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8Mbit Broadband to Become Available in the UK
UK Online is offering 8Mbit broadband service to the UK. The upstream is 400K, and there's a monthly download cap of 500GB, but at 40 pounds per month, plus 50 installation and a free wireless router in the package, that has to be among the best deals on offer from anyone.
No service with a monthly cap is a good deal...
We've had 8 Mbit/sec ADSL in the UK for almost two years now... I know because we've got it.
g or y.asp?id=1
http://www.easynet.net/broadband/broadband_cate
I pay half as much for the exact same speed here in the States, and I don't have a download cap... and the US is supposed to be lagging behind the rest of the world in broadband. You limies are really getting screwed!
/dev/random
Question: How many people have enough space to *store* that much data. Video streaming might eat into it, but even that doesn't hit the full bandwidth and wouldn't be 24/7.
Unless you count those that run big servers, have massive storage space, or download tons of pr0n and archive it not many people will get near that anytime soon.
Considering that the UK is currently stuck with deals like 512/128 for £20 a month, or NTLs most generous 1500/128 service for £35 a month, £40 a month for 8000/400 is a bargain.
I wonder if they'll offer a 2000/200 for £20 a month?
I expect this is why NTL are rumoured (well, I recall them sending a letter anyway) to be upping speeds from 300,750,1500 to 1000,2000,3000 in the near future, for the same price.
How fast is the connection from the CO to other major backbones? How much of the 8mbit is committed bit rate? How much is guaranteed if say all possible users start downloading at the same time?
Is that ISP's network multihomed?
And even more importantly what is the latency to yahoo.com, Torontos 151 Front St, backbones in NYC, and the Silicon Valley Sprint networks? How much is the delay to alter.net routers?
In short, will you see 80ms or 30ms playing counterstrike on your average server in the US, Canada or Korea?
All this is assuming their internal switches are all non-blocking preferably gigabit switches with either gigabit or 10gigabit uplinks, not 10mbit ethernet hubs. Also assuming their modem and CO equipment are both nonblocking doing the pppoe and breaking up 1500-sized packets to fit because most people dont enter 1492 in their MTU settings.
If their networks are in such good shape, more uplinks will be appreciated more than higher speec downlinks, maybe 4mbit/1mbit or even 4mbit/4mbit SDSL, especially if they provide static non-pppoe IPs. These things simply allow other possibilities even for the consumer market which wants to share pictures, stream out videos to relatives, and run game servers.
With all ISPs inching up their technologies, upgrading their equipment in each iteration, it escapes me why dont they quite simply lay down fiber optic ethernet lines in the streets running at 100mbit both ways, and just be done with it. Their operating costs will absolutely plummett, and fiber optics do exceed the ADSL distance. What is cheaper, a new cisco or juniper DSLAM, with countless ADSL DMT/DOCSIS modems, or piles of made-in-taiwan switches and fiber cables??
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Actually, we could have had that kind of infrastructure in the UK too. Back in the 1980s BT wanted to replace the existing copper network with fibre across the board at its own expense. The catch was that it wanted the government remove the restrictions that were preventing it from becoming a content provider. Basically, their plan was to recoup the costs through competing with cable and satellite providers, but the government (Thatcher's) nixed the idea.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I was just there. Now *that* is what I am
expecting for broadband. Its fibre to the home.
(This was in Kyoto). VoD applications (movies, pay for shows, pr0n, its all possible).
In the good old US of A we can get 1.5 or 3mbps WooHoo!
Hedley
What does this mean?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
You probably have about the cheapest and best service available anywhere in the US in the NYC metro area, due to high population density and general tech-savvy level. You're hardly a representative sample. Here in LA, I pay $60 for 3 Mbps download and 384 kbps upload (sucks for bittorrent). The fastest available service is Speakeasy DSL at 6 Mbps download and 768 kbps upload, but that costs $110 per month (and I'm considering it). Elsewhere it's worse, and of course in the country you're lucky to get broadband at all for any price.
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WHAT?
Telstra don't even offer those speeds in AUSTRALIA
hmm, though I see their download cap is as small as it is here
Bubba, if you think 500gb is easy to reach then I'd like to know what the hell you use it for. I am a LEECH, I consume everything that's anything as far as DVD, consoles or music are concerned and I would have to spend half my day queueing files in order to come anywhere close to 500gb a month.
Maybe you're one of those "special" types who download the entire newsgroup, then delete whatever you don't like. I never did fully appreciate the "Autograb" function in my newsreader.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
It's a great deal for the UK.
:)
It'd be a fucking great deal here in Norway
Perhaps in the US it's only a good deal.
I'm sure in Japan, South Korea etc. it is a poor deal.
Somehow, I'm not about to move to either of those places for the Internet connection though. Would involve leaving my mom's basement and all, yes? Seriously though, most of us have a life where we are, and a vast improvement in internet connection where we are is "news for nerds"
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings