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[Stripey]

Originally Posted by stuartmaxwell

possibly, although I downloaded a couple of .wav albums yesterday and it was pretty much exactly the same speeds as when I did it on the "10mg" in my old place

The thing with ADSL (if thats what your 10Mbit service was) is that the actual speed the line syncs at depends on line quality, the wiring in your house and distance from the exchange etc, so when you buy a 10Mbit package or whatever, that's just the theoretical sync rate. Very few people actually get those speeds from ADSL. I know someone who lives out in the sticks and they only get 2Mbit from the 8Mbit service.

Relative speeds like downloading stuff obviously depends on where you are downloading from aswell...

[stuartmaxwell]

ah I see. I know very little about things like that. cheers for clearing that up!

As long as it doesnt fuck with my xbox live Ill be happy

[Tam o' Shantie]

i use orange, £5 a month for 'unlimited' 8mb (don't download movies etc so nae caring about limitation/capping) plus no line rental required - this deal requires a mobile phone contract, but i dont know if you have one or not

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Chris

I'm fairly sure you could use your own one if you wanted. You just need to get the username and password details for the account. They don't give you that in the paperwork you get sent though as they assume you'll use the router they supply with that info already entered.

It's not that straightforward unfortunately. Sky have restricted things so only routers with specific MAC addresses can connect to their broadband network. So even if you have all the login details this still isn't enough. The reason I know this is that I was helping a mate with their broadband connection and they are with Sky. If you do some Googling around you'll see plenty of people reporting problems with this Netgear router as well as complaining they can't use their own routers with the service.

[Alkaline]

The maximum ADSL speed you can get using Aberdeen's exchanges and phone systems is 5mb/s.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Alkaline

The maximum ADSL speed you can get using Aberdeen's exchanges and phone systems is 5mb/s.

My router says differently.

What information are you basing this on?

[Alkaline]

Originally Posted by Chris

My router says differently.

What information are you basing this on?

What about internet speed checks?

My information comes from people i know who work in internet installation for BT in Aberdeen.

[Chris]

My router says I connect at 6720Kb/s with a line attenuation of 31db. Which as I understand these things is pretty good.

(Sky router stats (speed, noise, attenuation) explained - Sky User - The unofficial support forum for everything Sky!)

Online speed tests vary wildly depending on the site, time of day etc. Even if you actually are connecting at 8mb a speed test could very well say you're only on 3mb.

I've seen the stated connection speed on my router change a lot over the years as the lines, exchanges and my ISP have all been upgraded so I'm inclined to believe it's telling something similar to the truth and not just telling me what I think I want to know.

No doubt a network engineer will show up on this thread and tell me I'm completely wrong though. I wouldn't be surprised.

[Stripey]

Originally Posted by Alkaline

What about internet speed checks?

My information comes from people i know who work in internet installation for BT in Aberdeen.

Internet speed checks are pointless.

If you go to Test Result this is the most reliable result you're going to get, it's handy because it will tell you your BRAS profile aswell. I.E if your line is unstable, you could have a profile as low as 250kbps despite the fact your router might sync at 8mbit....

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Stripey

it's handy because it will tell you your BRAS profile aswell.

<puerile joke>

36 DD

</puerile joke>