5/6 mpbs
 

The news is out that telewest are considering the faster speeds of 5/6mpbs. The speeds are there it just takes management willing to use vision while managing the company.

To read more look here

I am sure there are plenty that would like the speeds.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

at a price though :(

could you really get the maximum benefit out of it in the real world :confused:

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

I agree with you... the biggest bandwidth use is with p2p software, and while people still have slow uploads (256k being the max residential i have seen offered in the uk) i don't see much point in increasing downstream like this. Ok, so people in other countries do have higher upload, but hardly any with connections as fast as 5mbps up. IMO until upstream is increased, i don't see much point in a substantial increas in downsteam, and because of the costs and logistics, i don't see the upstream increasing much in the near future.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

adsl is looking the way to go with higher u/l speeds :tu:

pity i cant get it :( :D :D :D

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

ADSL has been looking to go higher with u/l speed but I dont think it will happen because if they increased it to say 512/400 then there would be no point in paying all the extra for SDSL.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

I could easily use up 5mbps burst, it depends if you have the sources to get stuff from, 10mbit and 100mbit ftp sites will provide that with ease, remember also 5mbit wouldn't needed to be used up in 1 download thread to be taken advantage of, eg. it could allow someone to watch a 1mbit video stream whilst downloading a file at 300kb/sec and browse all at once.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

you could do all of the things... but you would need a good upload as well to do all three things.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

apart from the logistics in actually supplying it to the customer, it would be great marketing...
even if the price is high, at least telewest would be able to say "we offer it, whereas ntl and most adsl companies don't" :)

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

Sorry to be a killjoy but

Where is the news here? 5 / 6Mbps is within range of ADSL and cable right now. Being able to do it and wanting to are very different things. Also there's the small matter that Telewest's uBRs wouldn't appreciate the abuse - in Canada where 3 - 5Mbps is regular right up to 10Mbps for advanced users there are fair use policies and download of 80GB/month is considered a lot of data - the 250+GB/month that some members here pull on 1Mbps would not be tolerated. The guidelines are for one ISP 15GB/month on 5Mbit and 30GB/month on 10Mbit, that's total traffic up and downstream.

Can you imagine someone complaining that they've just been cut off for downloading 1000GB in a month on their 5Mbit? It would probably happen with things as they are at the moment - with a pay as you go or harder capping system this becomes more feasible, but while people will not tolerate absolute limits it's not really an option. For myself the idea of sharing a uBR with someone on 5Mbit/640kbit for example who is downloading constantly at 4Mbps and upping at 512k doesn't really appeal.

Same old dispute same old arguments, when the demand is there (remember uptake of 1,1.5 + 3Mbps services is a fraction of that of the lower tiers - Telewest have less than 5,000 customers (IIRC) of a base of half a million on 3Mbit) and either fair use or contention are more acceptable then mebbe we can have this chat again.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

why would you need a good upload to do all those 3 things?

I can quite easily use a 10mbit worth of downstream whilst only uploading at approx 4kb/sec, so 6mbit would'nt suddenly need a lot more.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

dont want to burst your bubble over canada but a friend of mine has just hopped from 1 isp where she had 8mbit down 1mbit up with no traffic limit for 65 canadian dollars a month and her new isp is 4mbit down 768kbit up again with no traffic limit for 50 canadian dollars a month. Its quite breathtaking when she sends files to me over the atlantic faster then what 90% of users in the uk can download at.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

I used 100mbit halls connection and i can certainly say its worth it. Certainly for downloading things in bursts. The speed on demand was great. If i wanted to download the latest game demo, or even when bored linux distro (and yes my pile of cd's can contest to that :p i've got about every distro going in various incarnations, what can i say i was bored)
Being able to download at 5meg/s + was really usefull. A cd image in just over two minutes was great.
The bandwidth certainly is there in the internet servers, yes alot of them were maxed out but rarely less than 1meg/s.

It's only human nature to want things now, and not wait for it to download. Websites with lots of images on them were a breeze at times the browser couldnt load the data fast enough.

I probably didnt use much more gigs a month then as i do now, (though not so many linux discs i must say but there still is some for those rainy days)
It being 100mbit full duplex was also nice, its the upload speed i miss most (on 2mbit / 256k adsl) as i could send pictures from my digicam to my mates across the halls in a blink of an eye (like i do now across the lan) and even to my other friends on adsl and such as i allways maxed them out rather than it walking along at 30k/s
If you ever get to try this sort of speed, (eg, ac network in the south of uk, as up north is abit slower for some reason) you will be amazed
K

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

Who are these ISPs Chrysalis? The first I don't recognise at all, max DSL speed but could be a local cable co-operative mebbe?

The 2nd one again I've no idea about, maybe an LLU provider?

I'm off there myself so if you know something I don't spill :)

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

Exactly Keith and thanks for that - the difference between even 10mbit and the current services is very clear, you begin to treat the internet as your LAN and rather than seeing the download button as a cue to wait just hit it and let the data flow.

Also I like your mention of not using much more than you used to even with a vastly faster connection - proof that just because you can download the entire Internet you don't.

Some of those pulling their 250+GB/month and moaning the services are too slow might want to take note of that.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

There is a canadian company based in Ontario called Rogers and are currently offering 5Mbit.

I am a member of a forum that discusses their services.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

You forgot to mention Rogers tend to cut people off for using too much, and give no idea as to how much too much is - I've heard 15GB a month mentioned ;)

They also have a number of oversubscribed areas and unhappy customers due to the networks they inherited.

A more popular and faster ISP is Cogeco, who despite having soft limits are yet afaik to cut people off for overuse, and their standard and pro packages are 5.5Mbit/640kbit and 10Mbit/1Mbit. Also see relatively few complaints about them and they are usually sorted pretty rapidly.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

TBH i cant see the point in 5/6Mbits.

I work for a ISP and even tho we have stoopidly fast internet 155Mb etc.

We rarely get faster downloads off a normal webserver ( Not including p2p as p2p can be faster due to the amount of users )

Max ive seen off a normal webserver Yano downloading like 50Meg tool apps etc not in our datacenter, IE: located in another country etc. We get max of about 1500Kbit/s..

So unless you download loads from a P2P network or watch stoopidly hi res streaming media, Its allmost pointless getting faster than 2Meg connections.

If it was 1:1 contention and was symmetric ( Upload & download the same speed ) I would consider getting that speed.

Phew.. Thats my 2Cents

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

you only mentioned webservers why is that?

what about people who use other means like ftp/streaming/multi tasking(family/friends).

I would rather have stupidly high res as you put it rather then what we see now, which to be honest 300kbit is the bare minimum I find tolerable for a streaming video.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

I'm on Rogers now and last month we did (my roommates and I) a combined throughput of 142 GB.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

Nice to see Rogers being a bit more relaxed Jerrek, I have as you have seen some real horror stories on broadbandreports.com and I'm glad they are relaxing a bit on their capping!

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

Ironically, AFAIK a large part (possibly all) of the JANET (.ac.uk) is actually provided by NTL networks (not NTL Home). I work for a Uni, so am also on a 100 Mbit network, and while it is nice to able to download things like Mandrake Linux (all CDS) in 12 minutes, you really don't notice the extra speed in normal use. Especially since they started checking the network for unauthorised servers and P2P use. Having said that, I don't use streaming media much, unless I am testing a stream for work.

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

Some will use ntl's fibre for sure (nothing else, that's UKERNA's job!), you'd be surprised at the companies who do use ntl's fibre network, it's quite extensive!

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

I know, isn't it currently the most comprehensive fibre network in the country?

Re: 5/6 mpbs
 

I know what u mean, I'm sat here with in theory a 1gigabit connection, I have a 1gig card in this PC and then rest of the campus network is 1gig and our connection to the regional network (or MAN) and thus to JANET is also 1gig.

But I decided for security to NAT my windows PC behind my Linux machine and I only have 2 x 100meg cards in the Linux Machine. I suppose I could kick my feet and go to my boss I want two gigabit ethernet cards, but well I can't actually be asked, I class it in this situation as a waste of money!

I can't be bothered with downloading loads and loads of stuff. I was about to download red hat to put on a test server the other day and then didn't bother afterwards cause I found a copy on a server on the otherside of Campus, so zapped it across from there.

The only reason the broadband at home gets thrashed is because I live with some student mates who love their p2p, I on the other hand download occasionally but the rest of the time can't be bothered.