Broadband befuddlement

[sycamore]

After nearly three completely happy years with NTL (there had to be someone, and it was me :grin: ) I'm now deserting for Sky after the takeover by Virgin Media. Incidently, I've also been getting the same serious lag problems as are all over the wow-europe technical support board, but am prepared to give VM the benefit of the doubt on that one for now, at least until I actually catch Richard Branson tying my cable into knots and cackling manically...

I've been looking into alternative providers, and am really confused by the whole download limit business, having apparently been on an unlimited package until now. What does this actually mean, and how can I tell what I need? What sort of figure would, say, ten hours of week of warcraft need? Cost's not really an issue, but obviously if I can pay for less then I will :smiley:

Also, since we apparently can't get Sky broadband here in the sticks (Glasgow) I'm having to actually make a decision about a provider. I've narrowed it down to BT, Pipex or Eclipse, all of whom can offer up to 8MB, and have unlimited download options. Does anyone have any particularly bad/good experiences with any of these (especially Eclipse, who I've never heard of but who look quite appealing).

And is it true that ADSL is better than cable?

Thanks for any insights at all!

[Kalos]

ADSL has better latency than cable connections, for gaming, latency matters more than the bandwidth of the connection. Latency is the true "Download speed". Think of it like a moterway. More bandwidth, increasing from 2mb to 8mb, means more lanes for more traffic, the moterway can take more data at the same time. That gives the illusion of increasing speeds, but the journey still takes the same time. If you're only one data bit, you're not going to go any faster, just more of your fellow bits can travel at the same time. However, you do reach a point when all of your bits are travelling, there's none waiting for a space to clear so it can begin it's travel. Latency is the "Speed limit of the highway", effecting journey times from A to B for every bit. No matter how many or little bits you're sending, a lower latency speed increases response times.

I'd recommend BT for an ADSL connection, due to the way the telecom system works in the UK. They control the routing of traffic directly, while third part providers pay to hook into it by adding additional points of traffic. You'd be going through more "hops", higher latency times, waiting more ingame.

Regarding download limits, go for either a 20gig or 100gig of data per month deal, you shouldn't be overrunning 20 unless you play WoW 24/7, but then you have patches, regular internet usage; and everyone wants a little slack. Unless you like downloading lots of things off the net, and by that I mean large things of a gig or so frequenty, 100 is going to hold your appatite

[sycamore]

Brilliant, thank you very much Kalos, it sounds like it makes a lot of sense to go for BT so I'll get onto them. It looks like they're pretty reasonably priced too at the moment, which is nice :smiley:

Thanks again, much appreciated!

[swaldman]

I'd recommend BT for an ADSL connection, due to the way the telecom system works in the UK. They control the routing of traffic directly, while third part providers pay to hook into it by adding additional points of traffic. You'd be going through more "hops", higher latency times, waiting more ingame.

SHouldn't be any different.
BT Wholesale handle the routing for everybody.
BT Retail is just another ISP.

If this isn't the case, the Monopolies COmmission would probably like to hear about it.

Personally I avoid BT as much as I possibly can, due to their track record of incompetence in dealing with my lines and those of everybody else that I speak to about it.

[Kalos]

SHouldn't be any different.
BT Wholesale handle the routing for everybody.
BT Retail is just another ISP.

If this isn't the case, the Monopolies COmmission would probably like to hear about it.

Personally I avoid BT as much as I possibly can, due to their track record of incompetence in dealing with my lines and those of everybody else that I speak to about it.
It's to do with the fundimental basis of routing through the network. The third part routing isn't tied in as well, it could be, but to lay those cables would cost the third party and most are unwilling to pay. BT can't be boethered to provide recabling of the network to every ISP startup, considering how many crash and burn, it would be throwing away hundreds of thousands. It isn't a business decision, it's a simply logistical fact to do with how the layout is across the UK, and the government not substisidising the network rennovations which are unadvatageous to the company.The government regulator Oftel almost killed BT three years ago by pushing it into so many unprofitable and uneconomic revisions. It's a simple fact an organisation running for profit doesn't have the resources to supply every jonny-come-lately with premium line development on the spot where ever the newcomer decides they should be.

It should be even, it should be fair. But uneven quality and capability is a fact in the UK, and ISPs don't have a habbit of setting themselves up in the most convinient areas. Being an extra half a mile away from an exchange effects the quality. Why doesn't this bother BT so much? Because they built the system, they built the high points, knew where they would be, and took advantage of the layout. Which is the main reason why installations like Park Hall exist.

[WatcherZero]

the download limit is per month, Skys is 40gb i believe.

That means in 4 weeks you cant go over 40gb or they disable or throttle back your download speed drastically till the end of the month, several months of overruns and they will most likley ask you to take your business elsewhere.

Wow itself probably uses around 100mb a week for heavy play, with occasional patchs hitting several hundred megs but not every month. general website browsing you will probably add 20-100 more megs a week. so for someone who only plays wow and browses your talking only a coupled of gig a month.

If on the other hand you are like me who does an extreme ammount of torrenting it can go a lot quicker :P I probably download upto 10gb a day peak, and avg 1gig a day.

To put it into perspective when torrenting, a film will probably be 700-1.5gigs, A good quality tv ep 250-350mb, and *cough* larger stuff can be 3gigs or more.

[sycamore]

Thanks a lot, WatcherZero, that's really helpful :smiley:

We should be completely fine within the 40gb limit. I don't play too heavily; I do work from home a lot and am pretty much constantly online then but that shouldn't be a big deal; I assume Second Life and stuff like that (I use them for work) would be about the same as WoW?. My husband downloads music but he hasn't started downloading movies yet, just buys dvds (he's obsessed with the size of his dvd collection after I made some comment that he took as a criticism that it was too small :rolleyes: ).

I wish I could work out what the 'larger stuff' is...

Thanks a lot for your help!