300K to 750K stupid question but will I see a difference?

[pop80_uk]

Hi
Im new to this site and must say im very impressed!!
300K to 750K stupid question :dunce: but will I see a difference, I know its stupid question but im think of spending the extra £5 per month and upgrading, my question is will it be worth it?
Will I see a REAL difference in speed?
Im using Win 2000 PRO and am going to upgrade to explorer 6.
So will I be blow away and its really worth it, or should I stick with my 300K connection which is relatively quick.
I use Ethernet to connect also.

Hope someone can help.

And again brillant site! :)

[BIGZIPZ]

I remember getting the 512k package from Telewest a good few years back now, and being blown away by the speed. I had just jumped from 56k to 512k though so I had reason to be.

I think you will be very pleased with 750kb, as it stands to reason you will see a real juicy speed increase :D

[Stuartbe]

:welcome: to the site :)

The main difference will be that you can download files quicker. If you only browse websites then there wont be a huge difference.

[paulyoung666]

:welcome: to the site :)

The main difference will be that you can download files quicker. If you only browse websites then there wont be a huge difference.


you may well find online gaming is improved as well :)

[Rone]

"online gaming is improved"

I doubt that.
I did better on 512adsl than i ever could on 1.5 cable [at no extra cost bar the money].
But if you live in an area with a good connection things should move faster.

[paulyoung666]

"online gaming is improved"

I doubt that.
I did better on 512adsl than i ever could on 1.5 cable [at no extra cost bar the money].
But if you live in an area with a good connection things should move faster.


from your experience not from everybodys experience ;)

it goes back to the old ' if you are not happy ' then either get ntl to sort it or vote with your wallet ;)

[jtwn]

Between the 150k-600k-1mb-1.5mb there has been no online games difference for me, sorry but true :)

I did notice a difference in web browsing when i took the leap from 150k to 600k, but then again, the gap has been closed a bit now..obviously downloading files quicker was a big advantage.

Then again i upgraded some more, impatient i am :)

[Rone]

Ive been gaming online over 4 yrs, you can spot an NTL gamer as he\she usually has the worst ping on most servers.
Ive stopped playing for a while, i,m waiting for ntl to decide to fix my connection, or if they want to, or maybe this is the best it gets.
But ive had one meg almost 2yrs and gamings not much fun anymore.
You can have a 10mbit connection, but if your pings bad, forget it.
In fact an NTL employee told me last week on the phone, i would be better off on 750, he said the ping would be probably be as bad, but i would save money.
Fair comment. :(

[IanGuy]

Think it has something to do with your area for gaming.

On UK servers I get lower than 30 ping constantly.

[jtwn]

Yeah as ive said before...most of the time on uk/western european servers ill ping the lowest/near so....for instance multiplay.co.uk i find i am usually the lowest, pings from 12-20, gameservers.net in holland im nearly also the lowest all the time, the majority of the time i am, pinging better than a friend who lives in the nl!

Same with two friends in the area on ntl bb, hosted an aoe2 game, their pings were around 12-15...two other friends on the game on adsl never dropped below 40.

[monkey2468]

Hi
Im new to this site and must say im very impressed!!
300K to 750K stupid question :dunce: but will I see a difference, I know its stupid question but im think of spending the extra £5 per month and upgrading, my question is will it be worth it?
Will I see a REAL difference in speed?
Im using Win 2000 PRO and am going to upgrade to explorer 6.
So will I be blow away and its really worth it, or should I stick with my 300K connection which is relatively quick.
I use Ethernet to connect also.

Hope someone can help.

And again brillant site! :)
I find that 300KBs - 750KBs is much more noticable than 750KBs - 1.5MBs.
I did notice a differance going from 1MBs -1.5MBs in Downloading (obviously) AND web pages which i wasnt expexting.
Value for money, i think having the 750KBs BB is the best choice. :)

im just greedy having 1.5MBs BB

[paulhouston]

I'm also thinking of upgrading from 300-750 extra cost of £7 for me though!
anyway what I would like to know is will there be much of a diferance in the Quality in watching live video like bbc news, and football.. the quality is ok in normal viewing, when I switch to play in full screen it is not that great and often locks up.. I'm running win xp pro, 512 ram, and cpu speed of 1600.
Thanks Paul.

[Maroon]

I must admit the stuff NTL sent throught the post was very weird.
I was on 600K told this would go up to 750K and I guess they were trying to get me to upgrade to 1.5M?
Anyway, since I became a dad my free time (and hence downloading) has all but vanished, all their note suceeded in doing was downgrading me to £300K.
Doing that and whilst I was on the phone finally stopping Film Four, which I also no longer have time for, saved me over £150 per year.

[pop80_uk]

Thanks for the replies everyone! :)
I sometimes download programs like AVG and windows updates, ive been told you can down load MP3 and movies from the net! But no one ever seems to know the URL of the site! :(
Im not sure if my basic surfing warrents and extra £84 a year, suppose I could cancel my sky protection plan and upgrade instead! hmmmm.

Thanks again,

[Matth]

300k and 750k both have the same UPSTREAM limit of 128k, while "normal spec" ADSL is 512k down, 256k up - this can make a difference for gaming - also, upstream tends to be worse if using the STB.

From 300k to 750k, YOU have 2.5x the download speed, but is the server at the other end too busy to give you more?

[Chris]

Thanks for the replies everyone! :)
I sometimes download programs like AVG and windows updates, ive been told you can down load MP3 and movies from the net! But no one ever seems to know the URL of the site! :(
Im not sure if my basic surfing warrents and extra £84 a year, suppose I could cancel my sky protection plan and upgrade instead! hmmmm.

Thanks again,

I appreciate having 750k when it comes to major security updates and the like, gets it all over with quickly. As has already been said, the jump from 56k to 512k was a huge one, as you're taking out the dial-up as well as the general slowness of downloads. I maintain an online family photo album, so 128k upload is very useful for me - is the 300k service still stuck with 64k up? That'd kill me now, so slooooowww....

As for downloading ripped movies and CDs from the 'net - you obviously aren't trying hard enough, I've just installed a BitTorrent client and am in the middle of downloading a very recent Hollywood blockbuster. (NB research purposes only - I do not believe in this kind of theft-of-copyright and will be erasing the whole lot presently). Downloading the client, Googling for a 'torrent' file of the film I wanted and commencing the download took less than 10 minutes. It's all there if you really want it. And no, I'm not going to post any URLs. :)

[etccarmageddon]

300k and 750k both have the same UPSTREAM limit of 128k,


64k upstream on the 300k option

[cookie_365]

300 bps should be fine for surfing and occassional downloads.

I went for 600 (now 750 of course) because I was used to pretty fast net access at work, and figured 600 wouldn't be as good, but tolerable. In fact, 600 turned out to be much quicker than I was used to at work.

Indeed, right now I've got about 580 bps downloading leaving me with just 170 for surfing, and pages aren't exactly instant; taking a couple of seconds to appear, but speed's certainly tolerable.

As other posters have suggested, if you're not a heavy online games player, downloader, or uploader, 300 may well suit you.

You can always upgrade if it turns out not too. :)

Hope that helps.

[Stop It]

Ive been gaming online over 4 yrs, you can spot an NTL gamer as he\she usually has the worst ping on most servers.
Ive stopped playing for a while, i,m waiting for ntl to decide to fix my connection, or if they want to, or maybe this is the best it gets.
But ive had one meg almost 2yrs and gamings not much fun anymore.
You can have a 10mbit connection, but if your pings bad, forget it.
In fact an NTL employee told me last week on the phone, i would be better off on 750, he said the ping would be probably be as bad, but i would save money.
Fair comment. :( Complete rubbish, I am a NTL'er (1.5Meg ..finally :p) and I ping 15-30 on all the CS, UT2k4, Halo, and in fact any UK server I go on, As paulyoung666, its down to personal experience, and frankly, my NTL couldnt be any more perfect for me, 100% dl speed, all of the time, stable pings, very decent browsng speed, it's all good. Of course not everyone has such luck, but not everyone has it bad either, I have the oppertunity to change in december (BT BB enable my exchange) But I dont see the need any more. :)

Back on topic, 750K would feel a lot faster for you MR pop80_uk (member.php?u=5498), especially for downloading, btw, if you are looking for downloads, (LEGALLY :P) look no further than Broadband Plus, either £3.99 (or £9.95 with napster, which incidentally is the same price as napsters' sub price itself), and has many downloads of games, music, as well as music videos, educational stuff, and more (No I am not an NTL salesman, But I do like a decent deal hehehe), however, it only works on 600/750k or above.

I would say, that if you are want to use the internet to download, and to get some music, or games from the web, then 750K is for you, If you only browse, then 300K is well enough, tbh £7 pm more is nothing though, couple of pints, or over 100% of your internet speed? :)

[Rone]

How would you know its complete rubbish? You actually played me on a server or seen my pings?
To make such a sweeping statements you should have some basic facts.
I,m telling you what my connection is like, and the peeps i know.
And then next you say its down to personal experience?
Well which is it?
The rest of what you say is probably an accurate view.

[Graham M]

It depends very much on the game you are playing, for instance, Counter Strike only takes about 2kb/s up and down stream simultaneously when you are playing, this is game specific, CS:Source based on a new game and server engine takes about 1 each way. Enemy Territory takes about 5up/down. As you can see the bandwidth requirement varies from game to game. It isn't that important and while playing games, the only real difference between 300-750-1.5 is that you get more leeway for Downloading while you are playing without too much lag (depending on the speed of the download of course) The real important think when playing games is the latency between your modem and the server, IE your ping, because of the intricacies of IP Routing, your Packets can make anything between 3 and 30 hops before they reach the server you are playing on, just look at a trace route to find out if even one of these hops is bad then it will cause your whole game to jerk and lag. If you are getting lag all the time a trace route is a good way to go to find out where the problem lies.


Hmmm Essay over for now.

[Stop It]

How would you know its complete rubbish? You actually played me on a server or seen my pings?
To make such a sweeping statements you should have some basic facts.
I,m telling you what my connection is like, and the peeps i know.
And then next you say its down to personal experience?
Well which is it?
The rest of what you say is probably an accurate view.
You said... Ive been gaming online over 4 yrs, you can spot an NTL gamer as he\she usually has the worst ping on most servers.
Which is a sweeping statement, I refuted THAT, not your personal issues, I know many people on NTL (on irc mostly) and none have any worse pings than anyone else.

[Graham M]

It depends how NTL peers to the network on which the game server is hosted.

[Rone]

Fair enough now you have made it clearer.

But i,m talking about UT players i know personally,and people i have met.
For instance Choppa whos a member here will vouch for what i,m saying. Even tho we are all in different clans, we know straight away whos on what connection. ;)
I didnt want to give up 4yrs of online play just for fun, that i can assure you.

[andrew_wallasey]

"online gaming is improved"

I doubt that.
I did better on 512adsl than i ever could on 1.5 cable [at no extra cost bar the money].
But if you live in an area with a good connection things should move faster.
Sorry mate but your talking absolutely CRAP! Speed has nothing to do with online gaming it is to do with the latency/delay between you and the server. NTLââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s network has a much less delay than BT with almost 1/2 the latency.



I had ADSL with about 5 different providers and used probably one of the fastest networks in the UK for ADSL (Mistral.co.uk) with a 2mbps line and the best I got was about 30ms. With NTL cable I get a latency of around 10-15ms.

[andrew_wallasey]

Ive been gaming online over 4 yrs, you can spot an NTL gamer as he\she usually has the worst ping on most servers.
Ive stopped playing for a while, i,m waiting for ntl to decide to fix my connection, or if they want to, or maybe this is the best it gets.
But ive had one meg almost 2yrs and gamings not much fun anymore.
You can have a 10mbit connection, but if your pings bad, forget it.
In fact an NTL employee told me last week on the phone, i would be better off on 750, he said the ping would be probably be as bad, but i would save money.
Fair comment. :(
Every post I have read by you so far has been absolutely rubbish. I suggest using your brain before you make any more posts.

[andrew_wallasey]

How would you know its complete rubbish? You actually played me on a server or seen my pings?
To make such a sweeping statements you should have some basic facts.
I,m telling you what my connection is like, and the peeps i know.
And then next you say its down to personal experience?
Well which is it?
The rest of what you say is probably an accurate view.
Well I must say I have used both Ex C&W platform and Bromley platform and both delivered a solid 15(ish)ms...

Pinging clarity.jolt.co.uk [195.149.21.11] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=53
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=53
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=53
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=53
Ping statistics for 195.149.21.11:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 16ms, Maximum = 19ms, Average = 17ms

I am using ex C&W in Wallasey / Merseyside (CH45)

[Chris]

People, I'm struggling to see the need for a discussion about ping times to get so heated. Could you all calm down a little please.

[pop80_uk]

Sorry didnt mean to cause a fight, I dont know what a ping is. So not to worry with that.
I thank everyone who has answered my question, I think I will be upgrading soon to the faster speed! ;)
Thnaks

[Nutty]

I've been gaming years on my ntl 600k (now 750k) connex, and had no problems with pings. I often have the lowest on CS servers.. When broadband 1st appeared in our area, I used to get as low as 10ms pings, but it averages around 20 to 30 now.

I'm using STB also.
Nothing wrong with ntl connections for gaming, provided the cabling in your area is ok.

[DrAwesome]

Sorry didnt mean to cause a fight, I dont know what a ping is.

A utility to determine whether a specific IP address is accessible. It works by sending a packet to the specified address & waiting for a reply. Ping is used primarily to troubleshoot Internet connections.

or..........

verb: hit with a pinging noise
noun: a river in western Thailand
noun: a sharp high-pitched resonant sound (as of a sonar echo or a bullet striking metal) :)

[jonifen]

I noticed an increase from 600k to 1mb when I upgraded all that time ago... but some people will not notice it the same.

I found a slight speed increase over using a SACM from a STB, and when we had to revert back to STB (as NTL b0rked up our bill with the modem being installed so we got it took out to get things as they were) it went back to normal (i.e. 5 extra ping to jolt servers).

Cant wait for the samsung box to be installed on 2/9 - a colleague in work says his internet is quicker through that than through his old pace box (he is now on 1mb - he's gonna fone ntl to find out why he hasnt got the 1.5mb yet although he had it on the sacm last week before reverting back to the stb as ntl b0rked his bill too!)

However, what is good for one is not good for another... I once said our ntl was perfect (as it was!) and the next day, we had 4 hours of downtime and an increase of 15ms in ping for weeks afterwards. We even had the stb replaced as it kept crashing and channels kept cutting out (pressing channel up and then down brought it back - annoying never the less).

One final thing... ping through the dos command is not the same as ingame ping (unfortunately!!)
I ping a q3 server (jolt ctfs 4 for example) and get 22 ping... I load q3 and play the game yet the scoreboard says between 35 - 45 so they're not entirely accurate - must be related to the size of data packets or something...

But, I would say the 750k would be a good improvement over the 300k - just try it anyway... you gotta keep it for 30 days and if its not worth the extra for following months, just revert back to the 300k (thats what I'd do anyway!)

[Rone]

Every post I have read by you so far has been absolutely rubbish. I suggest using your brain before you make any more posts.


Cut down on the spam and stay calm. ;)

[Mauldor]

Actually - Just downgraded from 1.5mbit to 750 and odd though it may seem, web pages load a lot faster - wierd i know but true..

[Matth]

64k upstream on the 300k option
Perhaps I shouldn't shout about this then

Upload Bandwidth Test Results

Upload Speed 126 Kb/s


On the 300k, pretty sure I had 128+/128 and 150+/128 as well. (ex-C&W, if it makes that much difference)

[SMHarman]

Perhaps I shouldn't shout about this then

Upload Bandwidth Test Results

Upload Speed 126 Kb/s


On the 300k, pretty sure I had 128+/128 and 150+/128 as well. (ex-C&W, if it makes that much difference)
Is that on a Set Top Box or a Modem, the STB has different speed restrictions in both directions to support the data requirements of the TV programming, I know that you used to be able to get a download of 256k on a 150k STB service, the upload may be higher so the box uploading PPV and other information did not affect the BB service.

And to answer the topic question, I think 300-750 will be a noticable increase in web performance, 750-1500 less so as many web sites will be capped to offer less bandwidth to the user than 1500, so will not be able to send the page back to you at 1500, also where they are database driven (like this one), the page has to be formed by the database before it can be served, this will take longer than the serving, you will spend the same amount of time waiting for the page to be generated on 300, 750 and 1500, slightly less time recieving it.

[etccarmageddon]

Is that on a Set Top Box or a Modem, the STB has different speed restrictions in both directions to support the data requirements of the TV programming, I know that you used to be able to get a download of 256k on a 150k STB service, the upload may be higher so the box uploading PPV and other information did not affect the BB service.


as far as I know, the Set Top Box users only ever got a 'special' download speed increase/allowance because of interactive services - but they still had the crappy 64k upload speed if they're on the bottom tier.

perhaps a question for BBKING - perhaps the bottom tier on STB does get a bigger upload allowance.

[pop80_uk]

Thanks every one! :)
My next problem is how to get this upgrade! I called NTL today but the lady on the phone at NTL towers said she could not do it and it needed a ISP PNP tranfer of codes(i have no idea what this is!), and you can only get that from an engineer or a web upgrade. She said to look at the web site and try and do it from there, otherwise she could not help.
Any ideas?
She also said there is an upgrade fee of £20! :( is this correct!?

Thanks again

[paulyoung666]

Thanks every one! :)
My next problem is how to get this upgrade! I called NTL today but the lady on the phone at NTL towers said she could not do it and it needed a ISP PNP tranfer of codes(i have no idea what this is!), and you can only get that from an engineer or a web upgrade. She said to look at the web site and try and do it from there, otherwise she could not help.
Any ideas?
She also said there is an upgrade fee of £20! :( is this correct!?

Thanks again


uhhhhhhhhhh no there is no upgrade fee , i think there is some confusion creeping in here :( :erm: , ntl should be able to upgrade you over the phone no problem :)

[Graham M]

Confusion at NTL CS!?!?!? OMG!!!

[Stop It]

Thanks every one! :)
My next problem is how to get this upgrade! I called NTL today but the lady on the phone at NTL towers said she could not do it and it needed a ISP PNP tranfer of codes(i have no idea what this is!), and you can only get that from an engineer or a web upgrade. She said to look at the web site and try and do it from there, otherwise she could not help.
Any ideas?
She also said there is an upgrade fee of £20! :( is this correct!?

Thanks again
EH?!!! Ok you can do it online thyself
http://www.ntlworld.com/data-feeds/editorial/microsites/tierMigration/
Or ring up CS (Again) and ask to be put up to 750K, (Thats how I gone from 600k to 1Mb) there is no fee, at all, so you should have asked for the persons name, and reported her to her manager, for that is shoddy to say the least.

[sav112]

I was thinking about dropping my phone and TV package(standard) as the ntl phone is really only 2nd phone over BT which is the main house phone and my NTL TV is only upstairs and to tell the truth Cable TV has lost its shine, lots of channels with little worth watching and getting the BB upgraded to say 750KBS or even 1.5Mb

But after reading the posts on this and finding the browsing and gaming are just as good on my 300K package I think Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢ll just drop the phone and TV and stay with the 300K and that will cut my bill in half to only 17.99. I donââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t download very much at all but use it more for browsing and gaming.



I was a bit suspect my friend has 1.5mb and his games run just as bad (Ping) as mine while online, Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢m not say its really bad but not as good as I thought it should be for his connection. He downloads a bit but even he is thinking of dropping back down a level to 750KBS