Looking into getting UPC Broadband

IgsTer

Hey lads..I Just got a letter this morning about UPC being available now in my area and just wondering what there like overall and im looking for some answers to some questions i have

Pings: First of all what are their average pings like..Im a big online gamer so there quite important to me..at the moment im getting roughly 50ms pings..I could cope with anything between 40-70 though the smaller the better..


Speeds I was thinking of either getting the 10mb or 20mb package and just wondering would you likely be getting these max speeds all the time or just at off peak hours..in the case that ill never get near 20mb speeds..would i be better getting the cheaper 10mb package?


Trottle Are UPC known to trottle certain connections such as bittorrent etc?


Ports Ive heard people having some problems with certain online games not being able to connect to servers due to ports being blocked etc..is this a big problem with UPC? and are you able to open and configure them yourself or do you have to call UPC up to ask them to do it?


Usage Ive read also they have unlimited usage..however i know you cant go downloading terabytes every month.. but is their fair usage policy limit large enough? has anyone ever being told they've reached there limit?


Installlation Also whats their installation like..I seen the new cables been installed up under the gutter of the houses around my area a few months back..do they take the cable from there into the house upstairs..or do they just use the pre-installed square ntl cable box thing that connects to your tv in every house to route the cable through..also since ill have to have the cable coming upstairs through the floor into my router do they do that or leave it to you to do?


Thanks for any help and look forward to some answers

gerryR

Hi IgsTer, I'll answer your Q's as well as I can:

I'm with NTL 20MB for months now, had some big problems in the building where was withougt BBand for a few weeks, support were hit and miss, sometimes they were helpful other wise they were "restart yer modem". I will say this, when its working (and I've had a few months of "almost" reliable bband) it's great.


Pings:
Depends on what your pinging, I ping google.ie and get avg 37ms

The only online game I really tried is BF2, again it depends on the server but I can find servers where I'm getting a 20 ping, regular one I play on is around 30 and I get no real lag.

Speeds Again it depends on where your downloading from, I often see things coming down at 1-2MB/ Sec but not always. That can have a lot to do with where your downloading from too. I can not complain about the speeds but I don't download a huge abount.

Trottle I've never noticed any torrent throteling. Assuming there's plenty of seeders the speeds I get seem fine


Ports I've only really played BF2 online and there was no problems with ports being blocked.

Usage I've never been contacted but I reckon I'm within their fair usage quota.


Installlation They put a splitter on the cable going to your NTL box, that splits into a cable modem which is then connected to either your PC or a router via ethernet.


Hope that was some help,

gerryR

Tooorbooo

Hey,

Pings - playing mostly counter strike source pings good 20-30-40 but sometimes Saturday Friday you cant even play.... (probably of high user usage on weekends
ports - no problem, you can always open them

Trottle,speed - mostly using utorent for downloading,speed vary...upc throttling torrents definetly, sometimes speed good sometimes, very bad...
tryed even to change router to linksys, no help... with rapidshare getting 2000 - 2200 kb/sec download thats very good, but ......torrents no luck

vibe666

Pings:
PING boards.ie (89.234.66.107): 56 data bytes
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 15.8/18.8/27.4 ms

PING jolt.co.uk (82.133.85.65): 56 data bytes
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 25.3/29.8/33.9 ms

PING google.co.uk (72.14.221.104): 56 data bytes
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 39.1/40.9/44.7 ms

Speeds
depends on a heap of things, but it's never gotten really slow for me. i think 6mbps is the slowest I've seen (on 20mbps) and 18mbps is the fastest. on a couple of well seeded torrents I managed to get 5.6mbps but it's usually between 1-3mbps on public trackers. upload wanders between 800kbps and 1.5mbps, i guess depending on how busy my area is.

Throttle
not that I'm aware of, at least not yet.

Ports
all open, nothing blocking anything so far. good job I have a good firewall on my router I guess.

Usage
officially unlimited but I've heard that the FUP comes into effect at some point over 600gb per month :eek:, although others (on threads here) have said they've passed that and not heard a peep out of ntl, so who knows.

Installation
took 30 minutes. 2 guys. one changed the box on my wall behind the telly and the other changed something outside the house, at least I think he did, either that or he was rummaging in my bins.

they offered to set up the wifi router they gave me when i signed up, but i told them not to bother and just get the connection live on the modem and i sorted the rest with my own router. even with that it would only have been 45 minutes.

vibe666

Tooorbooo wrote: »

Trottle,speed - mostly using utorent for downloading,speed vary...upc throttling torrents definetly, sometimes speed good sometimes, very bad...

are you using the default port? seems like it's more like contention or a lack of connected seeds maybe?

faoile@n

I've had 20mb now from UPC for 4 months. Pings are good and i always get the full speeds. I don't do much torrenting but i've never noticed beind throttling. From my experience its been excellent and very good value for money.

Your best bet however would be to speak to someone in your area or even test their connection. With UPC problems seem to be location specific. For example i live in D12 and have had no problem. I have read on here though that different parts of dublin are prone to problems.