Best ISP for upload? (anything above 20mb?)

[ssmacc]

Hello,

I've just cancelled Sky and lost the broadband as well although I was very happy with it (long story). I'm a big Plex user so upload speed is a big factor in my next ISP, I'm in a cabled area so could have virgin.

From what I can see 19mb upload is as good as I can get? Is there anyone you would recommend? I used to have Virgin 200mb before switching to Sky (68mb) and to be honest I preferred 68/19 to 200/10 speeds...

Why is the UK so bad when it comes to uploads!!!

Cheers,

 

[Avalon]

Hello,

I've just cancelled Sky and lost the broadband as well although I was very happy with it (long story). I'm a big Plex user so upload speed is a big factor in my next ISP, I'm in a cabled area so could have virgin.

From what I can see 19mb upload is as good as I can get? Is there anyone you would recommend? I used to have Virgin 200mb before switching to Sky (68mb) and to be honest I preferred 68/19 to 200/10 speeds...

Why is the UK so bad when it comes to uploads!!!

Cheers,

As someone who may have experience with a number of very large Plex servers, why on earth aren’t you using a dedicated remote server or at least a VPS with dedicated resources? Hetzner Cloud + CDN is cheap and starts from literally the cost of a pint per month. Have a look at Plexguide for more info.

To answer your question, you are mistaken, the UK isn’t bad at all. We have unlimited upload at the same profile speeds that are used in many, many other countries. What we lack is widespread availability of symmetrical speeds, this is because of the technology in use and that uplink has cost implications and on a residential service is sold based on downlink speeds. As margins are minimal and residential customers are price sensitive. VM choose to limit upload speeds to what they can get away with. If you’d like to pay business rates, you can get faster upload speeds last I looked. The next version of DOCSIS is based on symmetrical speeds, however that doesn’t mean that you’ll see them adopt it any time soon, or that they will roll symmetrical speeds.

 

[ssmacc]

As someone who may have experience with a number of very large Plex servers, why on earth aren’t you using a dedicated remote server or at least a VPS with dedicated resources? Hetzner Cloud + CDN is cheap and starts from literally the cost of a pint per month. Have a look at Plexguide for more info.

To answer your question, you are mistaken, the UK isn’t bad at all. We have unlimited upload at the same profile speeds that are used in many, many other countries. What we lack is widespread availability of symmetrical speeds, this is because of the technology in use and that uplink has cost implications and on a residential service is sold based on downlink speeds. As margins are minimal and residential customers are price sensitive. VM choose to limit upload speeds to what they can get away with. If you’d like to pay business rates, you can get faster upload speeds last I looked. The next version of DOCSIS is based on symmetrical speeds, however that doesn’t mean that you’ll see them adopt it any time soon, or that they will roll symmetrical speeds.

Thanks for the Info, I'll have a look at the Plex "things" you suggested (I've used "things" purposely to emphasise my lack of knowledge )

I'm a home user who streams Plex to my girlfriends and shares with my folks / sister and one friend...I'd suggest for £40 a month (Virgin top tier home broadband) upload should be able to cope, 350/20 just seems massively weighted to download (I appreciate Joe Blogs only sees download in adverts etc.)

Thanks again...guess 20 upload is the best I can get without business type solutions?

 

[MG42Maniac]

I am also a heavy Plex user. The best I could find at my old address was VM 350/20. I opted for the Gamer 200/20. It found it was good for a couple of streams @ 4mbps. We moved into a new build house in July, thankfully we have BT Ultrafast so I've got 330/50 now. Outside of the few places where you can get 1gbps/1gbps services, it's about as fast as you can get so happy with it. I looked into cloud hosting but if you want a lot of content it's really not a cheap way of doing it. For example, I have 30TB of content, I want local copies in lossless and remote content to friends at 1080p 10mbps. In order to achieve this using the cloud, I'd be paying a comical monthly amount. My advice would be to limit the quality down to 720p 4mbps.

 

[ssmacc]

I am also a heavy Plex user. The best I could find at my old address was VM 350/20. I opted for the Gamer 200/20. It found it was good for a couple of streams @ 4mbps. We moved into a new build house in July, thankfully we have BT Ultrafast so I've got 330/50 now. Outside of the few places where you can get 1gbps/1gbps services, it's about as fast as you can get so happy with it. I looked into cloud hosting but if you want a lot of content it's really not a cheap way of doing it. For example, I have 30TB of content, I want local copies in lossless and remote content to friends at 1080p 10mbps. In order to achieve this using the cloud, I'd be paying a comical monthly amount. My advice would be to limit the quality down to 720p 4mbps.

Yeah, I think I'm coming to the same conclusion, I've got ~10TB and growing, to be fair 720p 4mbps looks surprisingly good on my girlfriends 4k TV via Plex - I'm surprised I'm typing that as I'd only use lossless at home and I thought I was a HD snob!

Cheers,

PS is "Gamer 200/20" a virgin deal? I've not seen BT Ultrafast come up on a BBand postcode check so assume that's not an option for me...

 

[MG42Maniac]

Yeah, I think I'm coming to the same conclusion, I've got ~10TB and growing, to be fair 720p 4mbps looks surprisingly good on my girlfriends 4k TV via Plex - I'm surprised I'm typing that as I'd only use lossless at home and I thought I was a HD snob!

Cheers,

PS is "Gamer 200/20" a virgin deal? I've not seen BT Ultrafast come up on a BBand postcode check so assume that's not an option for me...

Yeah, I think 4mbps actually is really watchable, I've sent it to 10mbps and it's noticeably better but wasted on people who think 720p HD is fine.

I think the Gamer is a package they no longer do, I believe you need their 350 service to get the 20 up. Bit of a joke really.

 

[Avalon]

720/3mbit or 4mbit is adequate for most, unlimited online storage is cheap and the site I mentioned above is a project you really should have a look at.