Originally Posted By bloona hello, Ive decided it's time for broadband! but now Im baffled. The ISP I am with now does it at an extra £5 a month on what I pay now, (for dial up) that has a choice of either; 1mb with a 3Gb monthly download limit. or 517K with unlimited use. It would be easier changing to theirs as I can keep my E mail address and the direct debit payments will just go up, rather than cancel them and start with someone new. OR, theres one at only £2.50 extra a month with unlimited use and "up to" 1Mbps Or they do one at £5 extra with unlimited use and "up to" 2Mbps the only thing is their special offer ends in two weeks and I hear theyre being taken over, so what will happen then? I like the ISP I have now and as it is just a UK based company I never get any spam mail , where as my friend gets daily spam with a world wide company. Am I right too in thinking that with broadband, there can never be any unexpected items Im charged for? We had our homepage taken over last year, we were only on it seconds and it cost us £80. When the phone bill came it was a bit of a shock!!! Im guessing that was a dialler problem was it??? is it 100% certain some low life cant still download one of those onto my computer if I have broadband?? Ok will shut up now.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 Does anyone offer DSL ( digital subscriber line) type service ?-- ( 11.o Mbps) for me here and I pay $19.95 per month as it is offered by the same company that I have my local and long distance service with. at 5 - 10 times faster than broadband -- if it is available look into it -- well worth it.
Originally Posted By peeaanuut dsl is only fast if you are near the local station. 11 megabits/sec is very rare. Also the problem with DSL is that you are in fact paying 2 people for service. A line provider and a service provider. Usually billed as one though. Most DSL lines average under 2 megabits/sec and some dont even reach 1 megabits/sec. Also the signal from DSL is concidered "dirty" and more likely to have interruption. Now, I am not sure what service is like in Britain, but for me, paying the extra money for the faster service and unlimited download is always worth it. I use well over 50 gigabytes of bandwidth every week so I couldnt be restirected to just 3. So you have to look at your current surfing habits, if you are on alot, than maybe the speed is worth it to you, but if you are not on alot and usually dont stream audio or download large files or transfer lots of graphics than the cheapest optiopn might be the way to go. <<at 5 - 10 times faster than broadband>> DSL, cable, Satellite...its all concidered broadband
Originally Posted By Big Thunder <"DSL, cable, Satellite...its all concidered broadband"> ^^ that's what I was thinking anyway, now that that's confirmed... I have DSL with my phone provider, I am bound by what telephone service is designated for my area. I have Verizon, from what I can tell from some of my friends, SBC Yahoo is better, however Yahoo looks slower on these tests I just tested my DSL speed @ <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/stest" target="_blank">http://www.dslreports.com/stes t</a> below is what my current speed is... "2005-10-08 01:16:15 EST: Your download speed : 729094 bps, or 712 kbps. A 89 KB/sec transfer rate." "Your upload speed : 137268 bps, or 134 kbps. better than the average from all best scores.. currently 97.2 from 41752 samples" [so I just slightly above median average] I also used a ping tool "Dr Ping" The lower the number the better, my rating was... "RATING 84.8 (lower = better) better than the average from all best scores.. currently 97.2 from 41752 samples" "better than the last hour.. currently 166 from 22 samples" [whatever that means?] the best Verizon DSL speed in CA was... 42.1 15.0ms verizon Los Angeles, CA, the worst Verizon in CA was... 330.1 20.0ms Verizon Long Beach, CA,
Originally Posted By Big Thunder ^^ ooops I made a slight cut n paste mistake, oh well. Do I have too much time on my hands or what? Sheesh and on a Saturday night too. OMG I slipping into geek/nerd behavior
Originally Posted By Dave With DSLExtreme I'm getting 2005-10-08 03:04:35 EST: 1252 / 321 Your download speed : 1282940 bps, or 1252 kbps. A 156.6 KB/sec transfer rate. Your upload speed : 329227 bps, or 321 kbps.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan With Comcast cable: 2005-10-08 03:20:05 EST: 3496 / 350 Your download speed : 3580545 bps, or 3496 kbps. A 437 KB/sec transfer rate. Your upload speed : 358747 bps, or 350 kbps. Not too shabby.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Hi guys, Broadband in the UK is DSL. The prereq is to have a phone line and then pay your ISP for the DSL link. Bloona - to answer some of your questions: A dialer can still break into your system, even with a firewall. However, because you are using a broadband modem, it is unlikely to have an effect. Please let me know who your ISP's are and I can better advise on retaining e-mail etc.
Originally Posted By bloona Im with Tesco at the moment and pay £12.49 a month,the other one i was considering is Tiscali. I am online around 1 - 2 hours a day,( occasionally more when I get to chat to my friends in MSN) I have never downloaded music or anything big like that, I would like to see video clips online better, my son likes to look at the greenday web site at their videos and its painfully slow with dial up. Thanks for everyones help, must say I am still rather baffled, too many numbers and bites........lol....like a different language to me.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Ok, if you want to keep your e-mail addy, then stay with tesco. Warning, with Tiscali you will get ALOT of SPAM - 400 this week while we were away. You may wish to look into Virgin. They do not have a contract. So you can try it out and see if you get on with Broadband (which I am sure you will), but it's a great way to try it out with low risk!
Originally Posted By bloona Dave, thanks for that on tiscali, that is just what I expected and didnt want, think its gonna be Tesco then. thanks all
