In reply to a post by jelv:

Upload speed options depend upon whether your exchange is 20CN or has been upgraded to 21CN. If 21CN you can get upload of up to around 1Mb depending upon how far you are from the exchange. If you are on 20CN your only option is to upgrade to Max Premium which will give you an upload of 832 kbps - Plusnet charge £7.83 per month (which is pretty much what BT charge them) for this option. The other advantage of Max Premium is that it gives you a higher priority on the BT network.

looks like exchange is not 21CN. I knew moving into the country was a bad idea

So without paying the extra for Max Prem what upload speeds can I expect, is it really bad?

It doesn't quite work like that. I'm not entirely sure of every little detail of the process. RobertoS will have a better understanding at this...
The way I understand it is that each ISP pays for x amount of backhaul. They then share this with x amount of customers...

BT may buy say for example a 1gbps link and share this with 1000 people.
ADSL24 may buy a 1gbps link and share it with 100 people.

I'd say that was a fair description for the OP's purposes .

Just to clarify a bit, the link referred to is between the BT Wholesale backhaul and the ISP's routers at their end. The exchange size is usually less relevant.

The way the calculation is done is on the lines of so many kbps throughput per customer, and multiplying that by the actual or expected number of customers. It can be as low as 150kbps for the likes of "out of area" Sky/TT/O2, to several hundred kbps for decent ISPs. LLU Sky/TT/O2 of course are at the high end.

Those sound like very low numbers, but you have to think what proportion of customers are online at any point in time, and what they are doing.

Streaming on a decent connection is significant, as it far exceeeds the budget figure for the customer. So the Olympics could be very dodgy, when a lot of people will be doing that. Browsing doesn't use much, and most page changes only take a fraction of a second. (Most of the time is your browser working out how to present it). Then a fair pause before you move to another. Gaming uses very little, but many accesses in quick succession. Apart from game updates, which are streaming.

This is why P2P gets throttled by many ISPs. Let's assume a budgetted figure of 300kbps per punter.

100 people downloading at 15Mbps = 1,500,000kbs being used continuously. With no P2P that supports 5000 punters browsing.

On Max its up to 448Kbps, so speed tests in the 350 to 370Kbps area.

Plenty for gaming with voice.

Andrew

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It doesn't quite work like that. I'm not entirely sure of every little detail of the process. RobertoS will have a better understanding at this...
The way I understand it is that each ISP pays for x amount of backhaul. They then share this with x amount of customers...

BT may buy say for example a 1gbps link and share this with 1000 people.
ADSL24 may buy a 1gbps link and share it with 100 people.

I'd say that was a fair description for the OP's purposes .

Just to clarify a bit, the link referred to is between the BT Wholesale backhaul and the ISP's routers at their end. The exchange size is usually less relevant.

The way the calculation is done is on the lines of so many kbps throughput per customer, and multiplying that by the actual or expected number of customers. It can be as low as 150kbps for the likes of "out of area" Sky/TT/O2, to several hundred kbps for decent ISPs. LLU Sky/TT/O2 of course are at the high end.

Those sound like very low numbers, but you have to think what proportion of customers are online at any point in time, and what they are doing.

Streaming on a decent connection is significant, as it far exceeeds the budget figure for the customer. So the Olympics could be very dodgy, when a lot of people will be doing that. Browsing doesn't use much, and most page changes only take a fraction of a second. (Most of the time is your browser working out how to present it). Then a fair pause before you move to another. Gaming uses very little, but many accesses in quick succession. Apart from game updates, which are streaming.

This is why P2P gets throttled by many ISPs. Let's assume a budgetted figure of 300kbps per punter.

100 people downloading at 15Mbps = 1,500,000kbs being used continuously. With no P2P that supports 5000 punters browsing.

thanks for the explanation but how do I know or decide which is the best ISP for my needs? or is it just a guessing game?

I'd say it all comes down to the factors about which you can do nothing, ie distance from the exchange and quality of the copper on that distance. Where we are (SG8 5RT) the lines are as bad as tin cans and string. Have you been able to do a speed test or estimate masquerading as the current phone number of the property?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I'd say it all comes down to the factors about which you can do nothing, ie distance from the exchange and quality of the copper on that distance. Where we are (SG8 5RT) the lines are as bad as tin cans and string. Have you been able to do a speed test or estimate masquerading as the current phone number of the property?

haven't been able to do a speed test as the old tenants are still there. Is my best option just to go with BT for phone and BB and pray that one day in the future Infinity will be installed?

haven't been able to do a speed test as the old tenants are still there. Is my best option just to go with BT for phone and BB and pray that one day in the future Infinity will be installed?

You could, but it may be a long shot and there is a long tie-in. My village serves 2,500 properties, a few of which are massive factories and there is little hope of fibre here in the sticks.
There are other providers with no tie in and low latency for gaming.

To get the 832kbps upstream with BT you would need BT Business broadband. You are allowed to have that on a residential line, no problem.

If you look into that, don't forget business prices at BT and most other places are ex vat.

In reply to a post by professor973:

haven't been able to do a speed test as the old tenants are still there. Is my best option just to go with BT for phone and BB and pray that one day in the future Infinity will be installed?

You could, but it may be a long shot and there is a long tie-in. My village serves 2,500 properties, a few of which are massive factories and there is little hope of fibre here in the sticks.
There are other providers with no tie in and low latency for gaming.

How do I find out which providers offer low latency? Lots of good advice in this thread but I'm still none the wiser on which ISP to go for.

How do I find out which providers offer low latency? Lots of good advice in this thread but I'm still none the wiser on which ISP to go for.

It is difficult to know until you are signed up to an ISP, along with it being something that can vary throughout the day. That is why one with no contract tie-in and a reputation for good customer service is as good starting point as any. I would think that knowing you can leave with just a months notice, might be an incentive to deliver a good service.

Edited by professor973 (Tue 10-Jul-12 20:55:02)