Question re speeds

Guys, I'm very new to this concept of speeds etc., although I have used the internet for some time, I've always taken speed for granted and assumed what you get is what you get, so I would appreciate some advice, please........

I live near Hemel Hempstead - does where I live effect the speed? If so how can I compare what I'm getting with other people in this area?

How much variation in speed is there? Obviously varies according to time of day - evenings / nights busy etc., but can I expect my speed to drop by X%

Is there a great variation according to ISP and if so, presumably if I change my ISP (Orange obviously), presumeably I lose my email address?

Grateful for any advice, regards Wolfie

attached is the results of my latest test, which doesnt seem to have varied much in the last couple of hours ..

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/117891051482211229548.html

That's a pretty shocking speed test! Don't know what speed broadband you're meant to be on, but those speeds you're getting there is not even 3 times as fast as old dial up, to put it into perspective, 2mb broadband is around 40 times faster than dial up!

Speeds can and do vary depending on your ISP and some exchanges are more congested for some ISP's than others.You can get terrible speeds with one ISP, switch and speeds will be much better, depends how many people the ISP is trying to squeeze onto their network. Don't know how you could find out what other people near you are getting, your best bet would probably be to ask around the neighbours and find out their ISP and what sort of speeds they get........mind I doubt most will have a clue!

I think for just about any ISP you will get some speed drop during the peak time evenings (though what we're getting with Orange currently is below the realms of acceptablilty)when more people are on, again some are worse than others it's a good idea to read different forums here for other ISP's if you're thinking of moving to a different one. Also yes you would lose your orange email, best thing I found is to ditch ISP email and use something like hotmail or Gmail as you keep that for as long as you want. whoever your ISP is....I'd recommend Gmail as you can set that up in Outlook Express, new hotmail accounts don't let you do that anymore (unless you pay I think).

Edited by notawhizzkid (Sat 12-May-07 19:37:56)

I left Orange last august my old Freeserve address is still open although i dont use it and didnt for a long time before i left was full of spam and totally useless i used gmail, your Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange email whatever you have will not close if you use it reguarly after you have left orange but like notawhizzkid said open a gmail account and you never have to change it again

Good luck