K BE are saying they can get 18Mb/s where I live, Virgin are coming on the 29th to check if they can get Fibre Optic running. Is it worth going with Fibre Optic if I can get it, given what I've heard about Virgin download limits and bottlenecking? Half my game downloads and 99% my media is downloaded so depending where they're at I might be bottlenecking the connection a fair bit?
BE Broadband or Virgin Fibre Optic?
- Thread starter Ksanti
- Start date
Ask around to find out if Virgin are any good in your area, If they are they are a solid choice - Rock steady at the speed you pay for and low pings/jitter.
Download limits are easily worked around with schedulers for your torrent or newsgroup clients. Most of my stuff is triggered by rss feed in the early off-peak hours after it airs in America anyway.
If you trigger a cap all that happens is your speed is quartered for a few hours, so it's not very harsh.
Still if you can get 18Mb Be that's a very decent choice, will likely be higher pings though which if you game much could be a factor.
I can sort out timers and schedulers, my family probaby won't be quite so sympathetic. I don't think there's any fibre optic down at the moment for Virgin, so I'd be surprised if they rolled out 50mb, but if they can I think I'll go with virgin, if not probably BE.
The times on the Virgin site say 10am-3pm, is that US time? If not I'm golden as I do most of my dl'ing overnight. I'll track how much I'm using at the moment to work out whether 20mb would be worth it.
The times on the Virgin site say 10am-3pm, is that US time? If not I'm golden as I do most of my dl'ing overnight. I'll track how much I'm using at the moment to work out whether 20mb would be worth it.
If they can supply cable broadband then you'll be able to get their 50mb service. They won't be putting any fibre optic down, it'll be delivered via coax. Describing it as 'fibre optic broadband' is just marketing guff on their part.
Of course they're not US times lol. Traffic management applies between 10am-3pm AND 4pm-9pm on the 20mb service.
I was running 10mb O2 ADSL and 20mb Virgin Media cable, the O2 had lower pings and was more reliable so I used it as the primary connection, I used the VM for bigger downloads, if the O2 was the same speed it would be better in every way.
I now have O2 only (O2 are the same as BE).
I now have O2 only (O2 are the same as BE).
There are some differences in contract terms, pricing and support, but otherwise O2's unbundled services, i.e. everything but O2 Home Access are the same as those offered by Be. Be are owned by O2.
Que?
If virgin get loads of 50Mb customers they will introduce limits.
Yes but considering how long 50Mb has been available so far without limits, if this continues then limits shouldn't be anything to care about in the short term. Even if they do add STM for 50Mb, it will most likely be much greater than 20Mb limits, and even 20Mb with STM is sufficient for heavy downloads who time their downloads.
Soldato
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Leaving Virgin 50mb for BE myself.
50m is great for downloads and such, but if i say for example goto youtube or most other streaming sites it stutters a lot
My friend next door, gets the full 24mb from BE and has no issues what so ever with streaming vids and such.
Also whoever said pings are lower with cable are wrong. their slightly higher. You will get a lower ping if you have a decent ADSL line. (Key word being decent)
50m is great for downloads and such, but if i say for example goto youtube or most other streaming sites it stutters a lot
My friend next door, gets the full 24mb from BE and has no issues what so ever with streaming vids and such.
Also whoever said pings are lower with cable are wrong. their slightly higher. You will get a lower ping if you have a decent ADSL line. (Key word being decent)
Leaving Virgin 50mb for BE myself.
50m is great for downloads and such, but if i say for example goto youtube or most other streaming sites it stutters a lot
My friend next door, gets the full 24mb from BE and has no issues what so ever with streaming vids and such.
Also whoever said pings are lower with cable are wrong. their slightly higher. You will get a lower ping if you have a decent ADSL line. (Key word being decent)
Actually, your ping isn't affected by the state of your line.
Man of Honour
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- Manchester
Indeed. A decent ADSL line can be run in fastpath mode though, giving better pings.
Soldato
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I've just ditched Virgin for BE Pro package. To be honest Virgin Medias STM and peak time slowdowns have been annoying me for a while, however push came to shove when during recent problems with Virgin in Derby (both TV and BB) and a call to their tech guys resulted in three hang ups and one guy saying all my issues are to do with me using Macs!
Anyway I need better upload than VM (theirs is a joke) so I decided to blow them out and move to BE.
Should be in place by the end of next week at around 17mb.
Anyway I need better upload than VM (theirs is a joke) so I decided to blow them out and move to BE.
Should be in place by the end of next week at around 17mb.
I'd have to disagree with this. I would go with 50Meg VM as it is not throttled! Read their website and you will see!
For now, as soon as they get their faster lines rolled out you'll have to pay through the nose to upgrade or be throttled. There's people who hopped on 50meg when it came out who're paying almost double what people switching to 50meg now are paying.
The product is great, but the business model/treatment of long-term customers isn't great, because they know they can essentially do what they wasn't while there's no real competition.