broadband speed

[kazdek]

ive used TESCO broadband for some time now i pay �17.50 a month .ive been on www.broadband -expert.co.uk/broadband/speedtest and it says ,download speed is 0.99mbps .upload speed is 0.23mbps is this good or bad for the money i pay .if bad what would you recomend for me

[zinnie]

Hi 'kazdek' ........in one word its .....bad !! it's the download speed. Although ISP's talk about 'up to 8Mb' most people are lucky to get 4Mb ...and many like me 2Mb ....but certainly 0.99Mb is not good. The problem is that of the location of your house you might not be able to get a lot higher speed. Go to some ISP sites (like BT) put in your post code and they will tell you what speed you could expect. If ,for example, BT think they could give you 4Mb then you have something to work with.

[realaleman]

Hi Kazdek
I've been on BT broadband option 1 @ �8.95 for a month now and when I used broadbandspeedchecker last week I was getting 6.2Mbs download and 0.35Mbs upload. This site gives a comparison with what other users have tested at and it seems i am quite fortunate. From what I've read it really depends on how far you are from the exchange and the condition of the phone line. But I think the figure you get depends on the checker that you use. When I tried BT's own speed checker it came out a lot lower. It also depends what time of day, evenings and weekends theres a lot more people online and speed plummets. My 6.2Mbs was very early one morning. ;=}
What speed do Tesco promise in their ads? BT are selling 8Mbs but did tell me before I signed up that my line would probably be 6.5, so I'm quite happy

Hope this is of some use
realaleman

[Mattk]

I doubt your speed is related to your isp. Your speed is dictated by your distance from the exchange and also your contention ratio(the number of other households you share with ie 50:1 ratio means potentially 50 other households could be on the same connection).your speed will drop during day/evenings as more people are online but should improve late at night.
from your speed i would guess you live a fair distance from your exchange.

[YvonneM]

Try phoning all the companies and ask what their best offer is I have just had my telphone and braodband connection monthly fee reduced by �13

[sir.prize]

Hi Kazdek. If you are able to get Virgin Media (formerly Telewest/NTL) then you will not need to worry about distance from exchange. They have their own fibre optic cable. I have had 4Mb for about 12 months, and they have just increased it (free) to 10Mb. I did a check and mine is 9.7Mb so I am well pleased.

Good luck.