Virgin Cable Broadband or BT Inifinity

[~Divine~Wind~]

Go with the BT option mate if ya need it right now
Alternatively Sky Fibre is coming VV Soon!
no traffic management and no throttling!

If only they hadnt passed my exchange but did numerous exchanges either side of it lol

 

[Angel_Rex]

Well sky ADSL is 10x better on llu that normal bt ADSL. I don't see why fibre would be any less.

In fact, I know two people who have it now and love it. I'm having it installed Friday, if ur interested ill let u know once its installed.

 

[aln]

ah right cool, It appears I can already get FTTC for BT Infinity with 40meg download and 10 meg upload.

Who are the better providers in terms of quality of service?
Plusnet or BT infinity as they seem to offer similar things or am I best waiting for sky as I would ideally like to get their TV/PHONE/WEB bundled but only if the broadband is as good as BT Infinity as I want to start streaming so a solid upload connection is mandatory!

Plusnet is probably pointless to buy from. They're owned by BT, and I can't see them using any other network besides BT's. The only reason to go with them would be if they were offering better filtering / data cap limits than BT, or offering the service at better prices, which I don't believe they do.

Once again, Sky is an unproven entity. Nobody can really tell you whether they're worth waiting for until further information exists on the subject. From the information that does exist, their upload speeds are lower than what you can get from BT, and historically they've refused to disable Interleaving so are anything but a gamer ISP. That may change come April, and if you don't mind waiting, it's may be worth doing so.

In addition to this, BT have announced FTTP On-Demand for 2013. I'm of the opinion than things will get interesting then, so I wouldn't tie myself into too long a contract unless you plan to /quit competitive FPS sometime soon.

 

[supafly]

This is what my Virgin Media connection looks like at the moment.



Ignore the red bit, it was switched off then. But look at the latency since 4pm today.

Would like to see ping of a BT Infinity connection to compare with.

 

[aln]

Well sky ADSL is 10x better on llu that normal bt ADSL. I don't see why fibre would be any less.

In fact, I know two people who have it now and love it. I'm having it installed Friday, if ur interested ill let u know once its installed.

I beg to differ.

Whilst it's always a where you live lottery, over the years BT has always had the most stable network in my opinion. Where they have failed to compete is on price, which given that we're talking re: Next Gen Internet, BT are probably the best on price at the moment.

It's a bit of swings and roundabouts, but the only reason I wouldn't use BT is if someone else was allowing you to force fast_path, which BT currently do not, and sky have never allowed you to have.

 

[aln]

This is what my Virgin Media connection looks like at the moment.



Ignore the red bit, it was switched off then. But look at the latency since 4pm today.

Would like to see ping of a BT Infinity connection to compare with.

I already posted one above, though not in a nice little graph like you have.

Still, my virgin connection, which is also above, is significantly better than yours which just goes to further the point of it being a lotto. BT will most likely work, but if you're far from your cab you could be getting 20Mb for the price of 40.

 

[Angel_Rex]

Sky fibre ping is around 15ms.

My sky ADSL ping atm is 24ms.

My bt ping used to be 19ms.

I won't pretend is notice the diff.

My mate has bt infinity and gets 9ms. Bt fibre ping


Btw, sky fibre upload atm is meant to be increasing in the next month.

I've been chatting Witt the sky fibre team about it.

 

[Angel_Rex]

My bt line used to only sync 5mb then drop to 512kb in evenings.

Sky in 2007 enabled my llu exchange, went straight to 8mb sync.

 

[Lighters]

Does fastpath still apply with BT infinity then? as like I was saying pings are the most important factor but I guess I will wait to see what sky are offering, all depends how much their upload is however

 

[Angel_Rex]

Ping is 15ms. I think there is a sky user forum might be worth checking.

Their upload.is going up to 10mb apparently.

 

[aln]

My bt line used to only sync 5mb then drop to 512kb in evenings.

Sky in 2007 enabled my llu exchange, went straight to 8mb sync.

Probably because BT only served upto 8Mb to you, whilst sky were willing to give you upto 20 or so. Whilst I stated that BTs network was considerably better, over the term, you need be comparing equal products.

Sometimes the odd LLU network could have been better, especially before they grew to a resonable userbase. Sometimes they were serving up newer tech before BT did, resulting in better download speeds. However, I still stand by my statement as theres a lot more to a connection than max download speeds.

In any event it doesn't matter, as I already stated about 9 times I consider it a complete lotto, so we're just giving personal anecdotes.

Does fastpath still apply with BT infinity then? as like I was saying pings are the most important factor but I guess I will wait to see what sky are offering, all depends how much their upload is however

Short answer, yes and you can't turn it off.

Longer answer is it's automatically set due to your line stats. I believe the more disconnects they detect, the more likely it'll be turned on, but I don't know many fiber users who have it on. People who do stuff like turn their modem off at night will probably be on an interleaving mode. I would definitely be interested in the interleaving policies of either ISP when you take the plunge.

In any event, come April it'd probably make more sense to post on a few forums asking people what they get around your area and with what ISP. Better to get a feeling before signing a year long contract.

I made a graph for my VM:



Compare it to the BT infinity one I stole from someone off cableforums:

 

[Angel_Rex]

Probably because BT only served upto 8Mb to you, whilst sky were willing to give you upto 20 or so. Whilst I stated that BTs network was considerably better, over the term, you need be comparing equal products.

Sometimes the odd LLU network could have been better, especially before they grew to a resonable userbase. Sometimes they were serving up newer tech before BT did, resulting in better download speeds. However, I still stand by my statement as theres a lot more to a connection than max download speeds.

In any event it doesn't matter, as I already stated about 9 times I consider it a complete lotto, so we're just giving personal anecdotes.



Short answer, yes and you can't turn it off.

Longer answer is it's automatically set due to your line stats. I believe the more disconnects they detect, the more likely it'll be turned on, but I don't know many fiber users who have it on. People who do stuff like turn their modem off at night will probably be on an interleaving mode. I would definitely be interested in the interleaving policies of either ISP when you take the plunge.

In any event, come April it'd probably make more sense to post on a few forums asking people what they get around your area and with what ISP. Better to get a feeling before signing a year long contract.

I made a graph for my VM:



Compare it to the BT infinity one I stole from someone off cableforums:

I completely agree, however I only compare like for like, if it hadn't of been its misleading.

To clarify. Bt on my line and sky were both upto 8mb products its just the sync was better with sky and they don't packet shape etc.

As you say, it all also depends where you like. My town only has 14k people so not o er Subscribed.

To be a stable connection and better ping is a must. I would rather gave the 15ms ping and 10mb that I currently sync at over 20mb. Major benefit with 40mb, (ill prob get 36mb) is that downloading movies on sky player or the wife on iPlayer will effect me less