UPC vs Eircom?

DeVore

I've a 3Mb line from Eircom and prior to the recent DNS and congestion issues, I was happy enough with it. Not happy, but happy enough not to go through the pain of getting a new supplier.

BUT lately its been crap and I'm looking at a tempting offer from UPC in my area of a €1 EEE-pc if I buy through a mobile phone shop (urk?)

Anyway, I'm looking at the 20Mb and wanted to know what it really gets in terms of downloading speeds? the Eircom line maxes at 200K/ps ish... (thats big K) but frequently only manages 20-80 K/ps most of the time.

What sort of download speeds do people with the 20Mb UPC line actually get? (I mean, real actual downloads from the wild...)

DeV.

spurious

I am getting this at the moment. It's generally pretty solid.
Much cheaper than eircom, esp if you get the phone with UPC too.

DeVore

Are you seeing that sort of speed when you download files from the internet though??

DeV.

UPC 100%





Solid most of the time, Do get the odd interruption, but nowhere near as bad as Eircoms DNS joke.

DeVore

DeVore wrote: »

Are you seeing that sort of speed when you download files from the internet though??

DeV.

Attached my current DL speed of newsgroups.

Get similar 18.4Mb/2.4MB speed of Rs/Heanet/Sourceforge Ect.

pandamoanium

On UPC 10MB package, just ran speedtest... :pac::pac::pac:

DeVore

I get this:



But my point is that I get no where near 1Mb/ps out in the wild...

Dev.

DingDong

Dev the €1 laptop deal finishes the end of the month.
Here's a result I'm getting at the moment below. Real speeds are closer to 20Mb at the same time see attached image. All test where done over a wireless connection. I was sorting out a friends PC a while back, who could only get 1Mb from eircom and it felt like using dialup downloading the various files I needed.

yoyo

What i'm getting just there, on wired connection, actually since being on 20Meg, my dads Eircom 7.6meg connection seems ridiculously slow :pac: . UPC don't censor either, which is a plus as who knows what else may go down the road, UPC announced they won't apply such tactics,

Nick

vibe666

not perfect by any means when you look at the service as a whole, but considerably better than my previous ISP which was BT and speed wise, theres just no competition. UPC FTW.

Sponge Bob

depends on your segment , a group of maybe 100 premises share bandwidth .

If you are in a hog heaven zone it will be slow ...probably better than 3mbits though .

ask the neighbours .

jackdoes

Upc is definetly better. I wouldn't pay for the 20Mb though. I think everyone gets the same connection regardless. I pay for the 20Mb but rarely get above 1Mb.

I usually use my USB stick from O2 which is always much faster.

I'd go with the cheaper option. If its too slow ring their sales and the will upsell you in roughly 90 seconds. If you get the 20Mb and wand to downgrade from 20Mb you are talking about 90 days of hell.

Still upc over eircom anyday.

Ranicand

Edit wired connection.

jackdoes

This is unusual. I haven't seen it that fast in a long time.

jackdoes

Thats more like it.

Does anyone know if upc can vary the speed of your internet connection.

I am on ultra fast 20Mb, if i drop to 6Mb does that mean that my bandwidth will divid down accordingly?

vibe666

jackdoes, you don't need to keep doing screengrabs of your speedtest results, just click on the "copy forum link" button at the bottom of the results and paste it straight into the main text box of your reply and it will insert it into your post the way you see it in the other posters links.

also, if you're paying for 20mbps and only getting 1mbps then you have something very wrong somewhere on your connection, particularly if you're finding your o2 mobile broadband midband to be faster.

ring UPC and get them to do some tests. if they can't offer you anything that's a lot closer to 20mbps then demand that they downgrade you to a package that better matches the speeds they are giving you. you could downgrade to the 3mbps package and save yourself €240 a year and never see any difference in your service from what you have now, OR get much faster broadband.

AlmightyCushion

As long as you are downloading from a source that can provide you with those types of speeds you'll get them. Usenet and rapidshare will definitely max out that bandwidth. Torrents might if they're very well seeded.

I'm the same as yourself, DeV. Stick with eircom 3Mb and it's rare that I get the max speed. My friend has 20Mb UPC and it's sickening going over to his place. With both of us downloading from astraweb (usenet), he can download a 720p rip of a film quicker than I can get a SD dvd rip.

vibe666

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

he can download a 720p rip of a film quicker than I can get a SD dvd rip.

yeah, those will be the royalty free public domain nature documentaries i've been downloading too.

sorry, wasn't sure which smiley to use.