You're almost certainly paying for "up to", and the T&Cs will almost certainly state that's between you and the exchange or another point under your ISPs control. Its the whole infrastructure/backhaul/contention issue.
I "can" get 38mbps; right now - using 2 different speedcheckers - I get at best just over 3mbps down, and 9mbps up. Why is the up so much better? Pretty much no-one contends upload bandwidth. But I bet if I check my router it would claim to be synced at 38mbps, and technically that would be the speed of my internet connection.
It's the main reason that pretty much all advertised internet speeds are nonsense - the speed is entirely dependent on which two points you're measuring it between. But it's a measurable target that lets people tick a box on a checklist. Just don't take it too seriously...
Oh, if you're in one of the areas that hasn't got VDSL, and you're too far from the exchange* to get decent ADSL, it sucks, absolutely. The fact that's only 5% of households now doesn't help you. But it does demonstrate that the technology is continuing to be pushed out, which is better than only the big urban areas getting it.
Ultimately, the situation hasn't actually changed in the last decade. If you live in a place that can't get the best internet speeds, your options are basically suck it up, pay through the nose for a specialist/business service, or move house. All a bit sucky. It just depends on how critical fast internet is to you, and how viable the other options are.
* "too far from the exchange" - always worth considering this is cable length not straight line difference, and the cables don't always run straight. I once had a house whose cabinet was at the end of a big loop that added to the distance significantly...
https://www.zen.co.uk/yourhome/super...band-packages/
The 67 down 18 up is actual speed, I am on a "up to 76 down 19 up" package. I usually see my rated speed on downloads, have been very happy with them.
lol, been there. Last house was about 2.5km from the exchange, but the cable was 4.2km long.
Ouch - I imagine you were only getting 512k even when they upgraded the exchange to ADSL2+?
You could get 24mbps 10 years ago? Must've been a rather forward looking installation...
That said I remember my first VDSL install was - iirc - around 6 years ago, although I think I was on 20mbps for that. And I remember it was only a few years earlier that I moved to an area that was getting the full 8mbps ADSL. Go back ten years and I remember getting a 3G dongle because the broadband in my area was so bad.
Of course, there are still people who aren't getting "superfast" broadband, and if they were upgraded they probably would think of it as "super". Ultimately they're going to have to come up with a different way of classifying them, but I'd rather they tried sorting out the contention issues first. With more and more people ditching conventional TV and going for Netflix etc. the situation's only going to get worse, regardless of the sync speed each individual line can achieve....
Pob255 (31-01-2018)
LOL,until the middle of last year I was on an ADSL connection which varied between 2MB to 5MB down and between 0.28MB to 1MB up,and even though it was not ideal,it was still usable and I still could game and use Steam,slowly!
Now on a 40/10 connection.
Also,yes I have been on higher speed connections upto 80MB too,but 24MB is fast enough for most people,unless you are the kind who just want to keep downloading your whole flipping Steam Catalogue, 4K pron films and UHD HDR Blu-Rays all the time!
Irresponsible Speed. 1080mbits
Yes, living the life of the "meagre trickle networking user" does have the one upside that everything feels so easy when your new connection is actually competent. A new world of being pleasantly surprised.
Last edited by Ozaron; 30-01-2018 at 01:39 PM.
That sounds like me with television Every time I stay in a hotel it's like "What? There's a screen you can turn on and it shows you things? And if you don't like what it shows you can press a button and it shows something different?! "
The novelty generally wears off after flicking through 15 channels, finding nothing I'm even vaguely interested in watching, and remembering why I ditched broadcast TV in the first place, but for that five minutes it's a whole new world....
Roughly 10 years ago, https://web.archive.org/web/20120403...dband-11c.aspx
Which got upgraded to 100Mb for no extra cost about 3 years later, and then to 150Mb for no extra cost... and I moved prior to the 200Mb upgrade about 1-2 years ago. Unlike a fair few customers, I actually got those download speeds as well, depending on where I was downloading from. Latency wasn't an issue for gaming, normally ~20ms, at my age it's slow reactions that get me killed when playing games.
I really wish Ofcom would just tell the ISP providers to stop with all the "superfast" and "ultrafast" nonsense and just advertise the minimum speeds (connecting to the local exchange) obtainable for customers, not the theoretical maximum.
Well I could see Virgin Media using the "lightspeed" one (or any ftth service tbh)
Oh, Virgin. Great if you live somewhere that could get it. Between 2008 and 2015 I lived in four different houses, all within 3 miles of Manchester City Centre, none of which could get Virgin. Oh, the next street over could get it, or the houses on the other side of the street, sure. AFAIK availability if still just as spotty - it really is a huge lottery around Manchester whether you've got cable running down the street or not.
when they say the UK they usually mean London, they forget about Scotland, Wales, Ireland,
typical corrupt British government,
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