Would like to hear your experience with different broadband ADSL bandwiths

[computer]

Hi there,

I would like to hear about your experience when using VOIP and also Skype with and without a webcam - with regards to different broadband/ADSL bandwidths for up- and download.
What problems did/do you encounter for the different speeds?
As a single user of one broadband connection, but also with two people using one connection at the same time for VOIP and/or Skype??

With regards to those broadband bandwidths I would also like to find out what speeds are needed when uploading a video onto a webpage, say e.g. a 5 min , 10 min or 30 min video?
(I do understand that the speed for an upload is relative for everyone, but I mean what speed is required for an upload that doesn't take longer than a max.! of say 5 minutes.)

Hope anyone can help.

Ta.

[merdat]

Hi there Computer, Well I used to use voip on a 2meg link using bt communicator until it was done away with. Worked ok but people used to say that I sounded as if I was in a tin can at times and the cct used to drop a great deal .

When I was upgraded to a 8 meg link (Max rate -which for me works out about 5.5 meg -with Bt h/h and BT vision . ) , I was using a skype link to the states - worked extremely well - minor problems sometimes but nothing that was not cured by call back by one party or the other. As I say , I have this BT vision - now I have not downloaded any films yet but they tell me that when you are downloading to the vision box that the link is 'throttled back' to about 1/2 meg as far as the pc surfing is concerned and it should go back to normal after the vision download is finished---but sometimes it sticks -as happened to a friend of mine recently. I have no experience of downloading films apart from the odd clip - hope this helps

Ps SKYPE is good.

[Funkstar]

The quality of the software and the compression format it uses will have more of an effect on quality than your stated bandwidth of your connection.

A Skype call (and i'm sure this is the same for other VOIP services) uses around between 3 and 16 KB/sec. Depending on network conditions, bandwidth available and CPU power.

With uploading you are limited to a MAXIMUM of 768Kbit. Although it is unlikely many people will be able to get this. Regular non ADSL MAx connections are limited to 256Kbit upload, so that will limit file upload speeds.

Also bare in mind that although you might pay for an 8MB Max connection (for example) you don't connect at that, you connect at the maximum your line can cope with. That connection shared with other at the exchange, so if there are 30 other people connection you only get a portion of that bandwidth. This is known as the contention ratio.

[computer]

Many thanks merdat and funkstar - your feedback does help.


I would think though that VOIP uses more than Skype, heard once it's something like 100-120 to assure good voice quality(?)

@ merdat:
I totally agree, Skype is great.

To anyone:
Still I would also like to hear anyone's feedback on the unanswered topic of: "I would also like to find out what speeds are needed when uploading a video onto a webpage, say e.g. a 5 min , 10 min or 30 min video?
(I do understand that the speed for an upload is relative for everyone, but I mean what speed is required for an upload that doesn't take longer than a max.! of say 5 minutes.)

Ta.

[adam1701]

Many thanks merdat and funkstar - your feedback does help.


I would think though that VOIP uses more than Skype, heard once it's something like 100-120 to assure good voice quality(?)

@ merdat:
I totally agree, Skype is great.

To anyone:
Still I would also like to hear anyone's feedback on the unanswered topic of: "I would also like to find out what speeds are needed when uploading a video onto a webpage, say e.g. a 5 min , 10 min or 30 min video?
(I do understand that the speed for an upload is relative for everyone, but I mean what speed is required for an upload that doesn't take longer than a max.! of say 5 minutes.)

Ta.

On my 448kb uploads, i can usually upload around 2.5mb per minute. which is around 46kb/s average.

The best figure to think of is 17kb/s = 1mb per minute.

so you can work it out from there! like you would an equation.

[Funkstar]

I would think though that VOIP uses more than Skype, heard once it's something like 100-120 to assure good voice quality(?)

erm...what?

Skype is VoIP.

You can get decent (ish) quality stereo music at 128Kbit. Half it for mono and you have decent enough quality music at 64Kbit. Simple voice is a lot easier to compress, especially when the codec is optimised for that kind of wave form.

Speex is a free software speach codec that has a bitrate rage of 2 - 44Kbit/sec.

I can't imagine why you would want more than that, or even why you would need to go about abou 10Kbit to be honest.

It might be that in times gone by, when codecs were not at advanced, and processors not as powerful, then you did need a lot higher data rates. But these days, there is absolutly no need for 100-120Kbit. Hell, you could probably run a video phone on that these days.

[computer]

Thanks for your postings.

@ Funkstar:
upps, sorry my mistake,
I think I meant - using a connection with 100-120 kbit/sec upload would at least be needed for somehow acceptable quality for VOIP.

--I don't need the interenet connection for music at all, so am only needing it/referring to VOIP and uploading and downloading videos (films with interviews etc.) onto a webpage with two people using one connection at the same time.

--I am not too good with these calculations;
I believe my current upload rate is 192 kb (not sure, whether I am mixing up the numbers again now ) - so when I ran a test yesterday I was rather shocked: tried to open a video on a webpage (size: 64.3 MB, film duration: 11mins),
I had to give up after 8 mins as it was still only about 4-5** bars through the download (i.e.those indicators at the bottom of a page, showing how far the opening of a page is going) . (For me far too slow, this reminds me on my days without broadband, but a modem with I think 64 kb upload rate. )
Before I also tried to make a call via VOIP at the same time of the download,but that surprisingly, didn't make that much of a difference. Both results showed I think, for my needs, this upload rate doesn't seem to be coping that well with this.

mmh.

[Funkstar]

If you are opening a page with a video on it, you are downloading contents, so your upload rate of 192kb is irelevant.

192kb is a little odd. usually it would be more like 256kb.

Anyway, just because you have a fast internet connection, doesn't mean that a video is going to download quickly, it all depends on the server it is coming from and the route it takes to get to you. A slow download could also mean that your ISP or exchange is stuggling with the amount of poeple online at the same time.

For a good real world test, download the full Windows XP SP2. You should be able to get 200-300KByte a second download from it.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

VoIP doesn't need broadband. dial-up can send and recieve a couple of kbit/sec no problem. what makes broadband more suitable is that is it always on and there is no per minute fees etc. Also being higher bandwidth, if something else wants to transfer data to or from the internet, it is going to have less of an effect on the VoIP application.

With Dialup VoiP is going to take a huge percentage of the connection, with broadband the percentage is a lot smaller.

[computer]

Thanks for your note Funkstar.