Help with 20mb connection

[Geezee]

Hi,

first post here. Basically I just moved into a house with 6 mates up in manchester and we decided to get the 20mb package.
I had always been under the impression that the advantage of cable internet was actually getting the speeds promised as opposed to whatever a normal line could take.

Yesterday the engineer came to install it, I asked him what sort of speeds to except with 7 people and he said I would be getting around 15ish when everyone was on. Ran a test on speedtest.net and got a nice 18meg out of it but since then it has just gotten slower and slower. Was running at less than a meg last night, this morning it was up to about 8-12meg and then dropped slowly back to about 1meg.

I even tried running a test with just my pc connected to the modem, bypassing the router but the speeds were just as bad.

Any ideas? We dont want to be paying for 20mb and getting a fraction of that all the time.
cheers in advance,
Gab

[Sephiroth]

Do a search on the word Manchester in this forum. It seems to be having a tough Virgin experience right now.

[Tony.]

Your in a student (oversubscribed) area :banghead:
I am lucky to be away from the student zone ;)

[Geezee]

Ok s you're saying I'm gonna be stuck with these speeds all year? Is there anything I can do to get better speeds?

[Sephiroth]

Ok s you're saying I'm gonna be stuck with these speeds all year? Is there anything I can do to get better speeds?

Search the O2 and BT and BE forums to see if your area is suffering likewise. If not, switch to one of those ADSL services.

[Geezee]

Ok so as far as Virgin is concerned there is nothing I can do. Ill do some research in the meantime as I originally wanted to get Be since i have it at home and it seems stable (west london), but the majority wanted virgin or sky for the bundles etc.

If my line can only take about 5meg here, is it worth getting a 20meg package, eg the BE unlimited package? Im asking mainly because of upload speed which is very good on that package since I game online.


I should mention I just did a test and got 14meg which I would be happy with if it was constant, but right now everyone is asleep and its hardly a peak time. It drops considerably as the day goes on.

[Sephiroth]

Ok so as far as Virgin is concerned there is nothing I can do. Ill do some research in the meantime as I originally wanted to get Be since i have it at home and it seems stable (west london), but the majority wanted virgin or sky for the bundles etc.

If my line can only take about 5meg here, is it worth getting a 20meg package, eg the BE unlimited package? Im asking mainly because of upload speed which is very good on that package since I game online.


I should mention I just did a test and got 14meg which I would be happy with if it was constant, but right now everyone is asleep and its hardly a peak time. It drops considerably as the day goes on.
You'd need to do the postcode check on Be/O2/BT to see what ADSL2+ speed you can expect.

But the key is to see what ADSL issues there are with the various suppliers in your area.

[Kymmy]

Most student areas in Manchester gets hit with over subscription whether it be Cable or Adsl as quite simply you get a higher percentage of downloaders on the same contention..

As for advertised speeds thats where a lot of people get confused, Cable has not distance from exchange limitation unlike Adsl, where as people don't realise that a high contention/higher downloading user effects the speed as well..

[Geezee]

Aright well cheers for clearing that up, I guess Ill do some research and decide what is best.
Realistically with 7 people sharing a house in an area populated mainly by students I wont ever be getting amazing service so I might just deal with virgin being slow at peak times.
Of course what doesnt help is stubborn flatmates downloading torrents mid afternoon but you guys cant help with that :D

[pip08456]

I think you've answered your own problem there. Stubborn flatmates. There downloading at peak times could be getting you capped at 25% speed for 5 hrs (presume they are using the same connection). Add to that the oversubscription in the area. Bingo.

[Sephiroth]

I think you've answered your own problem there. Stubborn flatmates. There downloading at peak times could be getting you capped at 25% speed for 5 hrs (presume they are using the same connection). Add to that the oversubscription in the area. Bingo.

I blame the damn Labour guvmin for all this. Too many students at Uni more interested in torrenting than their studies! Can't get a carpenter any more.

[Geezee]

Yea, well cheers for the info anyway.

Anyone ever heard of these guys? http://www.ripwire.co.uk/student

Dont know anything about Wimax internet but looks interesting.