Sounds like you've had a good experience, I've just read a lot of recent reviews which haven't filled me with confidence I have to say

People moan on the internet... that's the reviews you read.

People don't complain/post when everything is peachy.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Multi-threaded downloading is a bit more efficient but that shouldn't account for more than a couple of percentage points faster.

I'm not entirely sure how the tbb speed test actually does the 'HTTPx6 speed test but I doubt it is actually multi-threaded. More likely it is what it says and it uses 6 separate http connections which, given buffer management on a per-connection basis on the client operating system, can have a very significant impact - that's why they do it. A disparity is most likely to show up problems with local os or router configuration. Higher latency connections will also show a disparity since tcp window scaling is latency dependant again on a per-connection basis.

NOTE: Multi-threading would only be more efficient if each received packet required a lot of processing and for speed tests that is simply not the case.

In reply to a post by Hamster1962:

As I've said before on here, I changed to 152MB Virgin last August, came from a pretty crummy BT 9MB.

Never regret it for one minute.

H

I went from 5mb ADSL with Zen to VM's 50mb service - to be honest the youtube buffering was a joke so I cancelled and stayed on ADSL - I've since learnt it was probably my fault for using VM's rubbish DNS servers

Now waiting for Openreach to make a decision about my under review cab

In reply to a post by Daemon66:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Multi-threaded downloading is a bit more efficient but that shouldn't account for more than a couple of percentage points faster.

I'm not entirely sure how the tbb speed test actually does the 'HTTPx6 speed test but I doubt it is actually multi-threaded.

It is six simultaneous downloads that's what I believe most people refer to as 'multi-threaded download'. What do you mean by that term?

which, given buffer management on a per-connection basis on the client operating system, can have a very significant impact - that's why they do it.

They only do it for one reason - to show up network problems. There are a lot of potential causes and some could be on the LAN but having gone through several routers over the last couple of years(*) I don't think LAN is likely (at least with later Windows versions. Perhaps Apple or Linux might have RWIN problems).

Edit: Actually I suppose it could be the fault of the VM router since I've never tried one of those. So I guess all I can say is that modern versions of Windows using a wired LAN and a typical off-the shelf domestic router should not exhibit this behaviour in my opinion

http://superuser.com/questions/261663/why-is-multi-t...
and from the TBB FAQ:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/flash-spe...

Anyway I think it's safe to say that the speed test result I was talking about is not a good one. Whether it's the poster's computer, their LAN, their router or the WAN. Something somewhere is not working as it should

(*)My previous ISP started to offer IPv6 and it took a while to find a router than offered dual-stack and was stable. Ironically two months after finally finding out I had to switch ISPs. C'est la via.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 16-Feb-15 14:55:32)

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

In reply to a post by Hamster1962:

As I've said before on here, I changed to 152MB Virgin last August, came from a pretty crummy BT 9MB.

Never regret it for one minute.

H

I went from 5mb ADSL with Zen to VM's 50mb service - to be honest the youtube buffering was a joke so I cancelled and stayed on ADSL - I've since learnt it was probably my fault for using VM's rubbish DNS servers

That is very unlikely. DNS requests are not sent very often. DNS is the internet equivalent of a telephone book and much as humans only look a telephone number up once before dialling computers only look a name up once before opening the connection. A slow DNS server could cause a delay(*) before a video started playing but once the stream is running there will be no need for any more DNS requests. Not unless YouTube is really, really badly written.

(*)And even then probably only the first video you play. Most OSes and some routers cache DNS queries and depending on the domain might not need to repeat the request again for several hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live#DNS_records

In reply to a post by bernado:

Sounds like you've had a good experience, I've just read a lot of recent reviews which haven't filled me with confidence I have to say

I think that as with most ISPs most people most of the time have a perfectly satisfactory experience. For every moaner there are probably a hundred people happily doing what they want without a care in the world. In addition with the high speeds of a modern connection things have to be pretty bad before anyone would really notice. For instance the message I replied to - someone with a 152Mb/s service only getting 30Mb/s on a single-threaded download - would probably not be noticed by most people as it's more than enough for most services available today.

The only persistent rumours about VM that I've heard are that the network can suffer from jitter which upsets gamers and the customer service is horrible (which is hardly peculiar to VM, sadly). At least with VM you should get the headline connection speed they promise. It's a bit of a lottery with anything using BT's local loop.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 16-Feb-15 15:09:06)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by bernado:

Sounds like you've had a good experience, I've just read a lot of recent reviews which haven't filled me with confidence I have to say

I think that as with most ISPs most people most of the time have a perfectly satisfactory experience. For every moaner there are probably a hundred people happily doing what they want without a care in the world. ....

I think that's right, people are far more inclined to report bad service than good, however plenty of people took the time to give my current provider Xilo good reviews so it can work both ways.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I think that as with most ISPs most people most of the time have a perfectly satisfactory experience. For every moaner there are probably a hundred people happily doing what they want without a care in the world. In addition with the high speeds of a modern connection things have to be pretty bad before anyone would really notice. For instance the message I replied to - someone with a 152Mb/s service only getting 30Mb/s on a single-threaded download - would probably not be noticed by most people as it's more than enough for most services available today.

The only persistent rumours about VM that I've heard are that the network can suffer from jitter which upsets gamers and the customer service is horrible (which is hardly peculiar to VM, sadly). At least with VM you should get the headline connection speed they promise. It's a bit of a lottery with anything using BT's local loop.

I agree with your point about 30Mb/s being fine for most purposes. In normal use (extensive HD streaming on multiple devices + PC and X-Box game play - all concurrent) I have no issue with the service.
Steam downloads do take longer during peak.

The evidence definitely points to the VM network since I get full rate single thread early morning and 30Mb/s in the evening.
I believe this is by design (from a VM perspective) to allow a reasonable experience even when the local segment is pushed to the limit.

In reply to a post by Eeeps:

I believe this is by design (from a VM perspective) to allow a reasonable experience even when the local segment is pushed to the limit.

Seems reasonable. My ISP (Plusnet) claim to be able to do something similar but that they only do it under 'abnormal' conditions:

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/ab...

But they've also said that they can throttle certain protocols in order to protect your own experience which sounds more like QoS:

"For example, when a broadband connection has reached bandwith capacity, Plusnet give streaming games and video high priority on that particular connection to ensure they don't buffer or lag. Downloading has the lowest priority because it isn't as time-sensitive and can still be performed with less bandwidth, even though it slows the process down."

Which is odd.

A regular slow down at busy times is understandable in a residential product. I complained about PN's recent issues simply because for the previous ten months they had been perfect. As an engineer a change in performance is more concerning than a service that was merely 'okay' to start with

Edited by Andrue (Mon 16-Feb-15 18:47:30)