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8Mbit Broadband to Become Available in the UK

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the cheap-broadband dept.

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.

16 of 518 comments (clear)

  1. Dear UK by Letter · · Score: 5, Funny
    Dear UK,

    40 pounds? Now that's a heavy modem.

    Letter

    1. Re:Dear UK by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Interesting
      > 40 pounds? Now that's a heavy modem.

      "and there's a monthly download cap of 500GB"

      OK, bub, let's see you carry that much pr0n.

      If a CD-R weighs 20 grams and holds 700MB, then a spindle of 50 CD-Rs (35 GB) weighs about a kilo, or 2.2 pounds. 14 spindles * 35 GB = 30 pounds.

      So you're breaking even (pound for pound as you pound the pud) after about three weeks.

      Conversion to Libraries of Congress full of dead-tree editions of Mayfair (it is the UK after all) is left as an exercise for the rest of you wankers. Er, for the student.

  2. Not really a great deal... by scifience · · Score: 5, Informative

    I pay $105.95 a month for Speakeasy DSL. That is for a connection with 6000kbps down, and 768kbps down. That connection has no bandwidth limits. Not a bad deal, if I do say so myself, considering I can run any servers I want on the connection.

    Now let's look at the offer that was described in this article. If we convert 40 UK pounds to US dollars, we see that this connection costs around $75 a month, depending on the exchange rate.

    My connection through Speakeasy is roughly $25 a month more, has no bandwidth limits (and 500GB is very easy to reach on a fast connection) and a faster upload speed to boot. There is also no mention as to whether this connection allows servers or not. However, I am guessing it doesn't, considering that Speakeasy is an exception on this policy rather than the rule.

    When you consider all of these factors, this "best deal around" doesn't really seem to be quite so great anymore.

    1. Re:Not really a great deal... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "When you consider all of these factors, this "best deal around" doesn't really seem to be quite so great anymore."

      Erm. Unless it's a common practice to move to the USA to get cheaper internet, why would one from the UK even consider this factor?

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  3. holy expensive! by Blymie · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, it seems quite expensive. I pay $60 per month CDN (at 26 pounds, it's just over 1/2 the price of this "deal"), and receive 6.5Mbps down, 900kbps up, with no limits.

    There's no installation charge, and the cable modem is included.

    I prefer to have more upstream.. and a little less downstream. That upstream is far more useful. So is the lack of limits.

    Oh. By the way, this isn't make believe speed either. Videotron actually delivers. I get downloads at > 700kbytes/sec all the time.

  4. Is that really a news? by sam0737 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here in Hong Kong, I am getting 10Mbps Up and Down, with no upload/download limit (Of course they said you can't setup any kind of server in your home in the fine prints but who knows :P)

    How much? Not more than USD 20 per month! The service was there for some years already. And there are now serval ISP providing the same service so the price is getting even lower~

    1. Re:Is that really a news? by sam0737 · · Score: 5, Informative

      No sorry. Hong Kong's traffic is not filtered by the great firewall~

      Under one country two systems, we are really quite independent ...Check out the wikipedia if you want to know more :P

    2. Re:Is that really a news? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Interesting
      10 megabits per second upload with no cap? Holy crap! I want your ISP! Imagine how amazing BitTorrent would be if every connection was like that! You could download hi-def TV shows and movies faster than you could watch them. You could do real-time P2P Internet video broadcasts, and have it actually work. Anybody could be their own TV station. Communication monopolies of all types would be on their deathbeds. Who needs cable TV when I can download what I want to watch, start watching in seconds (as the rest downloads faster than I can watch it), and watch it whenever I want?

      We have only begun to tap the potential of the Internet. When the average connection can both download and serve hi-def video faster-than-real-time, we will really have arrived at the Internet of the future.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  5. 500GB = 4000Gbit (Round Numbers) by datastalker · · Score: 4, Informative

    500GB = 4,000,000,000,000 bit
    8Mbit = 8,000,000 bit

    4,000,000,000,000/8,000,000 = 500,000

    8Mbit/s gives you 500,000 seconds

    There are 2,592,000 seconds in a month (30 days).

    That means that if you let it download constantly at maximum speed, you only get to use it for a week.

    Of course, if you can find 500GB to download (constantly), then you've probably already figured that out.

    Ironically, here in the US, with cable, I routinely get 1.5Mb/s down, with no cap.

    --
    Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
  6. In an entirely unrelated story... by trawg · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... UK downloads of major BitTorrent clients have increased by a factor of eleventy billion.

  7. Expensive! by silverz · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is very expensive. In Japan, for example ADSL connection from Yahoo Japan costs you about 4000 yen per month (less than 40 US dollar) for 50 Mbps ADSL.

    And also fibre optic connection has become very common and cheaper. For example Usen Networks (one of the provider in Japan) provides 100 Mbps fibre optic connection for only 2950 per month.

    I use the fibre optic that comes with 5 static IPs. And it costs me about 5000 yen per month.

    Download cap is totally never heard in here. As far as I know, all packages come with unlimited bandwidth.

    1. Re:Expensive! by pcgabe · · Score: 4, Informative

      I live in the middle of nowhere in Japan (it's not all like Tokyo - From my house I'm surrounded by rice fields, stereotypical but true), and the only thing available to me is the ~$40/month 54Mbit ADSL. Of course, I'm so far from the center that my actual download speed is closer to only 8Mbit (I know, I know, you feel my pain).

      What's really worth mentioning is the Yahoo-BBphone. VoIP comes free with my internet access, and I can make phone calls to the U.S. for around 2.5 cents a minute, or free calls to other BBphone users.

      --
      Don't put advice in your sig.
    2. Re:Expensive! by mattgorle · · Score: 4, Informative

      My post may seem a bit terse.

      This offering is *not* expensive for this country (the UK)! Pretty much all suppliers offer capped access with limits in the region of 100-150GB/mth (ignoring the "exceptional" ISPs like BT who offer lower caps). Furthermore, this is going to be considered to be a very high speed connection in this country. Just to give you some perspective, I'm on a 1Mbit connection, which is more than most people in this country have.

      If someone could come over here and offer high speed, reliable, uncapped broadband internet access to the home for a reasonable price, they would absolutely conquer the market.

      I suspect that precisely the same would occur in Australia and New Zealand, where I understand the internet connectivity possibilities are even less impressive.

      --
      Slackware user since 1997.
  8. Re:you guys are getting screwed... by TecraMan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It gets worse... I have 8Mbps DSL in France for 14.95 per month (basic idea is that everyone pays the same, whether they get 1Mbps or the max 8Mbps).

    Thats less than £10 per month and with no download cap! Come on UK... Getting beaten by the US is bad enough, but by France? That's terrible!

    (BTW: I'm a Brit in France, so I have mixed feelings on this one!)

  9. In Canada by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Informative

    In Canada, You can get 5.0/800 for $45 and there's no cap on how much traffic you can generate. Come to think about it, I've never seen a cap on cable internet. BTW, most people in canada have cable available, as there is usually only 3 channels (1 of which is french) if you just use rabbit ears. So cable covers most of the country. Cue the "But I Don't Have Cable" whiners.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  10. France has got UK Beat: 20Mbits/sec @ 30 Euros by valmont · · Score: 4, Interesting

    thanks for playing. You read it well: 20Mbits/sec DOWN and 1Mbit/sec UP. No cap. and that's for 30 Euros per month.

    The service comes with free telephony to any french landline (calls to mobile phones cost something), and very cheap international rate, like 3 eurocents to europe.

    Once you've got all that, you can pay an extra monthly fee to get hundreds of TV channels. With 20Mbits/sec ... that should do it.

    All of this is given to you thru Free.fr triple-play box, the FreeBox. My Mom's been with them for a couple of years and has the original, more clunky incarnation of today's sleek freebox. Here's a picture of it.

    --
    Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices