Shall I Upgrade To A 1meg Broadband

[Keikan]

38 pounds for 1mb connection!!!!???

[mark845]

Originally posted by lynx@14 November 2003 - 01:54
What exactly do you mean by a free upgrade?
The hardware is exactly the same, both at your end and at their end.
All they do is change something in the software.

The question you need to ask yourself is do you want to pay £38/month (does that include vat?), or can you get it cheaper. For example, Pipex is £33.99/month (inc vat) but has a startup fee, worth checking if you can drop the startup fee if you've already got broadband - they want YOUR business.

the up grade is free coz they have to pay bt to change the pakage im on, i think now on home 500, its just like upgradeing the line or sumit like that

[zinc1]

I'm on 512kbs cable broadband and have been for the past 9 months.I wanted to upgrade it to 1 meg spoke to a few friends and they told me not to do it.

Some of my mates did upgrade and it didn't make much difference with the downloads because you are still downloading from a majority of people with 56k dialupsespecially in the likes of kazaa.

If you do want to try it go ahead and ask for a moinths trial and see for your self if it makes any difference.

[lynx]

Originally posted by mark845+14 November 2003 - 11:36--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (mark845 @ 14 November 2003 - 11:36)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-lynx@14 November 2003 - 01:54
What exactly do you mean by a free upgrade?
The hardware is exactly the same, both at your end and at their end.
All they do is change something in the software.

The question you need to ask yourself is do you want to pay £38/month (does that include vat?), or can you get it cheaper. For example, Pipex is £33.99/month (inc vat) but has a startup fee, worth checking if you can drop the startup fee if you&#39;ve already got broadband - they want YOUR business.

the up grade is free coz they have to pay bt to change the pakage im on, i think now on home 500, its just like upgradeing the line or sumit like that [/b][/quote]
They don&#39;t have to do any hardware changes or line upgrades. Once you are connected, changing speeds is all done with software - If you are in Central London you can get 6mbps in the evenings/weekends but that drops to 512kbps during the day, costs around £100(+vat) per month from Bulldog Primtime. They don&#39;t have a little man switching it over at 6pm and 8am. Bulldog also provide 2mbps constant for £38(+vat), but again Central London only.

That&#39;s why I was saying that £38/month is expensive (if that&#39;s excluding vat the total is £44.65, VERY expensive), the &#39;free upgrade&#39; bit is total bollocks as there&#39;s nothing to upgrade.

Isn&#39;t Home 500 one of BT&#39;s products anyway? Why would they have to pay themselves to do almost nothing in the first place? And if you are with BT, you will get locked in to yet another 12 month contract, most providers have only one month contracts these days.

Get good, impartial information here, don&#39;t just rely on what your current isp tells you.

[Wolfmight]

i got a regulare 384d/l 128u/l connection and i can still get 300kb/s on a single download sometimes.

[kazaaliterock]

Originally posted by boyzeee@13 November 2003 - 20:52
ive seen was 150kb/sec but i used to hit 110/115 with the 600k package so the difference isnt that much

how do u get 110 kB/s w/ 600k?????? isnt the max speed 600k is 75kB/s and usually u only about 90 % of the max speed.

[yNd aznbnet]

Just make sure it&#39;s a full helix connection as opposed to a half helix. If it&#39;s half helix, your 1mbit downstream will be crippled when your upstream is being tapped out.

[lynx]

Originally posted by Wolfmight@14 November 2003 - 13:22
i got a regulare 384d/l 128u/l connection and i can still get 300kb/s on a single download sometimes.

Why not 384kb/s?

[boyzeee]

Originally posted by kazaaliterock+14 November 2003 - 13:23--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (kazaaliterock @ 14 November 2003 - 13:23)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-boyzeee@13 November 2003 - 20:52
ive seen was 150kb/sec but i used to hit 110/115 with the 600k package so the difference isnt that much

how do u get 110 kB/s w/ 600k?????? isnt the max speed 600k is 75kB/s and usually u only about 90 % of the max speed. [/b][/quote]
the readings in kazaa can be deceptive to say the least, it used to "peak" at 110/115 but this is probably due to it buffering and giving false readings but i always (with good sources) maintained a steady 90/100 kbs on the 600k and get between 120/130 kbs "peaking" at 150kbs with the 1mb connection which as i said is not a huge difference from the 600k, it depends whether or not you think the extra £10 is justified for the extra 30ish kbs

[lynx]

Seems to be a little confusion between b&#39;s and B&#39;s here. There are 8 b(it)s to a B(yte). If you are talking about data rates in bytes, you should use a B, if in bits use a b.
Note, the k/K is a modifier to the b/B, so it takes the same case, ie kb or KB but never kB or Kb.

It is also very confusing to mix them in the same context, especially if you are using the wrong b/B.

Theoretically, 512kb/s is the same as 64KB/s but that does not allow for protocol headers, so the actual maximum is about 60KB/s. Double that to a 1mb connection and you get a maximum of about 120KB/s.

Whether it is worth it depends on what you are using your connection for. If it is just kazaa downloads the answer could well be no, if it is from more reliable sources a faster connection could well be of benefit.