Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Here are my Thinkbroadband graphs now that Sky has been installed for a day. No devices were connected to the Virgin hub during this time. Numerous speed tests and downloads were done on Sky totalling about 8GB.

Virgin:
[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

Sky:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/s...15-12-2012.png

Not sure if the packet loss on the sky was something I did or not, something I will have to monitor.

Overall impression is that web pages load super fast, as does streaming video.

Pingtest site tests have been consistent at 13ms with no jitter. A FPS game I play (or used to before the virgin connection made it unplayable) gave a constant 19 ping in-game. Much lower than the 35+ I ever got on VM before all the problems.

When downloading on Sky the minimum/average/maximum latency does not seem to shoot up like on the Virgin connection.

My reason for switching all the products from virgin was to get a stable broadband. The graphs show why that was needed and that it was achieved with the move to sky.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

enjoy

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

you'll be much happier now, even if the speeds are slower...

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Speeds are twice as fast as my virgin connection. Even faster than that when you consider I often only got half the speed (or less) I was supposed to have with VM. Upload is 10x faster than I had on VM.

But you are right, definitely happier :)

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

My virgin graph looks a lot like yours does, there's been problems in the Worthing area for months now, so there's constantly high latency.

It's ironic that my sky ADSL product has a better looking graph than my "super fast, non buffering, fibre optic" Virgin, hehe.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I wonder if you go through the Croydon network too lol. Crawley isnt far from you and does. Any idea if Worthing used to be Telewest before?

7 months of issues for me and the fix date is still 4 months away.

Seems to be quite a few who prefer the more stable adsl than the jittery vm fibre.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Yeah there is no comparison, I am on BT which is probably worse than sky FTTC, and its still light and day difference from VM.

If I saturate the upload, then I get slight jitter ;) on VM all hell breaks loose and its in the mid 100s (if not already in the mid 100s). If I download no affect on latency at all, and if I download on VM, whatever speed VM is maxing out at even if say a few mbit/sec again all hell breaks loose on latency. Doesnt matter if its 9am or 9pm I will still get max throughput, snappy browsing and good streaming.

The 2am thing dont worry about it, its not looking a constant issue so not really a problem. eg. my line yesterday had a burst of 3000 crc errors at 1am, it wasnt enough to even show on the tbb graph and since then I have had 250 errors in 18+ hours after it which is pretty much nothing.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Yeah had no more packet loss since that graph, so its all good :)

Even though I have downloaded at full speed on the sky line, I can't seem to get anything like the saturation problems I got on VM. Virgin would increase the latency like crazy even if I used one connection to max the speed out, like an ftp download. Tried a torrent with 100 connections to see if I could get the sky connection to do the same but it hardly registered lol.

Seems we both are feeling a breath of fresh air with the new providers :tu:

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

That's cause VM are quite literally, the worst ISP in the country for bufferbloat, and frankly the worst I've seen anywhere in the world.

Though admittedly it has been toned down a lot lately...

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I think people are seeing the advantage in all the work that was done by BT for FTTC services, ie the fibre is much closer to people's homes than VM's, hence the better figures.

Next year, and FTTP prices dependant, I might even have to jump ship myself. But at the moment, at least at night, I get 66mb from my vm connection.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

What are your upload speeds? Just wondering what I may receive when my unlimited broadband gets installed in a couple of weeks. I love 650 metres from the BT exchange so expect a decent connect. SKY's website suggests 11mb to 18mb down, but no info regarding upload speed.

---------- Post added at 22:51 ---------- Previous post was at 22:48 ----------

SKY fibre is being rolled out where I live in about 14 weeks time. I'm only 650 metres away from the exchange. I'm hoping for some impressive speeds.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

calculate distance to street cabinet Chad. i got corrected in this thread > http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/63...-infinity.html

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

It's outside my house. Maybe about 10 to 15 metres away from where I'm sitting just now.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I'm on the basic fibre. Thought about upgrading to pro but found I don't actually need it. The stable connection is enough.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/64.png

Expecting the speed to go up a bit but haven't looked any closer at the syncing stuff yet.

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

That ping test is always the same, no matter when I run it lol.

For fibre the distance to the exchange shouldn't matter I think. The actual cabinets do all the processing and the fibre starts there.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/s...18-12-2012.png

---------- Post added at 23:15 ---------- Previous post was at 23:15 ----------

You should be laughing at that distance, ready for 120+ speeds to I would have thought.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Thanks for the info guys.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

yes is distance to cabinet but be sure first thats your cabinet.

I have one across the road from me also but it isnt my cabinet, BT dont necessarily do a circular coverage around each cabinet, its depends how the lines are routed.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Forgot to say the virgin connection I have is 20mbit with 1mbit upload speed. Should be 10mbit but it got doubled to 20 a month or two ago, even though the area hasn't actually had the speed doubling upgrade yet.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Well yes, but the current cap is 80/20. That's what he'll probably get.

120+ is typically achievable at 100m from cab. At 10-15m, assuming the line doesn't zig-zag elsewhere I'd be inclined to see attainable rates closer to 200. One of my friends has a 95m line and that can manage 140Mbps.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

do you know when Sky will offer up to 160 to those able to get close to those speeds?

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

thenry never.

with vectoring the hope is 100mbit will be offerable, 160mbit wont happen without line bonding or a shift to profile 30a.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

pull your finger out VM!

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Actually 160 is already available... www.bt.com/infinity

Though not sure whether that's the 160 he was talking about.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

sorry to be unclear. yes, 160meg on Sky?

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

No, 160 is available on Openreach FTTP.

I don't know if Sky provides services over Openreach FTTP yet (or whether they will ever). But it's part of the same system as Openreach FTTC, which they already use.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

thats FTTP.

I know you like to try and correct me qas.

Or did thenry mean FTTP not FTTC which sky resell?

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

anything that could allow Sky to sell the highest tier BT sell

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Well I guess Qas was correcting me then, as he is right sky can choose to sell the FTTP product but at this time they dont, but if we base on their current business decisions and assume they only sell the FTTC products then you wont see 160mbit or more soon.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

so many very clever people out there , way above my head .

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Indeed.

Point was it is there for them to resell if they wanted to, even though they haven't announced any intention to. They could also run 330Mbps over Openreach FTTP if so inclined but even BT aren't daring enough to try that yet. But either way "never" is a bit far fetched.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Three weeks later and everything is as stable as it was the first few days:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/63.png

http://www.pingtest.net/result/75169668.png


Interested to know if there are tweaks I can do to squeeze out the extra 3 Mb/s down and 1 MB/s up? Not really worried about it but if I can do something without affecting the stability, then its worth doing :)

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

What speed is your line sync'd at in the router config.

I'm sync'd at 39,999 kbps Down and 10,000kbps Up but never see full speed on speedtest's, there always similar to yours

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I guess this is what you are talking about?

DownStream Connection Speed 40000
UpStream Connection Speed 9996

First time I have had Openreach Fibre so its all new to me. I guess everything is how it should be then.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

you wont get full speed due to overheads, I expect on the 40meg service 36-37 down is reasonable and 9 up.

If you using a HG modem, unlocking it and disabling QoS will net you roughly 10% extra throughput (not sync) on uploads.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Didn't expect the overhead to be that big, but it makes sense.

10% is quite significant enough to give it a try, thanks :)

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

doesnt really matter.

Even if FTTC was a 20mbit service it still be far superior to VM. Consistency of performance is king.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I would choose an openreach based FTTC at 20mbit over a 120mbit virgin broadband if given the choice. So we feel the same about quality and consistency of performance :tu:

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

:Yes:

Worth a check

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

It's odd, but I'm connected at 80/20, but I only seem to get upwards of 50-55mb now on downloads

Not sure why..


https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/58.png

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/59.png

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Can't get the FTTC test to work, but the ADSL one shows:

58 down, 12 up and 20ms ping.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

just for kicks

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

They're not. The overheads are around 2-3%

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Some more testing in order then. Local measurements show faster speeds than the speed tests so have been trying different apps/methods to see if they all measure the same way or vary.

They all seem to show faster speeds than the speed test sites so far.

http://s8.postimage.org/xxe1o8k11/speedmon.png

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

the flash based speedtest sites especially speedtest.net can under report upload speeds because they use low send buffer values which are not enough for FTTC upload speeds unless you close to london.

in my ftp client eg. the default send buffer is way too low to maximise my upload I had to bump it up and windows only auto tunes the downstream buffer.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Hmm, is there a super fast torrent I can try? I assume a standard linux one would do.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

look for loads of seeds

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

6.6mb/sec.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

6.6MB - 52.8Mb

what was your 80/20 post all about?

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Yeah that is 52.8 as thenry said. My 4.8 megabytes/s was around the 38 megabits/s the speed test showed. Only a small negligible increase over the flash based test actually, except I can guarantee that speed every time on a torrent compared to the speed tests which fluctuate a fair bit.

---------- Post added at 16:37 ---------- Previous post was at 16:36 ----------

Is there some upload jealousy there? :D

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

What confused you about it?
I was saying I'm connected at 80mb down and 20mb up
I can only get 55-60mb down.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

line distance from cab? do your speeds match those estimated on BTs site?

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Which test did you do exactly? The ADSL and FTTC tests are one and the same (hence the button is marked "ADSL & FTTC diagnostics"

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Speeds seem to dip during prime time, at 12:35 (now) it's a bit faster

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/52.png

I hit 70mbps on the download from the cowes server just now

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/53.png

---------- Post added at 12:42 ---------- Previous post was at 12:37 ----------

Forgot to add, BT's speed check comes up with an estimated speed of:
67.6Mb download
20.0Mb upload

So I guess it's not TOO far off, the max I can download at with bittorrent is around the 6-6.3MB/sec mark

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Well it's now day 2 of having SKY broadband and so far, it's not too bad.

When it was installed yesterday I had a 3mb connection. This has gone up to 4mb today.

What has really surprised me so far is the overall performance. I'm current downloading a movie to my SKY+ box via on demand. My wife is on her ipad and I'm currently posting this via my PC. Neither the wife or I are experiencing any kind of lag or buffering as we go from site to site. I'm not suggesting we had this problem with Virgin, I just didn't expect SKY broadband to perform so well.

The upload speeds at the moment however are woeful.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

That's because on ADSL2+ with Sky the max upload is around 1.3mb I think , post your router stats up I'm sure some on here will be able to tell you what download speed you can expect.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

The on demand should be playable within seconds as it will download as you watch, even at the speeds you get.

How long until they can upgrade it to fibre?

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I should be able to get fibre in March / April.

At current speeds the on demand stuff isn't taking too long to download. If I select something, by the time I check my planner it's ready to start viewing.

---------- Post added at 22:22 ---------- Previous post was at 22:21 ----------

I'll post some stats tomorrow. Would do it just now however I'm about to play Mario Kart online :D

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

ADSL2+ in general will give an upload speed around 1/10th to 1/20th of download. Given his download is only 3-4Mb he won't get more than ~0.2-0.5Mbps

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

You may well be correct qas, however when I was on Sky's ADSL2+, I was receiving 5.9 to 6.1 Mbps Down and 0.9 to 1 Mbps Up. :)

Edit.

I forgot to add Sky can be bit stingy with the upload speed, I do recall the upload sitting at 0.4 ish for a while, untill I rang them up to complain and they changed it to 1 Mbps

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

on ukonline I had 1mbit upload alongside 5-6mbit download.

they even uncapped it in my final weeks on the service (unofficially of course) and I got about 1.2mbit.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/35.png

Well my up and down speeds have doubled within 48 hours. I was told it will take about 10 to 14 days before I'd get my final speeds.

When I signed up my estimated down was between 11.8mbps and 18mbps.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Your router stats will reveal more if you can copy and paste them.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

None of this means anything to me :confused:

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Keep us posted how it goes over the next few days.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I'll post my speeds again on Saturday. Hopefully I'll be closer to 10mb by then.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

You should be able to get 15-20Mbps download and >1.0Mbps upload on that line, potentially up to 1.5-2Mbps upload with annex M, if Sky offer that option.

Although it looks like you have a bit more noise on the line than usual, there's still plenty of leeway for higher speeds than you're currently getting. Looks like you're on 12dB margin at the moment. Higher margins are more stable but reduce your speed. 6 is the usual, and 3 is the "fast" option. Perhaps it will come down over time (BT does things the other way round - start low then increase)

Actually 17dB margin on the upstream looks like your upstream might be getting capped at 800Kbps.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Thanks for the information. I'll keep an eye on things over the next 36 hours.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Here are my stats today, 4 days after having SKY broadband installed. I am now into the speeds estimated to me by SKY when I signed up.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/25.png

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

You can find what Sky finally set your line at by logging into My Sky and selecting Broadband , it lists the range they estimated and the maximum speed your connection is set at once DLM has completed.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Yeah just checked it out. They estimated 11.2Mbps - 18.0Mbps but also state:

Testing on your broadband connection began on 17/01/2013 and will be completed within 10 days. Check back here to confirm the maximum speeds supported by your connection.

The connection I have just now is very stable, reliable and good for what I need it for. Any extra speed from here on in is a bonus.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Your 7-8dB SNR margin is still a tiny bit on the "safe" side and you can expect maybe an extra 10% in both directions on normal settings. Some lines can be perfectly stable on "fast" settings though.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

What has your final connection speed ended up at Chad ?

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I'll check when I get home and will post my stats. I haven't checked for 2 days so I'm not too sure.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/18.png

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

I think my upload speed has hit its limit. I'm currently hitting 1.7mb down via Utorrent. I'm hopeful I might actually hit 18mb!

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

guys the .nl ookla BETA server can max out upload properly. uses higher send buffers.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/24.png

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Thanks for sharing. I'll go give it a blast just now.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Nice results!

Got the highest upload speed from a speedtest on that server but a slower download. Worth remembering though :)

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I just topped 19 upload from it now as well.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/23.png

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Awesome upload speed!

Finding the decent upload speed makes cloud based backups useable now.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I get good results to that Amsterdam server, as well

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/22.png

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Much better Adam :tu:

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Your download is maxed out. Your upload has plenty more margin but 1.3Mb is the limit on most services, it's an artificial cap.
Oh hey, I was spot on! :D


---------- Post added at 17:59 ---------- Previous post was at 17:58 ----------

Apparently it lies.

No surprise it makes everyone's upload "look" faster if it inflates the numbers by 10-20%...

Incidentally the mobile app consistently returns higher figures too but the number of times I've seen it hit 25Mb/sec means its totally unreliable.

---------- Post added at 18:00 ---------- Previous post was at 17:59 ----------

Hrmph, it's actually spot on for me, I wonder if your system clock is buggered:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/20.png https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/21.png

Never seen it max out a 100Mb line before, time to test the gigabit methinks. Maximum I've ever got on the upload used to be 250Mb.

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Nail on the head.... Dont know whats up with it. Can I PM you?

Qas'll fix it

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2013/01/60.jpg

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

Sure you can try

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I get some awesome speeds with Steam, hehe

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

I have had just over 9MB/s on steam, its lovely :D

Re: Chalk and Cheese - Sky and Virgin Broadband
 

H8! :D