Broadband speed

lindens

Where we live our local exchange offers up to 8MB but because of the distance we are from this exchange we only get about 2MB. We are hoping to move house so one of the considerations for moving is to be nearer an exchange so as to get faster broadband connection. (This is for OH who plays online shooting games lol)
Now I'm surprised in this day and age this is so, it's seems a bit archaic (sp) to me. My question is, I know exchanges are upgrading all the time, so will this always be the case? ie distance from exchange relative to broadband speed?
In case this helps we are with Zen and our postcode is CF14 9HW.

superscaper

lindens wrote: »

Now I'm surprised in this day and age this is so, it's seems a bit archaic (sp) to me. My question is, I know exchanges are upgrading all the time, so will this always be the case? ie distance from exchange relative to broadband speed?

It's a fundamental of the technology involved. That won't change unless they introduce something else entirely or you change to cable rather than ADSL.

Reluctant_spender

Have a look at this site http://www.samknows.com/broadband/

is is a good resource in relation to broadband and services available in your area

albertross_2

Is that your download rate, or your sync speed?

Also consider, that he might prefer a relaxing game of golf to shootemups when he gets older (never seen so many golf courses in one map).

lindens

superscaper wrote: »

It's a fundamental of the technology involved. That won't change unless they introduce something else entirely or you change to cable rather than ADSL.

Is it quicker through cable then? (sorry - dunce)

lindens

albertross wrote: »

Is that your download rate, or your sync speed?

Also consider, that he might prefer a relaxing game of golf to shootemups when he gets older (never seen so many golf courses in one map).

lol

and .... pass... don't know. how do i find out?

lindens

Thats a useful site :T

these are my results

Last Result:
Download Speed: 2399 kbps (299.9 KB/sec ) Upload Speed: 314 kbps (39.3 KB/sec )

We have a modem, ASDL2 Linksys with USB and ethernet.
We also have a wireless network to the PC upstairs, which is part of the problem, 2 PC's online at once - OH shooting men and DSD on MSN and Runescape.

student100

I would have thought for gaming that 2 Mbps throughput is more than adequate. The problem is the latency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_latency_and_throughput
http://www.stuartcheshire.org/rants/Latency.html

Not sure what to suggest about that though as I'm not a gamer...

JamesUK_3

If you are playing on-line games, anything over 1Mb download speed is perfectly adequate. (saying that there isn't anything wrong with 512k either!)

The thing you need for gaming is the upload speed. You could have a download speed of 1Tb but if your upload is only 128k then you would be limited by the speed you can send back to the other players.

299KB/s Down and 39.3KB/s Up is fine for gaming.

The only thing other than that would be make sure you choose DEDICATED servers. These are proper servers with a good upload and download speed that allows many people to connect and is rarely a cause of lag. You also have to make sure you choose ones that are near to you. As soon as you start joining ones in America, the time it takes to transfer the data is usually too long and you end up with a dissapointing game.

If you can find a server with a ping under around 80 then you shouldn't notice a problem in-game.