Questions on O2 and other things...

Hi, so after leaving the evil Virgin Media we're going to the good side with O2 (again).

We'll be going for up to 20mb service, and they estimate we'll be getting 7-8mb.

Questions:

1) How accurate is the estimate? If someone is with O2, would you be kind enough to go to their website, see how much they estimate your download speed and then see if that matches to your actual download speed? If so, kudos and ookies to you.

2) I assume for the moment the estimate is right. If so...

a) Can we watch a 720p youtube video without it affecting latency (one person can watch the video and another can play games without getting lag.)

b) Can watch BBC Iplayer HD without it affecting lag?

c) Can download something without it affecting lag?

d) And also how much would a Youtube video, (320p and 720p) use up? I heard 720p uses up about 4 mb of your connection?

3) Will I notice in difference in speed when I just surf the web? With virgin before all the problems started occuring I had 30mbps. With O2 I'll get 8mbps, will I notice a difference in loading webpages and loading videos.

Many Thanks.

If you are returning to o2 after some time away make sure you look at the the traffic management details:
http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/trafficmanagement.jsp as the packages all changed last year and are now quite different to what went before in that regard.

I would put my number in their estimator but they have the annoying If you use our availability checker, we may use your number to call you. clause on it - as I'm an existing customer I really don't want to be bothered with their sales calls

As for the rest of the questions, I'm on one of their older unmanaged packages so can't really comment how the new ones perform.

In reply to a post by cosmicflame1:

1) How accurate is the estimate? If someone is with O2, would you be kind enough to go to their website, see how much they estimate your download speed and then see if that matches to your actual download speed?

O2 does not seem to have a availability checker at the mo', unless you can provide a link.

Anyway, their estimate is based on BT's unreliable database history of your phone line, which presumably is non-existent. Best to get a postcode check here: http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.postcode . You'll never know a good estimate until you get ADSL connected and can read off your stats.

I dont understand lol.

Are they saying that from 4PM to Midnight you'll only be recieving 0.25 meg?

But it says this is only for P2P, and am I right in saying gaming -MW3- for exmaple, uses peer to peer? So won't this mean that from 4PM to Midnight my game will be practically un-playable or am I mistaken?

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.postcode .

Duff link.

Gaming is rarely P2P. Downloading the game or updates to it may be.

YouTube should be OK.

I guess you are looking at the All Rounder? If you look at my O2 tips page there is a copy of another table on an O2 page that can't be linked to easily. (It is reached during a "session" which is unique to the visitor). Look in O2 Support >> Home broadband >> Set up and Technical info >> Traffic management >> What are the technical details of your Traffic Management for my source.

There's a bit more info there.

Sounds a risky move for you! Which exchange is it?

1. The checkers are estimates, so for one person they can be spot on, and another they can be way off. All the xDSL providers take their core data from the same source, so until you get the line running it is very much just a ballpark number

2. If you mean can you watch a HD stream and it not affect lag, then you will not get that from any xDSL provider. You need a connection that is several times faster, i.e. to the point that a HD stream is a small part of the link

Downloads are the same, ie. gamers generally do not share connections well.

Webpage loads are a lot to do with the DNS lookup time, and you can change this yourself. If you are looking at graphic heavy pages, e.g. ones with 1280 x 720 images on them, then you'll notice a slow down (unless VM was performing badly) but normal websites, the difference on a 5Meg versus 20Meg is minimal due to the way a webpage is delivered.

Don't understand it. It was verbatim URL led from here: http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.Postco...

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Don't understand it. It was verbatim URL led from here: http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.Postco...

Uh uh . You messed up the "copy" from the URL bar then.

If you look back at it, the new one has "?URL=&SP_NAME=a%20service%20provider&VERSION=29&MS=E&CAP=no&AEA=Y" forllowing the word "postcode".

Virgin Media Cable or ADSL? If ADSL posting your router stats would allow a speed estimate to be given.

atm virgin unfortunetely. What about a 320p video? Will that effect latency?

I don't see hoe.

If you look at it , my 1st link is the what you get when you click on "Proceed to the postcode checker" of my 2nd link. Take a look.

Hmmmm Interesting!

All I can think of at the moment is that in some way the non-working one does not appear on any DNS servers. How that could be I have no idea.

Not DNS! Both have same Domain (FQDN); only the page addys differ.

So a 360p Vid won't effect latency? Sorry, it's just that there seem to be many conversations going on at once xD

In reply to a post by cosmicflame1:

So a 360p Vid won't effect latency?

Who said that? Not me!! Not anyone! But then I'm not sure it's answerable.

It is not answerable in a definitive sense.

A 360p video may be encoded at 500 Kilo bits per second (Kbps) or it may be encoded at 4 Mega bits per second (4Mbps).

Also the delivery method used by a site affects it, e.g. if it sends data in bursts up to line speed then it will intermittently affect latency.

This is not an ISP thing, more a factor of how TCP data is affected on a connection.

Are youtube videos all encoded in the same way? I presume not...