I need a true unlimited broadband or 50Gb

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almillar wrote: »

Many of these 'selfish' users (and I'm not one of them) will have been sold an 'Unlimited' connection. What part of that marketing would tell someone that there were caps, fair usage policies, or throttling? Just sounds to me like people are trying to get good value for money out of their ISPs. ISPs need to have enough servers to cope with peak demand, do they not?! Bandwidth isn't like water or petrol!

I'm not sure what you're trying to say....bandwidth does have a cost...which needs meeting by someone.

I see 'unlimited' ipstream products as similar to an 'all you can eat chinese banquet'..., it's never going to be as good as a 'proper' connection, you pay your money and take your chances, if you don't like mediocrity, then pay more and go elsewhere.
The money I pay each month doesn't come close to covering the costs my ISP would incur if I made full use of my connection.

macman

almillar wrote: »

Many of these 'selfish' users (and I'm not one of them) will have been sold an 'Unlimited' connection. What part of that marketing would tell someone that there were caps, fair usage policies, or throttling? Just sounds to me like people are trying to get good value for money out of their ISPs. ISPs need to have enough servers to cope with peak demand, do they not?! Bandwidth isn't like water or petrol!

That's like saying the government should build 12 lane motorways everywhere so that on a few summer bank holidays there will always be enough capacity to avoid jams. It's neither practical nor economic.
Bandwidth is more like electricity-you can't see it, but if the demand is too high then eventually the utility co. will have to turn the voltage down to cope.

Cumbrian_Male

Can you all argue download usage, contention ratios and bandwidth in another thread please. I started this thread because our usage has changed and I now need advice to find a product to suits our needs. I haven't complained about our service being restricted, all I want is the best value for money product that will allow us to use the service in the way we desire.

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You had a handful of suggestions...pretty much the only ones anyone would mention, before the discussion veered off.
Not sure what else you expect? You have a shortlist of around 5....work through it to determine the best for you.

almillar

Cumbrian Male - you want to use your internet connection at the same time as the majority of other people use theirs. Whether your provider officially throttles or not, you'll get slowed down somewhere. For example, if all your neighbours miss the news at 6 tonight, and they all go and stream it at 7, you'll have a slow connection to your exchange. ADSL or LLU won't help you there.
Sorry, yes, bandwidth does of course have a cost, I suppose my point was more about the unlimited thing, the way they market it, it sounds like it doesn't have a cost. And yes, if thier servers can't cope with a daily/weekly peak in traffic, they should buy more!

Cumbrian_Male

I know where you are coming from. I moderate on another forum and we are having new servers built while changing host. Once migrated we will have a terrabyte of bandwidth per month. This is far more than will be used but will allow for the peaks.

Is contention ratio dictated by ISP or BT wholesale?

~Chameleon~

Cumbrian_Male wrote: »

I know where you are coming from. I moderate on another forum and we are having new servers built while changing host. Once migrated we will have a terrabyte of bandwidth per month. This is far more than will be used but will allow for the peaks.

Is contention ratio dictated by ISP or BT wholesale?

BT Wholesale own the infrastructure and ISP's purchase 'pipes' from them costing a couple of hundred thousand each. Each pipe then has 'segments' and each segment will provide sufficient bandwidth for a certain amount of people, generally 50:1 or 20:1 on a 'business' connection. If you want to be on a pipe with lower contention rates then be prepared to pay more for it!

Some ISP's will cram as many people as possible on each segment (to make their packages more cost effective) which then has an effect on speed and quality of connection. Ideally they would buy more pipes to maintain good connection (Entanet do, or did!) but many don't bother, they'll squeeze everyone in and throttle the speeds to make up for it

Think of it as a congested motorway or A road. Rather than build extra lanes to cope with the heavy traffic, they reduce the speed limit in an attempt to keep traffic flowing!

This is a rather simplistic overview to give you a general idea before anyone decides to nitpick and pull my post apart

Cumbrian_Male

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

BT Wholesale own the infrastructure and ISP's purchase 'pipes' from them costing a couple of hundred thousand each. Each pipe then has 'segments' and each segment will provide sufficient bandwidth for a certain amount of people, generally 50:1 or 20:1 on a 'business' connection. If you want to be on a pipe with lower contention rates then be prepared to pay more for it!

Some ISP's will cram as many people as possible on each segment (to make their packages more cost effective) which then has an effect on speed and quality of connection. Ideally they would buy more pipes to maintain good connection (Entanet do, or did!) but many don't bother, they'll squeeze everyone in and throttle the speeds to make up for it

Think of it as a congested motorway or A road. Rather than build extra lanes to cope with the heavy traffic, they reduce the speed limit in an attempt to keep traffic flowing!

This is a rather simplistic overview to give you a general idea before anyone decides to nitpick and pull my post apart

So it is up to the ISP how many they squeeze in. Looks like ADSL24 are leading but will ask them and zen how much capacity they have on my exchange and the actual and maximum contention ratios.

Cheers everyone!:T:beer:

~Chameleon~

Cumbrian_Male wrote: »

So it is up to the ISP how many they squeeze in. Looks like ADSL24 are leading but will ask them and zen how much capacity they have on my exchange and the actual and maximum contention ratios.

Cheers everyone!:T:beer:

http://adsl24.co.uk/networkstatus/

This page should show you the different nodes for ADSL24 and how busy each gets, assuming you can see it without being a member!

steve_c10

You could give Aquiss a go. It's whom I'm with at the moment (Gaming 30 Package http://aquiss.net/broadband-gaming.php ). @ £24.46.

30Gb Bandwidth (Additional 300Gb Offpeak)
Peak Usage Period is 08:00am until 23:59pm daily
Off-Peak Usage Period is 00:00am (midnight) until 07:59am daily

Edit:-
Saying all this, I was also e-mailed by Aquiss recently on their new Premium offer @ £21.48. Could check that out?
http://aquiss.net/broadband-unlimited.php