The lowest possible Virgin package : \.

Pay for 10mb, get 9-10mb 99% of the time.
Throttled if I download more than 1GB in peak times thoe

(Cant complain thoe since it was a free upgrade from 2mb and I'd never hit that cap once untill 10mb since I didnt like leaving things downloading while im doing things)

Never had a mass downtime, maybe the most of a day or so within the few years weve been with them.

i have AOL Silver... The _WORST_ internet provider EVER.

Quote from Dajmin :

That's a lifestyle issue.

Sure. I'm just saying it is really easy to download 10Gb a day without much effort. With the massive rise in streaming media (and the quality of it) you can get through 10Gb without thinking about it.

Quote from jimaxx :

Throttled if I download more than 1GB in peak times thoe

Not quite true You can download 3 gigs between 10am-3pm and another 1.5 gigs between 4pm-9pm without getting throttled. Thats 4.5 gigs during peak hours + whatever you can squeeze in during 3-4pm

Quote from The Moose :

Sure. I'm just saying it is really easy to download 10Gb a day without much effort. With the massive rise in streaming media (and the quality of it) you can get through 10Gb without thinking about it.



Not quite true You can download 3 gigs between 10am-3pm and another 1.5 gigs between 4pm-9pm without getting throttled. Thats 4.5 gigs during peak hours + whatever you can squeeze in during 3-4pm

Fair enough, maybe misread it when I looked before and dont realy pay attentiont o how much I'm downloading via video's/games/+general downloads.

I stand corrected

I'm now on Sky Unlimited 20mb for £10 a month, absolute bargain and no download caps its completely unlimited, brilliant service

Quote from Mazz4200 :

Granted Fibre optics can handle stupidly high speeds, but good old fashioned copper wire should still be good enough for 40 - 50mbs (according to Ofcom)

Quote :

In theory, copper wires could still achieve speeds of up to 50Mbps if an upstream modem is hosted in the exchange. However, in practice actual speeds would probably be far lower, as the quality of copper wiring varies considerably between households.

.

It could, but doesn't.

What they are saying is that in ideal conditions, with ideal equipment, 50Mbps is possible, but I highly doubt that anywhere has 'ideal' conditions.

To achieve the 50Mbps ofcom said that an 'upstream modem' would need to be installed for every street, which has not happened.



http://www.broadband-finder.co ... -reach-50mbps-says-ofcom/

Quote from spiderbait90 :

.

It could, but doesn't.

What they are saying is that in ideal conditions, with ideal equipment, 50Mbps is possible, but I highly doubt that anywhere has 'ideal' conditions.

To achieve the 50Mbps ofcom said that an 'upstream modem' would need to be installed for every street, which has not happened.



http://www.broadband-finder.co ... -reach-50mbps-says-ofcom/

Oddly enough that's the exact same page i found before i wrote my previous post.

One issue is, how much does an upstream modem cost ? and would it be cheaper to install them in every exchange in the country rather than carry on with the fibre optic cable laying (and any other associated bit of kit and installation costs that goes with it) Coz you can bet your bottom dollar that it'll be us, the general public that'll be paying for it.

However, my initial gripe wasn't about 40 - 50 or even 100mb speeds. My beef with BT is that i'm paying over the odds for an 8mb connection, but getting an absolute maximum of 6.5mb (the average is lower). And as i said previously, i can see the exchange from my house, it's only 200 yards away !!