And ADSLmax had a fixed upper limit.

Also it was a major jump maximum of 2 Mbps to up to 8 Mbps.

So many more benefited.

In no way official but people need to remember Openreach is looking for millions of people on products, not spending money developing something that maybe 100,000 will pay more money for.

The message is clear if you want speed look at moving to an area with a Gigabit service.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Also it was a major jump maximum of 2 Mbps to up to 8 Mbps.

So many more benefited.

In no way official but people need to remember Openreach is looking for millions of people on products, not spending money developing something that maybe 100,000 will pay more money for.

The message is clear if you want speed look at moving to an area with a Gigabit service.

But also 20 to 80 - ADSL2+ to VDSL2 is an equivalent jump.

In reply to a post by MHC:

But also 20 to 80 - ADSL2+ to VDSL2 is an equivalent jump.

True, but the increase is usability is quite a lot less- when a web page loads faster than you can read it, there's no real point in going even faster.

Actually I suspect you will find many websites do not hit 100 Mbps, look at the cost of buying a site with Gigabit speeds available to it.

Many sites on the 1&1 and other hosts of the world have a share of 100 Mbps, and may even throttle people back to stop one ultrafast customer grabbing everything for a second or so.

With FTTC we are in the position we were when some people had 2 Mbps in 2000, i.e. finding content to saturate the line for a long period was a challenge.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Actually I suspect you will find many websites do not hit 100 Mbps

They don't really have to� I haven't really looked at the size of web pages, but even at 8Mbps a 1MByte web page will load in one second. That's faster than you can decide it's not the one you want and hit the back button

In reply to a post by billford:

True, but the increase is usability is quite a lot less- when a web page loads faster than you can read it, there's no real point in going even faster.

Depends of how many megabytes of scripting for your CPU to process.

Hook up a pentium 4 machine with a 100megabit network card, to a 50 Mbps connection, and run Windows 7 32bit SP1 and use IE10 and time a few page loads. Then swap the machine for a Core i5-third gen or similar, also with 100 megabit network, and 50 Mbps connection, and Windows 7 32bit SP1 and IE10.

There should be a dramatic increase in page load times on almost any modern site, nothing to do with the connection.

The SPDY protocol and GZIPping of sites has helped, but generally the WWW design is quite inefficient.

I agree with both of you.

for general web browsing, once you get to a few mbit, the main factor is latency not burst speed. With media heavy sites been an exception.
vod streaming type services is now mainstream, for these 15mbit or so is probably the minimum to comfortably handle these services in high quality. 15mbit on adsl2+ is only for a very small minority.

2mbit to 8mbit on adsl was a configuration change, so someone with a poor line on a fixed 2mbit service stayed with that poor line on adsl max, adsl max was simply uncapping the line.

adsl to vdsl however is a technology change with part of the copper local loop switched to fibre, and in some cases it can be a huge chunk of the line, in my case my copper loop length was reduced to about 300-350m (200m direct) from about 4km (1.65km direct). Ironically I managed to get on the shorter E side this time round with loop length of 2.8km, my area has 2 routes, thats BT openreach for you, I have the short route on vdsl, some poor soul probably stuck on 4km E side on adsl and been told cant be switched.

So in reality in terms of real term speed increases vs marketed speed increases adsl to vdsl should be a massive jump for most people. there also seems to be a marked improvement in stability as well, as those with publicised problems on adsl such as myself, ignition and kwikbreaks have much improved stability on vdsl.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

So in reality in terms of real term speed increases vs marketed speed increases adsl to vdsl should be a massive jump for most people. there also seems to be a marked improvement in stability as well, as those with publicised problems on adsl such as myself, ignition and kwikbreaks have much improved stability on vdsl.

I agree, stability on VDSL is markedly improved over ADSL - even with the increase in speed.

VDSL/FTTC is a "no brainer" for anyone on ADSL who can get it. Sadly there is no 'entry level' pricing that gives ADSL speeds (aka 8 to 10megabit) with higher reliability, and maybe higher upload. That would increase takeup, but probably fill up cabinets !

On my older ADSL2+ I find websites, email, video chat, streaming online with BBCi player, Netflix and gaming online is no real different to my current VDSL but the only big difference is uploading video/photos on you tubes and facebook is lots quicker than ADSL2+.

Edited by adslmax (Sat 22-Feb-14 16:26:09)