I'll be living 2.88km from the exchange (as the crow flies) cable or dsl?

Felix E · 16 Apr 2007 at 17:15

My flatmates and I (students) are moving house this July and we're going to be living (according to samknows) 2.88km straight line distance from an exchange.

Now I'm guessing this will be pretty limiting to any dsl speeds, so would we be better off going with cable? I'm pretty sure Virgin media via cable will be available in our area - is this not limited by distance at all?

Oh and can you hook a cable modem up to a normal wireless router for wireless net?

Thanks for any help,

Felix

drphibes · 16 Apr 2007 at 17:25

Cable should not be limited at all by the distance but its worth checking that the area has the speed you require e.g 10 meg etc.

It is allways hard to put a potential speed on a bt line because the distance is only one part of the equation on what speed you might get.
I know three people who live very close to each other and they recieve 512, 1mb and 6mb!
This just shows that you might well live near a exchange but you could well end up with a low quality line and this will result in low speeds.

Drphibes

ps Yes you can plug your cable modem into a wireless router for net access

Phemo · 16 Apr 2007 at 19:03

Virgin Cable won't be limited by distance at all. It can, however, vary greatly depending on where you live. In some areas you will get a fantastic service (ie. here in Basingstoke it's superb) but in others it can be quite terrible. Since you're going to be in a student area then I would suggest trying to do some research. Do you know anyone else in your town/city who has Virgin that you can talk to? Your location mentions Sheffield so I'll take a guess that you're at uni there. For what it's worth I used to live in Sheffield and when I had cable there it was excellent. That was a little while ago though.

As already mentioned it's very tough to say what kind of speed ADSL you would get. I know people who live around 2.5km from their exchange and they get roughly 6.5mbit but I also know other people who live 3km away and they only get around 3.5mbit.

Jabbs · 16 Apr 2007 at 19:08

I live just over 2km and only get 4meg i doubt he will get 6.5 tbh.

Caged · 16 Apr 2007 at 23:15

If you can get cable, get cable.

Felix E · 20 Apr 2007 at 17:55

Caged said:
If you can get cable, get cable.

heh 'If you can, you should.' !

Yeah we are students at Sheffield uni, will be living up above Crookes next year.

Thanks for the replies guys, we'll probably go with Virgin's 4mb cable and basic phone package then

Felix