Broadband or ADSL

[FEBA]

Broadband has just reached my rural habitat. I would appreciate some advice on a good provider and what speed to go for. I am now being bombarded with junk mail about it.
Thanks
FEBA

[SoftTop]

FEBA,

The stuff following is applicable to UK users.

It depends on what you intend using the BB feed for. If it's going to be surfing/downloading, then the "headline" figure quoted for ADSL is the DOWNLOAD max transfer rate.

The "A" part of ADSL means it's asymmetric which simply translates into you getting a much faster download (into your PC) rate than upload (out of your PC) rate. e.g. most UK ADSL services will have 512kb/s download and 256kb/s upload. I've just gone for a 1Mb/s upgrade and the upload remains at 256kb/s.

What that means to me is that downloading is approximately twice as fast as it was (assuming that the source material is coming from someone with a much better upload figure than mine) and that web pages load in about half the time. Video streaming is less likely to stutter as it plays as well.

The only downside that my kids have noticed when they play on-line games is that the ping (time taken to send a data packet from my PC to a remote PC/server and get a reply) hasn't reduced by very much (we reckon about 10%) and that seems to be because the upload bandwidth is still at 256kb.

The other factor to consider with ADSL is the contention ratio. That is normally 50:1 for domestic services which means that you could be sharing your access to the network at your local BT exchange with up to 49 other people at any given time. In reality it's not as bad as it sounds because unless a lot of those other users are also hogging bandwidth by leaving PCs running with downloads of very large files in progress, statistically its unlikely to have any marked effect on how you percieve the "quickness" of your connection.

You can get symmetric DSL connections but you'll pay a premium for them.

I have no experience of cable connections and therefore can't comment on their symmetry or contention ratios.

The BT website used to have a list of ISPs that use them as the network provider and customer access company, it would be worth looking at http://www.bt.com/broadband to see if that list is still there and you can then have a trawl through the ISPs listed to see if they provide the sort of service at the price you are willing to pay.

Hope that lot helps.

Cheers

ST

[DeepC]

Pipex Xtreme 512 SolotoGo for me. No problems so far (1 year) except a dodgy modem provided with the package. Satisfactorily sorted by Pipex. No limits on downloads.

DeepC

[amanoffewwords]

I always recommend plus.net (http://www.plus.net) to my customers - they haven't vandalised my home yet so they must be good. Excellent customer services, good choice of service, good prices etc.

Having said that I'm on Telewest and they are :ok: :ok: :ok:

Cheers
Charles

[SoftTop]

Pipex have been excellent and their helpdesk (limited hours right enough) have always been very helpful. Only problems with network over the past two years have been down to BT exchange niggles which were sorted out a year or so back.

They used to have a page on their website that showed their network performance in terms of availability along with delay stats across their global links. That seems to have disappeared at the same time as they revamped their website.

They do have a network "problems" page that shows relatively current details of any problems they may be having with internet, mail, news etc. (see http://www.pipex.net/cgi-bin/nsus-display-2.pl?site=PIPEX&section=all).

I suppose it all depends on how much hand-holding you need.

ST

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

FEBA,

Just a word of warning, once you go down the path of Broadband, it is a one way street and you can never go back to dialup. :eek:

About a hour after Broadband, you will be wondering how you ever put up Dialup. :ok:

Enjoy the Speed,

Richard

[Mac the Knife]

Lucky sods.

ADSL is available in Cape Town but slow, very expensive and has a 3GB cap.

Dunno if we'll ever get affordable broadband :{

AWA (Africa Wins Again)

[R T Jones]

Pipex is definatlky an isp that i have really been pleased with. Very few outages, static ip for £19.99.

[amanoffewwords]

Might not mean much but plus.net does score higher in terms of speed, reliability and customer service compared to Pipex (see adslguide.org (http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp?pipex=ON&plusnet=ON&cmp_action=Compare) )