internet speeds

burner

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dont know if this is the right place to ask this but am currently on skys basic (but free) 2mb broadband with an average speed of 1690-1700kbps. Now i dont really know what this means (fast or slow?) and my question is; my PS3 is permanantly 'wired' to the router and i sometimes experience delay and judder in online gaming, will upgrading to 20mb for the obligatory £5 per month make any difference?

replies greatly appreciated,

Stu Barber.
 

Gerrardasnails

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Sep 6, 2007
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burner:
dont know if this is the right place to ask this but am currently on skys basic (but free) 2mb broadband with an average speed of 1690-1700kbps. Now i dont really know what this means (fast or slow?) and my question is; my PS3 is permanantly 'wired' to the router and i sometimes experience delay and judder in online gaming, will upgrading to 20mb for the obligatory £5 per month make any difference?

replies greatly appreciated,

Stu Barber.

It all depends on how near you are to the local internet station (or whatever they are called!). You can go for the up to 20mbps and still only get just under 2mbps. I'm not a gamer but I would imagine speeding things up would make a difference.
 

Gerrardasnails

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burner:cheers for that, so how would anyone find out where the 'nearest internet statio' is?

I'm a bit embarrassed that I called it that - it really is nothing like that but I just can't think of what it's called! Someone on here will come forth...
 

The_Lhc

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You mean your local telephone exchange?

I think you can look it up on BT, put in your post code and phone number (home, not mobile...) and they'll tell you how far away you are and what sort of speeds you can reasonably expect.

I think there are a number of websites you can use to do that to be honest.
 

Gerrardasnails

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the_lhc:
You mean your local telephone exchange?

I think you can look it up on BT, put in your post code and phone number (home, not mobile...) and they'll tell you how far away you are and what sort of speeds you can reasonably expect.

I think there are a number of websites you can use to do that to be honest.

That's the one! See, I knew someone would come up with the right words! Mine is at the bottom of my road and I get fast speeds from Sky's Max package. Family nearby but about 50ft lower than us, get very poor speeds.
 

daveh75

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If you enter your phone no/postcode HERE, it will tell you everything you need to know about your local exchange,i.e services provided and providers, estimated/average speeds and distance from exchange etc.
 

GazzyP

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You may also want to consider an 'iPlate' - available from the the BT website. Apparently it helps 'clean' the line of noise - my O2 service jumped from 8mpbs to nearly 13mbps after I installed this cheap little gizmo. Worth every penny. I'm on the O2 20mbps service, by the way and have found O2 faster than the same service with Sky.
 
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Anonymous

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Gerrardasnails:burner:

dont know if this is the right place to ask this but am currently on skys basic (but free) 2mb broadband with an average speed of 1690-1700kbps. Now i dont really know what this means (fast or slow?) and my question is; my PS3 is permanantly 'wired' to the router and i sometimes experience delay and judder in online gaming, will upgrading to 20mb for the obligatory £5 per month make any difference?

replies greatly appreciated,

Stu Barber.

It all depends on how near you are to the local internet station (or whatever they are called!). You can go for the up to 20mbps and still only get just under 2mbps. I'm not a gamer but I would imagine speeding things up would make a difference.

The old "leaves on the track" excuse is complete and utter nonsense. Case in point, my Sky broadband (down the copper wire from the telephone exchange) inexplicably (ahem) drops my broadband speed from between 1 and 2 megabits per second to aound 150k, and below 56k dial-up speeds at times, roughly at about 3 pm EVERY DAY, before recovering to the norm around midnight. That about 3 pm is when the little dahrlings start coming home from school and logging on has absolutely nothing to do with it, naturally.
 
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Anonymous

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I think you'll find that it is unlikely that going from 2mbps to 20mbps will make a huge difference in your gaming. What is more likely to happen is that as a by-product of getting the faster plan your latency (or 'ping', mesasured in miliseconds) will go down. You can find out what it is by going to "http://www.pingtest.net". You can also do a full speed test with basic ping testing here: "http://www.speedtest.net"
 

landzw

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Beta i right , upgrading your download speed won't make a difference to gaming unless you want to download large files like HD movies otherwise its pointless
 
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Anonymous

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landzw:Beta i right , upgrading your download speed won't make a difference to gaming unless you want to download large files like HD movies otherwise its pointless
Of course I am: I'm an IT geek at heart.
emotion-4.gif
 
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Anonymous

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burner:
dont know if this is the right place to ask this but am currently on skys basic (but free) 2mb broadband with an average speed of 1690-1700kbps. Now i dont really know what this means (fast or slow?) and my question is; my PS3 is permanantly 'wired' to the router and i sometimes experience delay and judder in online gaming, will upgrading to 20mb for the obligatory £5 per month make any difference?

replies greatly appreciated,

Stu Barber.

1690-1700Kbps is quite slow, it's the same as 1.6 to 1.7Mbps. Sky Basic though is capped at 2Mbps - so you're not going to be able to get much more than what you are getting unless you upgrade your Sky broadband package.

The 1.6 - 1.7 is also not very indicative of what speed you might get on an upgraded Sky package because of the cap. E.g. if it wasn't capped and you were getting 1.6 - 1.7 - then it would show you're too far from your exchange to get anything faster so no point in upgrading.

Online gaming is quite reliant upon ping and latency - if ping is high then you will experience judder as you are. Ping is to do with the time it takes for a bit of data to go where it's going and then come back again. Latency is to do with hanging (e.g. delay).

You can't really fix ping and latency unless you go with a gaming orientated ISP who prioritise gaming traffic and make sure ping and latency stays low for the gamers, such as BE or Plusnet.

Upload speeds are also quite important in gaming - more so than the download speeds. As Sky cap the basic broadband at 2Mbps down, the upload speed is likely being capped too. So upgrading may give you a faster upload speed which will help with your gaming.

It's also likely that an upgraded broadband package, e.g. without the speed caps, is not guaranteed, but would be reasonable to expect it to have better ping and latency rates.

The other thing to keep in mind - although it's probably less of an issue with Sky due to their usage limits - but cheaper packages tend to suffer from stricter traffic management and speed throttling.

Sky Unlimited is totally unlimited with no fair use policy, traffic management or speed throttling. So you'll never be slowed down just for using it too much. Although, with a 2GB monthly usage limit on the Sky basic package - you can't be gaming very much ?

Personally, if I was you I'd upgrade to the Everyday broadband package and see what that's like. It's got a 10Mbps speed cap so should have faster upload speeds, and it has a slightly bigger usage limit of 10GB. If you notice your gaming improving, then you can always upgrade again to the Sky Unlimited - which is only £10 a month - if you wanted to.

If you want to get really good online gaming then consider switching to BE broadband or Plusnet Pro, but if you just want to improve what you've got I'd upgrade to the next package up and see what the difference is.

It might be worth reading up a bit on it too, there is a Sky broadband review here http://www.chooseisp.co.uk/broadband-guide/articles/is-sky-broadband-any-good.html and also a guide on gaming broadband here too - http://www.chooseisp.co.uk/broadband-guide/best-buys/gaming-broadband.html - which should help to explain how to get 'good gaming broadband' a bit more.
 

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