How Much Do You Pay For Your Broadband?

DJMK4 · 3 Dec 2010 at 09:05

£12p/m (although technically I pay £6 as the rest of the house share my connection) for a BE Unlimited 24mb package.

I get pretty much a consistent 19mb down/1.4mb up connection

no complaints here

bigredshark · 3 Dec 2010 at 09:49

18Mbit sync, 32 public IPs, no shaping, no capping, no usage monitoring.

£0/month

(only) Joy of working for an ISP.

And if it breaks, I have only myself to blame...

DJMK4 · 3 Dec 2010 at 10:05

bigredshark said:
(only) Joy of working for an ISP.

True

Im getting a second line/connection put in early next year from the ISP I work for, however im not sure what way to go, a connection from work or another BE connection, and bond the two lines

We dont have proper 21CN services in our area and no FTTP until December 2011

so only chances of a 24mb package would be LLU BE.

I dont think work would appreciate my heavy downloading

Mirage · 3 Dec 2010 at 10:28

£20 for 10MB VM Broadband only. Receive the full 1.1-1.2MB/s and have always had the very top downstream since I've been with NTLWorld from back in 2000.

iamtheoneneo · 3 Dec 2010 at 10:37

Zairs said:
im with virgin too, if its there fibreoptic cable you get the speed you pay for. best internet going

bit of a wild assumption there...i was with virgin for many years before going o2 i can safely say that virgin is not the best internet going....not by a long shot.

bigredshark · 3 Dec 2010 at 10:55

DJMK4 said:
True

Im getting a second line/connection put in early next year from the ISP I work for, however im not sure what way to go, a connection from work or another BE connection, and bond the two lines

We dont have proper 21CN services in our area and no FTTP until December 2011 so only chances of a 24mb package would be LLU BE.

I dont think work would appreciate my heavy downloading

I'm vaguely aware I did about 650GB last month (mostly work however, I was working from home a fair bit...)

I've personally been playing with the funky stuff 21CN has given us recently, I've mapped my DSL straight onto a VPLS instance and hence through to a virtual firewall instance in the core which is quite cool, means that all unwelcome traffic gets tossed before it hits the my DSL connection so no wasted bandwidth, it also gives a private (and semi secure) path to my hosted boxes in the datacenter. It should be a nice feature being able to do that for remote offices and homeworkers for business I think. Lastly it means I can simplify my kit at home as I'm firewalling at the remote end, which is nice...

ca9phoenix · 3 Dec 2010 at 11:00

i pay £75 ish for Virgin 50Meg bb XL tv and XL phone,

i think £28 a month of that is for the broadband.

can't complain about the speeds

i must stress that this test was done over wireless N so that knocks a little off too

bigredshark · 3 Dec 2010 at 11:01

Zairs said:
im with virgin too, if its there fibreoptic cable you get the speed you pay for. best internet going

For the couple of hours before you exceed the vague quota and get shaped. And if you're not in one of the many areas where they patently don't have enough capacity and everything grinds to a halt in the evening. Some of that is alleviated by going to the top end 50Mbit package true - but it shouldn't be necessary to go that far just to get functional internet (and having spent a few days staying with friends who have 20Mbit VM internet, functional it definitely wasn't).

It's also not fibre optic, it's coax. Go on, cut the cable and have a look, if it's fibre I'll pay for the repairs...

ca9phoenix · 3 Dec 2010 at 11:04

is it not fiber to the street then coax through your house?

oli356 · 3 Dec 2010 at 11:06

Chuggerboom said:
What i am trying to say is this: Virgin and all the other companies may be flirting super fast broadband up to 20Mb. But that doesn't mean you will get that. It depends on where you live etc.

You and other people are paying for something you are not getting. Get my drift?

But then some people do

Plus getting a upgrade in upload speeds a month earlier then expected though not 5meg as of yet.

deuse · 3 Dec 2010 at 11:09

ca9phoenix said:
is it not fiber to the street then coax through your house?

Yes

bigredshark · 3 Dec 2010 at 11:29

ca9phoenix said:
is it not fiber to the street then coax through your house?

It's essentially FTTC, fibre to the nearest distribution point, but the coax loops are fairly long in some cases. The difference is technology in the copper loop though, not the fibre, DOCSIS is just a different technology to xDSL and isn't rate adaptive (good or bad thing it's difficult to say, in theory you could get higher speeds still if it was).

Swifty55 · 3 Dec 2010 at 12:23

Chuggerboom said:
What i am trying to say is this: Virgin and all the other companies may be flirting super fast broadband up to 20Mb. But that doesn't mean you will get that. It depends on where you live etc.

You and other people are paying for something you are not getting. Get my drift?

Hence why they advertise "UP TO" speeds.

wolvers · 3 Dec 2010 at 12:55

Are you lot with the cheap ADSL packages factoring in the line rental from BT as well?

Don't forget the time wasted talking to foreign call centres staffed by pigeons!

bigredshark · 3 Dec 2010 at 13:04

wolvers69 said:
Are you lot with the cheap ADSL packages factoring in the line rental from BT as well?

Don't forget the time wasted talking to foreign call centres staffed by pigeons!

As opposed to the semi mandatory virgin phone rental I don't want either? (and is actually technically unnecessary unlike the BT rental...)

wolvers · 3 Dec 2010 at 13:10

Well, I was just pointing out that the cost of a broadband package isn't always the total cost of having said service.

I've managed to switch to an LLU service that has the line rental included so I don't have to pay BT squat any more, and the package is cheaper than the previous BT wholesale one so win win.

gillywibble · 3 Dec 2010 at 13:11

£12 per month for up to 24 Mb. Sadly, I'm some distance from the exchange and get around 6 Mb.

DJMK4 · 3 Dec 2010 at 13:31

Swifty55 said:
Hence why they advertise "UP TO" speeds.

I really hate this, its always popping up in the media about people complaining of their speeds and blaming ISP's for ripping them off, even though the ISP's clearly state the UP TO part.

It gets me how many people do not read or see this when purchasing a service.

whitecrook · 3 Dec 2010 at 13:43

IF you want a gauranteed speed you have to pay for it, to get either a leased line or a 1:1 contention ratio. This will cost a few thousand a year. You don't get anything for nothing.

DJMK4 · 3 Dec 2010 at 13:47

whitecrook said:
IF you want a gauranteed speed you have to pay for it, to get either a leased line or a 1:1 contention ratio. This will cost a few thousand a year. You don't get anything for nothing.

Unless they are in a medium to large business, they are not going to pay for a leased line.

I dont even see smaller businesses opting for a leased lines really but prefer the ADSL failover method from two data centres or line bonding, however again this is not guaranteed speed and uptime, the fail over will give them more redundancy, however if a local BT issue arises, they are screwed.