about to sign up for some internet action, narrowed it down to BT Broadband, but just wondered how big 1Gb actually is in downloads, for domestic general internet useage and a few emails is this enough as the next step up seems massive (15Gb), but it's only £5 more a month www.bt.com/btbroadband/ns_presale.jsp?targetSection=PRODUCT_COMPARISON

Rule of thumb:

You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much bandwidth.

Get 2mb

[raceboy]

pdV6 said:

For the uses you describe, 1Gb would seem to be plenty (unless "general domestic use" includes downloading enormous quantities of filth )

Obviously a certain amount of downloads would be filth, what else is there to download
If someone sends you massive emails I presume this counts of your total, just how big is 1Gb in real terms, how many 5 minute video clips, or desent quality emailed pictures would that be ??

[pdV6]

plotloss said:

Get 2mb

Unfortunately the choice looks like its between 512k with 1Gb download limit or 512k with 15Gb download limit.

I'd go for the 1Gb and upgrade if you regularly hit the limit.

[racegirl]

raceboy said:

Quick thread hi-jack for my own means Just about to sign up for some internet action, narrowed it down to BT Broadband, but just wondered how big 1Gb actually is in downloads, for domestic general internet useage and a few emails is this enough as the next step up seems massive (15Gb), but it's only £5 more a month www.bt.com/btbroadband/ns_presale.jsp?targetSection=PRODUCT_COMPARISON

Q15. What is a GB? Back to top


GB is short for gigabyte.

Everything that is transferred over a broadband connection is data or 'digital traffic' - whether it is in the form of songs, e-mails, web pages or pictures. And all digital traffic is made up of and measured in bits of data:

8 bits of data = 1 byte of data
1024 Bytes of data = 1KB (Kilo Byte)
1024 KB of data = 1MB (Mega Byte)
1024 MB of data = 1GB (Giga Byte)

An email containing the text used in this answer will be very small - typically 10KB. A webpage is a bit larger - typically 50-100KB although it depends on just how complex the page is.

A five minute song will be about 5MB, whereas a one hour reasonable quality video would be about 1GB.

So, you can see that 1GB is actually quite a large amount of data, and you can understand why 15GB or 30GB is more than enough for most people.


Q16. What can I do with a 15GB usage allowance? Back to top


All of the following:
Surfing the internet - 15 hours each day
Send 250 JPEG pictures by e-mail a week
Receive 250 JPEG pictures by e-mail a week
Download 250 music tracks a week
Download three hours of video clips a week
Listen to online radio for fifteen hours a week
Send 3000 emails a week with no attachments
Receive 3000 emails a week with no attachments

The total data transferred after doing all of the above activities is approximately 15GB.

As you can see, there is a great deal that can be done within a 15GB usage allowance. This is why we believe these limits will not affect the vast majority of people but everyone will benefit from the new lower prices.

[plotloss]

1Gb monthly limit you will easily and I really do mean EASILY smash in a day, best to get unmetered.

My pipe brings down about 1gb - 2gb daily. You may not see a use for it now, but you will as soon as you get it.

[pdV6]

raceboy said:

If someone sends you massive emails I presume this counts of your total

but define "massive" - a text based email really doesn't take up very much room, even if it would take an age to read it all; its the attachments that eat the space.

raceboy said:

just how big is 1Gb in real terms, how many 5 minute video clips, or desent quality emailed pictures would that be ??

How long is a piece of string??

Taking a random image I happen to have lying around, its true colour (24bit colour) and 2272x1704 pixels in size (will only fit on a 19" monitor at 50% size) and that weighs in at about 2Mb on disc. That's significantly larger than I'd be tempted to email to somebody unless they'd asked for it specially. 1Gb would need 500-odd of those before you'd run out of room.

For video clips, again its all down to the length, frame size and quality. As a random example, the arab drifting vid that was posted here last week is about 5Mb, so you'd get about 200 of those before running out of space...

[raceboy]

Slowly getting my head around this
I think 1Gb will be fine (although racegirl wants 15 so we'll probably get 15 ), we're both at work or asleep for 2/3 of the day so we can't download that much and I guess you can always upgrade
Next question......
Whats the difference between BT, and BT/Yahoo except £2 a month

www.btyahoo.com/broadband/features

[plotloss]

Unmetered, for the difference in cash you would be a fool not to.

60mb approx per album in MP3 format.

1Gb would see you knackered after 15 albums

15Gb would see you knackered after 100 albums (easily done)

Thats without every image on every web page you view being downloaded at least once.

Then emails etc etc.

[pdV6]

Oh, and get a firewall & virus checker

For freebies, try ZoneAlarm and AVG

[raceboy]

I guess I've not really come to terms with what to use the internet for, I wouldn't really think to download an album, I'd order it off Play.com, s'pose it's one way to make it pay for itself
So this unmetered connection, point me at a link, and I'll be quiet for a few minutes

[raceboy]

pdV6 said:

Oh, and get a firewall & virus checker

Got one of those with the PC something Scotish sounding McSomething or other,

[roop]

What I would say is avoid BT Broadband. Even the bods at BT complain about it. I've been with PIPEX Xtreme ADSL for 2 years now and it's been superb.

Matt - how on earth do you manage 1GB per day...? What do you use the ADSL service for...? Hosting msn.com or something...?

I give my connection a fair old pasting and so far today it's received 33MB. This includes two 10MB model helicopter movies and a big parts listing PDF (crashed it yesterday - oops).

I am moving out of this gaff on Friday and into my mum's temporarily. Have just ordered Virgin ADSL as it's absolutely no ties and no installation fee. Don't really care about the mail limits imposed as I use my own co-hosted mail server. It means if I'm only there 2 months it doesn't matter - no disconnection fee. Yet to see whether we'll get the full service as she's well out in the sticks. So far so good for ADSL though, which is a miracle - might only be 256k/bit though Let's hope we get the full 512k/bit.

Is 512/256 fast enough - I'd say so, yes. Plenty fast enough, unless you are running a server or want to rip down smut and ripped MP3's, err, I mean movie trailers and royalty free music.

[plotloss]

raceboy said:

I guess I've not really come to terms with what to use the internet for, I wouldn't really think to download an album, I'd order it off Play.com, s'pose it's one way to make it pay for itself So this unmetered connection, point me at a link, and I'll be quiet for a few minutes

www.bulldogdsl.com

£30 for a 2mb unmetered.

Never use sky, never go to blockbusters, never go to HMV etc etc etc again...

[roop]

Get yourself a decent Wireless Router with built in ADSL modem and Firewall. I've got a Belkin one that does 54MBit/s Wireless that's OK. About £70 all in. This way you can leave it downstairs plugged into your main phone socket and tucked out of the way and surf anywhere within about 50m radius of your house with a relevant wireless adapter on your PC.

Put the router upstairs by a window facing your local pub and the benefits are great. I listened to Radio Le Mans whilst sat at the pub as it was streamed over the web via my broadband connection and beamed wirelessly to my Pocket PC. Aaah, sweet technology.

Make sure you enable WEP or WPA encryption on the router and enable the firewall with UPnP (Universal Plug n Play) enabled. Job done...!