I know we've had this sooooo many times before, but things change. I used to be very happy with mine, but now I hate them!

So, who are you with and how do you rate them? Please address the following points:

1. Are you on a BT Wholesale, LLU or Cable product?
2. How are your pings?
3. How are your download speeds on and off peak?
4. Can you stream video consistently without buffering?
5. How heavy is your usage?

I'm with F2S, a Tiscali reseller on a BT product because my exchange isn't LLU. I had excellent performance to start with, getting the full 8Megs, but they've now capped me at 1Meg and right now I'm not even getting half that.

Of course, I'm only paying £15 a month and I download an average of 50GB. Since I'm on a 50:1 contention ratio on an 8Meg product, that's far more than my fair share so I am not justified in complaining. I just wish I could get 1:1 for the same cost, which of course I can't.

My pings are actually quite good, and VoIP works perfectly. It's just video that sucks

How do I rate them?

Total [LIFTED] but at least it's consistent.

1. LLU - Orange Home
2. Ping is ok - <70ms
3. Speeds don't seem to vary that badly
4. Sometimes I can stream brilliantly but with the main sites (BBC, Sky, Youtube etc.) I have to buffer most of the video before I can watch it.
5. I'd like to be a heavy user but the connection isn't fast enough.

Well I've exceeded my "fair use" download limit for today so I'm on a throttled connection. Still, it's not too shabby:







We're on 10mbps Virgin Cable.

Pay £23 month for a 10 meg connection with no up or down limits

1. Are you on a BT Wholesale, LLU or Cable product?
COMHEM Sweden

2. How are your pings?
good allround

3. How are your download speeds on and off peak?
dont really notice any problems

4. Can you stream video consistently without buffering?
yes

5. How heavy is your usage?

DU Meter Monthly Traffic Volume Report

Month Incoming Outgoing Total
January 2009 14.2 GB 3.3 GB 17.5 GB
Created on computer RENEGADE at 1/3/2010 6:30:14 PM, report time span: 12/1/2009 - 12/31/2009

If I'd stayed within 17GB usage, then my download would be ~7Meg and my upload ~800K which isn't that far short of yours.

However, I am seriously considering moving to a less technologically backwards country just to get decent internets. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'd be that welcome in Korea, Japan is too expensive and Sweden is just too damned cold. Although, they all have prettier girls

I really like "The Midlands", but I need to find somewhere with a decent back-bone

yeah mate i get ya I'm originally from Nottingham, however Stockholm is where the heart is now lol and i agree about the girls




/offtopic

i do normally DL a lot more; game demos and the like but haven't been online much over december, but they do not cap me either, i think the most i DLed one month was 103 gb but didn't notice any difference there.

Dag nab it, my video download is running at 10K and won't be ready for 3 hours.

Sad thing is, back when I had ISDN running at 64K I used to be far more patient. It's knowing that it "could" be ready in 4 minutes that's driving me nuts!

*franticly browses "exotic girls" folder*

EDIT - this test was done while listening to radio 1 streaming over the net also.

I'm with Virgin Media and have been for nearly 2 years. Paying £20 a month for a 10meg line.

It has strange caps based upon your download amount between certain hours of the day. If you go over the limit within the time then it limits you to 25% of your connection for about 5 hours. Doesn't really bother me though as 2.5meg is still plenty fast enough for iPlayer on standard quality.

Normally I watch iPlayer on HD when possible and there might be the odd stutter but only very rarely. I also seem to get a strange artifacting when watching HD iPlayer but that's nothing to do with Virgin.

When using Transmission for downloading torrents (and sometimes using Steam) I get stable download speeds of 1.0 - 1.2 MB/s.

Very happy with the service here

1. Are you on a BT Wholesale, LLU or Cable product?
ummm....

2. How are your pings?
I used to get better pings on my old 128k ISDN line.

3. How are your download speeds on and off peak?
Reasonable, but my current ISP package includes traffic shaping during peak times.

4. Can you stream video consistently without buffering?
50/50 Sometimes it's great, but other times iplayer is unwatchable.

5. How heavy is your usage?
Pretty heavy - typically between 40 and 60 GB per month. 2 PCs and 2 Laptops.



Not bad for an 8 meg line eh? Methinks something isn't quite right.

hi. Happy with mine after changing from plusnet, it went down hill fast when BT took over

Same here, but the connection often seems a bit flaky at peak times.



(Upload speeds are normally better)

Talk Talk, and I am looking for a new ISP as they are... not good.

O2 (using the bought up Be infrastruture), upto 8Mbps, £7.50 a month (as have mobile contract as well), unlimited.

Best ISP I've had, bargain and constantly good.

1) Zen on their 8000 Pro scheme so 50Gb p/month download limit - but you can buy more if needed.
2) Around 85-90ms
3) Download is currently 2922 kbps and upload is 615kbps - does not seem to vary during the day/night.
4) Yes and can watch Sky Player (built into Win7) on "medium" setting - sometimes "excellent" settings without buffering.
5) Around 35Gb per month if I am watching the cricket via Sky Player.

My exchange has now been upgraded to ADSL2 so should be getting faster speeds from Zen later this year

Now, I'm still with Demon along a wet bit of BT string, so these figures are scarily good.

Virgin are supposed to be coming out to connect me to their optical system in a couple of weeks.



(Packet loss not tested because I couldn't be bothered to activate Java.)