What is bb ?

pm.

What is the slowest download speed that would pass as bb???????

leche solara

Anything less than 512kbps is not considered broadband. But realistically 1Mbps should be the cut off point nowadays

mensreas

depends on ur package and a host of other factors techinally im on a 2mb line but ive yet to see download speeds of anywhere near that sometimes u might have to forward ports to increase speed if an app is slow ie sharazza bearshare etc!

pm.

leche solara wrote:

Anything less than 512kbps is not considered broadband. But realistically 1Mbps should be the cut off point nowadays

ok so im with last mile and they offer a basic 512 bb package for €40 a month,
but most times i only get half that are they breaking the law??

leche solara

No they are not breaking the law.
They are sending out 512, but distance, quality of the line etc. reduce this by the time it gets to you. I think typically with ADSL you lose about 13% So you should be getting about 445 down

but €40 a month seems very expensive for only 512. Can you not anything better?

mensreas

pm. wrote:

ok so im with last mile and they offer a basic 512 bb package for €40 a month,
but most times i only get half that are they breaking the law??

do u mean 512 down cause if so ur being robbed im payin in or around that for my 2mb? line

kleefarr

pm. wrote:

they offer a basic 512 bb package for €40 a month

Good God, that's terrible. :mad:
You must have a better option surely?

kaizersoze

leche solara wrote:

Anything less than 512kbps is not considered broadband. But realistically 1Mbps should be the cut off point nowadays

Not considered broadband by who?
Eircom only guarantee 256k on all their BB packages and still consider that to be broadband. There's a big difference between the end user's and the ISP's definitions.
Look in the T&C's of almost all the ISPs and they will contain the words "up to" where speed is mentioned.

JNive

the connection / service is 512kbps in terms of definition, however to scamp on costs, they can thwart this by upping contention and giving users lower and lower averages.

As long as they can provide a '512kbps' even if its 'up to', then they can rest easy as the speed is theoretically achievable, and if you have a bad line, then its a bad line and nothing to do with the service. lol

Pansy Potter

You often see contention rates of 24:1 or 48:1 or sometimes 1:1. How can you tell how many people you're actually contending with? Who's to know if the provider isn't lashing 100s of people on the one line and pretending its 24:1 or whatever?

uncle_sam_ie

kleefarr wrote:

Good God, that's terrible. :mad:
You must have a better option surely?

I'm paying €49 a month to Vodafone for 2G (dial-up speeds, 40-55k at the best of times) . I can't get any BB were I live. And, it's not like I'm living out in the middle of nowhere. There are a hell of a lot of people in Ireland in the same boat as me. I would be over the moon if I could get 256k at €40 a month. Thanks to Noel Dempsys, there is a real digital divide happening in Ireland.

watty

Pansy Potter wrote:

You often see contention rates of 24:1 or 48:1 or sometimes 1:1. How can you tell how many people you're actually contending with? Who's to know if the provider isn't lashing 100s of people on the one line and pretending its 24:1 or whatever?

The connection is very slow. There may be some products where contention is not quoted and that may have 100s sharing..

Other systems may have 500 people sharing and enough bandwidth to give 20 of them full speed. That works out at 25:1. Statistically you will get better speed more of the time on that than on a single "resource" shared 25:1

Contention isn't simple. Even ordinary phone calls have contention. The exchange is shared and designed with capacity on basis that maybe 1:100 residential customers talk at the same time!

watty

leche solara wrote:

Anything less than 512kbps is not considered broadband. But realistically 1Mbps should be the cut off point nowadays

> 256kbps down and 64kbps up and < 60ms ping and always on would be another definition of broadband. By that definition Satellite and Rip wave are Internet but not broadband.

pm.

http://www.lastmile.ie/pricing.html what a joke:mad: why do company's like ice comms who just launched bb in mullingar where there are already 4 or 5 bb providers !!!!!!!! why not locate there base station on frewin hill ( about 1 mile outside mullingar town ) then they would cover mullingar town where they wont get much business from because of there price, but they would also cover a lot of small villages in a 12k radius that cant get bb