Broadband speeds question

Alot_does_not_exist

Hi folks.

I'm getting out of Virgin Media - fed up with their under-performance and overcharging.

One thing I have valued from them is the cable internet speed. Is it more than averagely likely that this will suffer if I transfer to BT or suchlike with a phone line connection..?

John_Gray

How long is a piece of cable? (from your house to your telephone exchange) That's the most critical factor...
With a bit of effort you can find how far your exchange is using www.samknows.com which will give you an estimate, and there are a few line checkers where you plug your postcode and/or phone number in to get an estimate of your maximum line speed.

Alot_does_not_exist

John_Gray wrote: »

How long is a piece of cable? (from your house to your telephone exchange) That's the most critical factor...
With a bit of effort you can find how far your exchange is using www.samknows.com which will give you an estimate, and there are a few line checkers where you plug your postcode and/or phone number in to get an estimate of your maximum line speed.

Sounds very helpful - even if I don't know what 'speed' I'm actually getting from Virgin at the moment..!!

Alot_does_not_exist

Yikes, have just typed my postcode into the 'compare broadband' website and it seems to show that VM is virtually the worst performer at 10Mbps where most of the competition is at 20Mbps or better.

Is that remotely possible? My page changing seems very rapid. Am I missing something here?

Yolina

What speed you'll be able to get depends on a combination of how far you are from the exchange, how congested said exchange is and the quality of the wiring...

If you find your speed is really low and you have Infinity available in your area, then go for it. I'm in London, miles from an exchange with over 30000 lines and never got more than 1Mb download speed over the copper wires (on a good day, usually slower), so I jumped on Infinity as soon as it was available and even though I'm too far from the shiny green cabinet to get the full speed from it, I'm perfectly happy with my 23Mb+ download


Edit: try the bt checker, I've always found it quite accurate - it'll give you a good idea of what speed your line can support http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome

closed

Assuming virgin cable, they are probably going to have better speed than adsl for the time being - test it on http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

Alot_does_not_exist

The 'speedtest' trial on my current VM service came out at 5973kbps.

No idea whether that's good or bad.

closed

It means 6Meg, not too good for cable (is it cable)?

try a few tests, it can vary.

Alot_does_not_exist

closed wrote: »

It means 6Meg, not too good for cable (is it cable)?

try a few tests, it can vary.

Yes, cable. If you've checked the OP, you'll see I'm with VM and looking to get out.

closed

VM do adsl too

GunJack

if you're getting 6 meg on a 10Meg virgin cable service, then that's within limits for peak times - in fact some VM cable customers would be getting half that on a 10Meg service. You could ask them about upgrading to the 20 or 50 Meg services, and you may get offered one on a special rate if you threaten to leave.......