General : Does an upgrade mean THAT much real speed increase?

[Pofadda]

I'm sitting on a 10Mb ('M') contract and am wondering if I would benefit from an upgrade to a nominal 30Mb.

Compared to the poor sods on your average ADSL, my regular 8-10Mb is pretty good and yet... maybe more bandwidth would be better for the downloads and suchlike. No online WoW or such, though.

I'm well aware that these things are heavily time-of-day dependent, but what actual range of download speeds do 30Mb users get (and other bandwidth users for that matter)?

If there is a recent similar thread, please just point me to it.

[kwikbreaks]

The majority on cable get the speeds they pay for or very close to them. Those that don't can get absolute dross and it can last for months.

Oversubscription if/when it happens causes big speed variations. There is no prioritisation by product so if a 10Mbps user starts seeing really bad speeds those on the higher products may well see the exact same low speeds (assuming they are all on the same DOCSIS3 channels) but of course the periods when they get higher will be free to range up to their product speed limit so will get a higher average speed.

The price increment for higher speeds need not be much if you go through retentions - I moved from 10 to 60 for an extra £2.50. At least one other poster here got 100 for not much more.

Don't forget that the higher packages come with a higher cap before you get hit by STM.

You'll eventually get 20 or maybe 30 for free anyway.

[dave6x]

For me it did mean a significant improvement. I was on 10Mb L and my service had been deteriorating for some time, only getting full speed after midnight and at peak times it would drop to between 2-5Mb.

After the speed doubling it got a little better but never maxed above 18Mb and again would drop to below 10Mb at peak times.

My PSU failed for my Ambit 256 modem and they sent me a SuperHub (I'm one of the lucky ones having no prob with the SHub!). Immediately I was getting improved speeds on the 20Mb config, within a week they moved me onto 30Mb config and I seem to get over 30Mb whenever I test, even at peak times, a typical test result taken a few mins ago is:



As Kwikbreaks says you'll eventually get 20 or maybe 30 for free anyway like I did!!

[General Maximus]

i know my area is very good for utilisation and I have always been able to get my max speed regardless of what tier I have been on. The move would definitely be worth it dude. Over the years I have gone from 10mbit to 20 to 50 to 100 and the extra juice has always helped. You might not think you would need it but you'll love it when you downloads go 3x faster.

[Chrysalis]

in a congested area especially if its upstream congestion only, then a higher tier customer may still see high intial bursts that last a second or two but after that the speed drops off to the congestion level. This can cause misleading speedtest results that go in the isp's favour.