Does anyone here have Be broadband? We're considering getting it in our student house in the next few months, just wondered if the service really is as good as they claim.
Any information would be helpful really, actual speed, any downtime etc.
It's DSL, so "actual speed" will be limited by your line. And the "unlimited" service is the same as everybody else's "unlimited" service, ie: Limited! Read their AUP.
Yer I realise that, AUPs annoy me/everyone I guess, but I dont know of any ISPs without one.
I think the line should be ok, its in the middle of Southampton.
Just had a look on some adsl guide sites and it seems to be rated pretty highly. Sadly nothings going to be as fast as our uni internet atm - when it decides to work.
edit: They dont actually say how much their AUP includes, we're probably going to need quite a high limit lol, or just adapt to it.
Most ISPs actually give you a peak hours limit, or a total transfer limit here. A few offer unlimited with AUPs. True unlimited is truely unheard of, unless you pay for a very expensive business line.
Do you know, or can you check your current line stats ?
There's a checker here that gives an indication of what sort of speed you should see on the 'up-to-24mb' ADSL2 service. It's pretty accurate going by the results of friends who have moved to the Sky service (Be not available at exchange).
Sadly for me, I would see about the same speed as I am getting on my 'up-to-8mb' service.
A good place to read about ISPs is www.thinkbroadband.com (Ex-ADSLGuide). They have a forum section for most major ISPs where users can giev good and bad comments about the service they are receiving, what sort of AUP they enforce etc.
Bean0, I had a look on that site, seems quite informative
I think the main issue is the distance we'll be from the exchange, the problem with ADSL2+ being the signal degenerates very quickly, they recommend only being a few km away max, even then it wont be a very strong signal.
It seems there really is no way to get fast internet at home in the UK. (I'm used to anything up to 100mbps atm lol).
+1 for business packages...hunt around, there are some good ones to be grabbed, at less than you may think.
I made the switch about 6 weeks ago, and the difference has been phenomenal...NO MORE traffic shaping...NO MORE blocked ports...NO MORE lag!!
I am on a "up to 8Mb" downstream and a 448Kb upstream...only prob is that because of my distance from the exchange, I only get 1408Kb down...but that is still better than the 1Mb I had before.
Add to this a static IP, 150 HOURS free telephone calls to any UK '01' or '02' number and cheap rates overseas and to mobiles, and I am quite happy with my £23.99 per month bill!
Really? Data transfer is a commodity like any other, I doubt any business - German or otherwise - would be keen on giving it away. Maybe you just haven't hit the limit yet.
Thisnameistaken, maybe u should do a little bit of research before posting
It's not because England (and sadly Belgium too) has idiotic ISP's, who live by priceagreements and transferlimits, that every other country is the same.
Notably Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark have cheap(compared to others) limitless internet.
Just posting this since I have seen several totally uninformed posts from u in computer related topics. So it might help to do 2minutes of browsing/looking up before suggesting other people dont know what they are talking about.
Well I sure believe him...Here in France I've hit 300 gb in a month with my Orange 18 mbit connection. There was absolutely no problem! And it's cheap (30 euros a month). A friend of mine has even done 900 gb for chrissake.
I lived in Belgium when the adsl was unlimited ( 5 years ago?), and left at just the right time! Ridiculous limits now and the speed has remained unchanged without a price drop.
I don't buy it. There's no such thing as limitless transfer, it's a fallacy. It might be presented as such to the consumer, but you can guarantee the provider is being paid for every Gb. The ISPs might be declaring an unlimited service but in practice if that's really what they were offering they would go out of business. Transfer may be cheaper in some countries with healthier competition for provision, but it's never going to be free.
I don't claim to be an expert, particularly. It's nice to meet one though, so why don't you go ahead and correct me on these several totally uninformed posts I've made while you're here, rather than just making vague reference to them.
I think what you end up with is larger companies like AOL, Orange (as mentioned above) offering unlimited services.
They can do this because for every one 'hardcore leecher' they probably have 50 'Old Granny Types' who only use their connection for checking their email and the occasional ebay purchase.
Your average Joe Public will see the ads on TV and sign up, he won't be scouring the 'net to find out about other smaller ISPs.
This way you have the light users subsidising the bandwidth bill of the heavier users.
Oh Kev, maybe they get paid for every giga transfered, but it sure isn't us. Limitless bandwith is a fact for many years and many countries. (I've personally tried 3 of them countries). For me it's just ridiculous to think about a limit in bandwith, just as its ridiculous for you to hear a limitless one.
Btw, these connections also come with a free Tv service, including Motors Tv, National Geographic etc, and free calls throughout France (fixed). If bandwith was really a problem I don't think they would offer free Tv streaming right?
Kev. I assume you posted this before you had a chance to read Bean0's post above...I think he has just about hit the nail on the head with his answer..
Wake up and smell the Nescafe mate...there ARE unlimited bandwidth packages available in the UK...I know, I've GOT one!!!
And THEY DO charge...its called the monthly bill! You aren't getting anything for free, its just like...er...let me see, some Internet Cafes let you have UNLIMITED supply of coffee while you are using the computers...the coffee is free...isn't it?? NO...because you are paying for the Internet connection...the coffee is a BONUS.
The same as SOME ISP's let you have unlimited downloads and some are tight swine that cap your usage and then charge the earth if you go over your 2GB per month...a good example is TalkTalk with their FREE connection...its only free if you use it just to get your e-mails and maybe browse a forum once or twice a month...but Heaven help you if you download some warez!!
Ofcourse the provider is being paid..they arent a charity.
But there is a difference between charging 50£ for a 10gb capped line, or charging 25£ for a limitless (yes that word again) line where u can happily download all month long. U can call the limitless part a fallacy..but if u can download 24/7 for a month long without getting any complaint/getting disconnected or having to pay extra, I would call it limitless.
I'm not going to bother with digging up month old threads, one is even from 2006 somewhere. But i do remember them..one about overclocking where u said it was useless and the best that would happen trying it was blowing up a computer (u added something about CPU companies not being so stupid to sell chips that were not clocked at their maximum speed)
The other was a thread where u claimed either AMD or ATI made subquality products like they have always done ..which u happened to post at a time that AMD and ATI both had clear performance advantages.
And now this thread where u try to correct someone on a subject u clearly arent too savvy in either.
But since u seem to be convinced that u are right I'll leave u in the illusion that limitless internet doesnt exist.
I even wish it didnt exist as it would make my crappy 4.4mibt ADSL with a 30Gb cap less of a ripoff
So anyway, I've had Be broadband since October, and on the whole I'm fairly impressed. Download speeds aren't bad, around 18Mbps on a good day, and the very little uploading that I do is fine too. Added to that the price is right. I've also never had any problems fair a fair usage policy, and we as a house download anything up to 10GB/day.
However... my biggest issue is with online gaming, and by that I particularly mean Counterstrike. I frequently, like 4 out of 5 times I join a server, have what I can only tell is a massive lag spike, more often that not enough to eject me from the game with a timeout. Generally however once I'm in a server, the connection stays good. And with most good UK servers my ping is around 15-30ms. During these lag spikes the rest of the network traffic doesn't seem to be interrupted, and the wireless doesn't drop out.
My network setup isn't the best - wireless, however I'm wondering really if the problem is the truely AWFUL free router they give you. It really is bad, don't ever try and set up port opening, as that crashes it. Don't ever try and upgrade the firmware, as that crashes it. You'd be lucky to be able to log into the router's control panel without it crashing. Either way I think I'll try grabbing myself a Netgear router (never had any problems with the few I used before) and give that a blast. It really is frustrating trying to get a game going.
So basically just wondering if anyone else has Be Broadband and has problems with online gaming?
