Moving house, lot's of options. I need help choosing.

Hello, I'm moving to an area with a lot more choice in terms of broadband something I'm excited about, but also worried I make the wrong choice. I download heavy amounts, some on bittorrent, some not.

The main priority for me is stability as I do a lot of online gaming. Something I've been having problems with on my current connection.

This is the exchange. http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/MROLD

and Virgin fibre optic is available in my area.

I'm stuck between Virgin and BE, I like the idea of fibre optic and moving away from the instability of ADSL, but at the same time Virgins traffic shaping worries me greatly.

Do you know the current phone number of the premises? If so, look it up on the BT Wholesale and Infinity checkers.

That might be another option against Virgin.

As for Be, that allows you to have interleaving turned off, and also set your target noise margin lower if you have a stable line. Latency from Oldham to most gaming sites should be 25ms or less with interleaving and under 20ms without it. Pretty consistently.

Unless raw speed is vital, I would go to them.

Yes, I do.

BT Infinity
You can get fibre optic broadband with speeds of up to 40Mb now. 30.2Mb download
6.6Mb upload

and for the wholesale test.

Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial check on your address indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line speed up to 1Mbps. However due to the length of your line the 1Mbps service may require an engineer visit who will, where possible, supply the broadband service.

I guess BE is out of the question then?

That Infinity test is almost always much lower than the actual. For example mine says 28.9/6.4Mbps. I get full speed, 39992/10000kbps.

My latency on FTTC. IDNet probably wouldn't suit you due to the low allowances, and BT may not be as smooth - plus your own effect on things as I'm a light user. You need some advice on how latency is on BT and Virgin cable.

The 1Mbps estimate might rule out Be, or you may have stopped reading when you got that far. Did it say anything at all about ADSL etc. though? Mine says the same, but then continues.

Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial test on your line indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line speed up to 1Mbps. However due to the length of your line the 1Mbps service may require an engineer visit who will, where possible, supply the broadband service.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL Max broadband line speed of 3Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 2Mbps and 5.5Mbps.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 3Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 2.5Mbps and 6.5Mbps. Our test also indicates that your line could support an estimated ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line speed of 500Kbps and downstream line speed of 1.5Mbps; typically the downstream speed would range between 500Kbps and 2.5Mbps.

On O2 LLU, the same network as Be, I got 5.5Mbps untweaked and a steady 24ms latency on Interleaved. On Be all except Value you can get Interleaving turned off if the line is clean enough.

The only way to know Be connection speeds would be if you could find the sync, attenuation and noise margin figures down and up from an existing broadband there. If that is feasible, you might find this page useful.

Further to my previous post, see what the Be line checker says for that number as well.

"Our check also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 2Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 1Mbps and 3.5Mbps.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a fibre technology with an estimated WBC FTTC Broadband where consumers have received downstream line speed of 30.2 Mbps and upstream line speed of 6.6 Mbps."

Oh and as for BT Infinity, I read that they have a FUP of 300GB which could be troublesome with a connection so fast.

Virgin is honestly looking like the better option right now. I've been reading up on it and as far I can tell the only traffic management is for P2P and 60GB upload limit between peak times? I can live with that, aslong as the connection is as reliable as the claims. Your thoughts?

I haven't a clue about latency on Virgin Cable sorry. You might be best to ask in the Virgin Cable forum.

Be is at the moment true unlimited.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 22-Feb-11 08:54:11)