Broadband Speed Test

Virgin is probably the fastest unless you go for BT Infinity, both are faster due to the fibre optic to the closest possible point of course. The snag with all of this is that often the net itself gets clogged up and one cannot actually do much about that.

Brian

I got 9.8mb downloand and 1.0mb upload on my Virginmedia 10mb connection.

So... 10.1Mb is pretty good, no?

MM

After you do the test it should offer you the option to see how you compare with your local street or village average shown on a map. ISTR called Streetstats or something like that.

It can be very informative. My old speed was the highest in the village to begin with and after the bell wire tweak I am 50% better off now. I am on the end of a long piece of very old wet string in rural Yorks so

Test or estimate? How can you "test" a Sky or BT connection when you are connected to Zen?

Something not quite right here.

MBQ

It shows what other nearby customers on the same exchange or postcode are getting on average (provided it is statistically significant).

The map shows individual sample points ISP & speed geographically.

My results (with PlusNet) are 3.6Mb download, 0.3Mb upload. So I'm very envious...

Bert

hard to tell. All they tell me is that you are close to the exchange.:)

MM explained :

Rather depends what package you're on. For instance, I'm on BT Infinity

That indeed! The story goes like this: I am in one of the most rural parts of Lincs. No shops, no scheduled bus service, around 250 dwellings. When I moved in (2004), the builder/seller said, "Broadband? No problem, John!" He then went on to spin me a line about how BT "...had promised to install BB Real Soon Now..." All a pack of lies. There was no BB in the village.

For a couple of years I was logging on to that web site where all the lost souls in search of BB go, to see when/if any BB was planned anytime soon. There was potentially something pencilled in for a couple of years later.

And then, one day dawned and we were surprised to see the area inundated with BT/Openreach vans laying cables like the dickens. Our lonely, isolated, ancient, unmanned brick exchange building about the size of a large garage took on a whole new meaning as it is within walking distance.

Suddenly BB was available and it appears (on the figure I have provided) to be pretty snappy.

To this day, no one around here knows what prompted BT to change tack. What I reckon is, someone either rich and/or famous moved into the village and demanded BB and BT said, "Tomorrow soon enough for ya?"

The line is ultra reliable, too. I've no idea whether fibre was used in any part of it.

MM

Seems okay, I get 9.8mb download and 1.0mb upload on Virgin, we have the

yep. I saw an openreach fvan laying cables - 'whats up?' 'run out. Bloke up the hill wants more circuits' well l we have a greek billionaire and an American hedge fund manager that way.

So when I had issues with my line, the engineer said 'there's lots of spare pairs of new cable I can use!

Probably because there's only one join in it.

I am maxed out at a synch of about 4.5Mbps

I've seen better than that on straight copper ADSL2

I get 15mb+ download synch speed on copper.

MBQ

In our village it was a group getting very serious about installing a wireless network for the village. Maybe coincidence, but, all of a sudden, BT decided we could have BB after all. It took while longer for LLU to arrive.

MBQ

Even a V23 modem does better. B-)

My line is running at 21Mbit/s. I get 17.7 down, 0.9 up. I'm probably slightly under half a mile from the exchange.

If it wasn't so good, I could justify upgrading to FTTC. My brother just did that in London, and now gets 76M down (can't remember what the 'up' is).

Do remember that Infinity is just BT's name for their FTTC service - there are many other ISPs that can use the same infrastructure - and many IMO are much much better than BT retail.

Of-course BT will have you think otherwise, but there you go.

Also remember it's not just top-speed that counts. Think of network congestion, throttling, customer service, etc.

The niche ISPs like Zen, etc. typically don't indulge in this sort of stuff, of when they do, it's very well pulicised with defined limits rather than some wooly unpublished AUP..

Gordon

VM "free" upgrade from 10 MB to 20 MB. I got 20 MB Then it went up to 30 MB plus down ---2MB up.