Help me understand max!

Sorry.. I have read LOADS of posts about max but none really answer my simple questions..

Will max benefit me and will it cause me probs at peak times etc.. ?

Currently on Pipex fixed 1mg line {that's the max I can get apparently}. No probs at all.
Primary use: online gaming.

Sam Knows says I can possible acheive 2.5mg. but.. I'm concerned I'll start having problems.

Stats:
Line attn: 57.5db down 31.5db up
Noise margin 21.4db down 26.0db up

More speed will not improve your online gaming.

It will mean you can download patches or maps faster.

But you will suffer some disconnections at first.

If you are happy with the download speed then leave it.

I would second that. AOL are probabaly correct in refusing max to any customer who can't get 2Mb/s.

Virtually all lines become "marginal" on max. Making a long line stable is harder than a short line - you could find it rips along at 2Mb/s or more with no problems but you may also find you can still only get 1Mb/s reliably with constant disconnects if it happens to sync higher. Higher speeds only really benefit downloading and won't improve surfing (or probably gaming but I'm not a gamer) noticeably.

If it aint broke, don't fix it...... especially with Pipex's reputation in the customer support department.

I am still on Solo2000 which works mostly as advertised..... no way I am upgrading to Max.

S.

In reply to:

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It will mean you can download patches or maps faster.

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That is is one benefit. Max has one advantage over other implementations of ADSL: it provides considerably more upstream speed at a considerably cheaper price than the alternatives. This is immensely valuable when you rely on a VPN which only operates at the upstream speed in both directions.

There is a serious purpose in higher connection speed. If several people (small office or people who share their home lives with others) use the share the same connection, it reduces their inevitable contention (contention on their own services, nothing to do with anything at the exchange or ISP). A connection running at 512Kbs will show considerable degradation in performance with two users compared with one (depending, of course on what both are doing). 1-2Mbs will reduce this problem and it will hardly be noticeable with 6+Mbs.