Better ping

Yes.

The upload on Standard and Premium is identical. Pro takes about 3Mbps off your download speed in order to provide the faster uploads, and if the line doesn't get a download sync well over 10Mbps on Standard (in the first few days) or Premium then it won't get over 1.3Mbps upload on Pro anyway as it just won't be good enough.

It isn't unofficial. It happens to everyone, while the DLM is checking the best settings for the line.

Oh, I didn't notice that Standard has the same upload speed as Premium.
With estimated download speeds I see no point paying for premium then.
It is 1.3 for both BE and O2.
The price is almost identical, £1 difference. If BE's ping is better I would go for BE, unless The clamped down on fair usage which I am going to read right now.

Edited by astra_lestat (Sun 26-Jul-09 13:18:29)

I just read BE's 'Fair and acceptable usage policy'. It is what you call T & Cs, correct? Frankly, I didn't see anything draconian, such as 30G per month, or shaping P2P/usenet traffic. O2 does mention something like 100G per month.
However, I am totally inexperience in this kind of things and I could miss something important or read a wrong document.
What do you think?

The Fair & Acceptable Use Policy will form part of the Terms & Conditions (Ts&Cs) you sign up to - other parts will deal with more obviously contractual matters, such as early cancellation, contact length etc.

The Fair Use Policy is the one where you expect to see details of over usage penalties.

There is no limit whatsoever on O2, any more than there is on Be. Just a few people speculating that one might be introduced. They do that every 3 months.

Have you read MKD's O2 Be comparison?

The lower pings/latency on Be are not available on the Value product, nor the noise margin setting, though maybe through support. Lower latency is basically irrelevant unless you are an interactive battle-gamer. For normal users Interleaved is better as the error correction with it vastly reduces the number of re-transmissions needed due to errors. So for most people interleaved speeds up the downloads compared to Fast Path.

The two other salient ponts in my mind are O2 provides email if you are daft enough to use ISP-based email, but Be don't, and you have the initial 30-day getout on O2 that virtually no-one on LLU uses so far as I know.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Have you read MKD's O2 Be comparison?

I read it but not in details, just scanned for key features. Now I read it properly (sorry for being lazy).
Both ISPs have an accent on interleaving, unless you ask BE and they upgrade you to FastPath.
I am not familiar with ADSL terminology. I guess I have to update my CCNA a bit

I just checked my ping/latency via http://www.speedtest.net/ and it is 21ms. I believe it is a very good latency for battle games such as UT2004 that I used to play.
Would it differ a lot when I move to ADSL domain? Whould there be a big difference between interleaving BE/O2 and FastPath BE?

In reply to a post by astra_lestat:

I just checked my ping/latency via http://www.speedtest.net/ and it is 21ms. I believe it is a very good latency for battle games such as UT2004 that I used to play.
Would it differ a lot when I move to ADSL domain? Whould there be a big difference between interleaving BE/O2 and FastPath BE?

If you seriously intend to go back to that game then I think Be for you, but you might have to go for the "Unlimited" product rather than the "Value" to get Fast path. I honestly don't know. Maybe someone will tell us if you can get it on value by ringing support, or you could ring yourself.

Otherwise I feel all the advantages for most users are on O2's side. In particular many people find a way of getting the discount for associating the broadband account with an O2 mobile phone. It doesn't need to be your phone or even the same address, as long as you have the owner's permission and can get them to tell you the authorisation code to enter into the O2 web site when you put in the number. (The code is sent as a txt message to the phone).

I fished out an old rubbish Samsung and used it. I top it up by £10 once a quarter and nearly zeroise my BT calls bill. (500 free minutes from my post code area in month 1 of 3, use the £10 Mon-Fri daytime in the other two months - BT free Evenings and Weekends plan).

Others just build up a load of credit on the phone, that they will use when their existing contract with another provider expires.

OK...lots of things to think about.
Thank you very much for your help.

Post deleted by Sadoldman

Thanks Sadoldman