UPC upload speeds + caps increasing anytime soon?

livEwirE

Hi all, I'm on UPC's 100mb service(recently increased to 120mb) with 10mb up and 500gb cap. Is there any news in the pipline that they'll be increasing the cap to 1tb or more importantly the upload speed to at least 30mb? I download a lot and the cap and upload is my bottleneck;) I've gone over the 500gb per month a couple of times now so 1tb would be ideal.

pizzahead77

The most recent changes UPC introduced with 50/100/150 Mbps down while upstream its 5/10/10 Mbps but existing customers have to request the upgrade.

But they unfortunately haven't made any improvements on the caps

livEwirE

It really doesn't make any sense why they offer the same 500gb cap on 50mb as they do on 150mb

ArthurG

livEwirE wrote: »

It really doesn't make any sense why they offer the same 500gb cap on 50mb as they do on 150mb

Yes it does, as I'd imagine the vast majority of users go nowhere near 500gb per month.

D'Peoples Voice

ArthurG wrote: »

Yes it does, as I'd imagine the vast majority of users go nowhere near 500gb per month.

+1
I think that this gives a good indication of what Irish people do on the internet.

The top 25 visited websites in Ireland.
1 google.com
2 facebook.com
3 google.ie
4 youtube.com
5 wikipedia.org
6 yahoo.com
7 linkedin.com
8 Windows live.com
9 twitter.com
10 bbc.co.uk
11 amazon.co.uk
12 blogspot.ie
13 aib.ie
14 rte.ie
15 ebay.ie
16 amazon.com
17 independent.ie
18 irishtimes.com
19 boards.ie
20 dailymail.co.uk
21 donedeal.ie
22 paypal.com
23 daft.ie
24 google.co.uk
25 WordPress.com
source: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/IE

ED E

ArthurG wrote: »

Yes it does, as I'd imagine the vast majority of users go nowhere near 500gb per month.

Exactly. Just because you get stuff faster doesnt mean you get more stuff. Where it does apply is torrenters, as a stronger seed you'll end up increasing traffic significantly. But thats gotta be far less than 1 in 10 users.

UPC will probably never release the average monthly usage stats but I wouldnt be surprised if its sub 100GB. It'd take a lot of youtube videos just to burn that. What would be nice would be if they offered an addon for heavy users so that they could pay +€5/mo or w/e and double the cap. Where that would get tricky though is if a full block of users in an area all tried for this, overall load on that node could become very high and things might clog up(atm most people get full speed 100% of the time AFAIK as they have excess capacity to cover it).

livEwirE

Gotta admit I'm a heavy torrenter so regularly go over the 500gb cap:)

Nody

ED E wrote: »

Exactly. Just because you get stuff faster doesnt mean you get more stuff. Where it does apply is torrenters, as a stronger seed you'll end up increasing traffic significantly. But thats gotta be far less than 1 in 10 users.

UPC will probably never release the average monthly usage stats but I wouldnt be surprised if its sub 100GB. It'd take a lot of youtube videos just to burn that. What would be nice would be if they offered an addon for heavy users so that they could pay +€5/mo or w/e and double the cap. Where that would get tricky though is if a full block of users in an area all tried for this, overall load on that node could become very high and things might clog up(atm most people get full speed 100% of the time AFAIK as they have excess capacity to cover it).

It exists; it's their extreme pack for users who consistently go over the cap and it's priced with the speed it has for a reason (i.e. it costs a heck of a lot more).

ED E

Nody wrote: »

It exists; it's their extreme pack for users who consistently go over the cap and it's priced with the speed it has for a reason (i.e. it costs a heck of a lot more).

Yeah, I'd heard of this, but its a bit excessive for people who just need a little more bandwidth. Know of three students in a apt that were forced to upgrade to that after two months as they were three heavy users.

Nody

ED E wrote: »

Yeah, I'd heard of this, but its a bit excessive for people who just need a little more bandwidth. Know of three students in a apt that were forced to upgrade to that after two months as they were three heavy users.

But that's the point; their current cap is more then enough for I'd guess 95%+ of their population. Those 95% are already discounting it for the heavy users (or the cap could be lets say 250GB and cut a fiver of the price) so why should the heavy users not pay accordingly to their cost to the company?

I don't know UPCs data but back when I was involved in ISPs you had a small (1 to 2% of user base) group that used up 50%+ of the bandwidth. For most companies losing that group would mean capacity to take on 50% more users basically. And lets be honest here, that group is not sitting around downloading linux distros all night long over and over again in the first place.

Solair

The upload speed is a big deal in an era of cloud services!

For some people working from home symmetric services at say 50 or 100 mbits would be more useful than asymmetric with 10mbits up.

Choice would be nice as not everyone uses the net the same way.

ED E

Nody wrote: »

But that's the point; their current cap is more then enough for I'd guess 95%+ of their population. Those 95% are already discounting it for the heavy users (or the cap could be lets say 250GB and cut a fiver of the price) so why should the heavy users not pay accordingly to their cost to the company?

I don't know UPCs data but back when I was involved in ISPs you had a small (1 to 2% of user base) group that used up 50%+ of the bandwidth. For most companies losing that group would mean capacity to take on 50% more users basically. And lets be honest here, that group is not sitting around downloading linux distros all night long over and over again in the first place.

Hadnt thought about it that way. I'd say its moving more towards more heavy and medium users than the big divide you would have seen 5yrs ago but I'd have to agree they're pretty fare and 500GB should do "the 99%" fine.

ArthurG

Solair wrote: »

The upload speed is a big deal in an era of cloud services!

For some people working from home symmetric services at say 50 or 100 mbits would be more useful than asymmetric with 10mbits up.

Choice would be nice as not everyone uses the net the same way.

If you're 'working from home' you should be on a business package, rather than cribbing that a domestic service doesn't meet your needs.

Solair

ArthurG wrote: »

If you're 'working from home' you should be on a business package, rather than cribbing that a domestic service doesn't meet your needs.

That's very helpful, thanks. I'll get lost and never comment again, shall I?

Many of us have to spend the odd few hours working from home.

Maybe you have the luxury of just using your home internet connection for gaming and randomly surfing YouTube, I have to be able to access servers and upload large files on occasion and I am not really going to go and install a direct connection via fibre to a MAN or something.

Also, the vast majority of internet connections in Ireland (including most business ones targeting the SME sector) are totally asymmetric, with only a very few exceptions at very high speed and huge cost.

There are also hardly any product aimed at SOHO (Small Office / Home Office) that differ from domestic setups.

See: http://business.upc.ie/your_business/small_to_medium_enterprises/ for example. And that's massive overkill for someone working the odd day from home and is extremely unlikely to be used.

LoGiE

I had a technician in my place last weekend and I chatted to him briefly. He mentiond that they are looking at a 300mb package.

Solair

LoGiE wrote: »

I had a technician in my place last weekend and I chatted to him briefly. He mentiond that they are looking at a 300mb package.

I'd say that's to put clear distance between them and any VDSL products eircom will be offering.

The most eircom can hope to achive with VDSL2 is 100mbit/s and that's only theoretical if you are basically directly plugged into the cabinet with a very short cable.

Where as cable networks can easily deliver 150mbit/s and beyond reliably due to much higher bandwidth on the coaxial cables and proper shielding.

VDSL can never really achieve those kinds of reliable speeds as it's still using unshielded low bandwidth twisted pair.

LoGiE

To be honest as I mainly use wireless I only see 50-60mb downloads anyway. I really need to get a NAS attached to the router to actually make use of the 120mb I have!

livEwirE

LoGiE wrote: »

I had a technician in my place last weekend and I chatted to him briefly. He mentiond that they are looking at a 300mb package.

Where can I sign up:eek:

Cheerful Spring

I would like better upload speeds, i do competitive gaming. Stuck on a Eircom 7 meg package unfortunately. I lag alot doing private games so i no longer can apply myself fully to this pastime anymore.

Competitive gaming is getting bigger and better each day ( bigger than the movie industry in fact)

If you are good enough and can play at the highest level you could earn a living from it. I know a fella and his team who won 3 million dollars from just attending one tournament!

Unfortunatelym most competitive events happen online and with the dire state of Internet in rural Ireland, competitive gamers often can not partcipate.

Folks in urban areas, my view, should be grateful for the internet they have.

I would also be interested in faster upload and a 1TB cap. I would be willing to pay a small premium.

cookie1977

Deleted User wrote: »

I would also be interested in faster upload and a 1TB cap. I would be willing to pay a small premium.

shuussh! You'll have them charging us all a premium. I demand it for free!

cookie1977

cookie1977 wrote: »

shuussh! You'll have them charging us all a premium. I demand it for free!

haha! Its a valid point. The 150mb package costs UPC no more to maintain than the 50mb or 100mb. The higher download speeds should be accompanied by higher transfer caps (and higher upload speeds). maybe 750gb with the 100Mb/s and 1tb with the 150Mb/s.

vibe666

UPC are now officially offering only 50mbps, 100mbps and 150mbps on their website now, with 5mbps up on the 50mbps and 10mbps up on the other two packages.

looks like they've started advertising it as 'unlimited' again, with the condition that unlimited actually means 500gb.

Nody

Deleted User wrote: »

haha! Its a valid point. The 150mb package costs UPC no more to maintain than the 50mb or 100mb. The higher download speeds should be accompanied by higher transfer caps (and higher upload speeds). maybe 750gb with the 100Mb/s and 1tb with the 150Mb/s.

It does; higher speeds require better line quality and higher transfer would cost more in the bandwidth they have to buy (with peers, on rented lines to get it to the UPC network etc.).

Nody

Nody wrote: »

It does; higher speeds require better line quality and higher transfer would cost more in the bandwidth they have to buy (with peers, on rented lines to get it to the UPC network etc.).

I am not taking about infrastructure. Once the lines are in place and support 150mb then the ongoing cost of maintanence for that line is fixed and not dependant on which speed of bb package the subscribers on that line are using.

Yes, higher transfer caps do come with additional peering cost but if you read the thread you would know all the packages have the same transfer cap so your point is not relevant.

ArthurG

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, higher transfer caps do come with additional peering cost but if you read the thread you would know all the packages have the same transfer cap so your point is not relevant.

The thread also has general agreement that larger caps are completely irrelevant for the majority of users.

Your 'small fee for a higher cap' could well translate into bandwidth issues for other users in a given area, as you downlown your 100's of 'Linux distros' per month.....

ArthurG

ArthurG wrote: »

The thread also has general agreement that larger caps are completely irrelevant for the majority of users.

Your 'small fee for a higher cap' could well translate into bandwidth issues for other users in a given area, as you downlown your 100's of 'Linux distros' per month.....

You have absolutely no idea what your talking about. The UPC fibre network is so far from saturation that if every user was given a cap of 1tb a month and used it the impact on peak download speed would be negligible.

vibe666

Deleted User wrote: »

You have absolutely no idea what your talking about. The UPC fibre network is so far from saturation that if every user was given a cap of 1tb a month and used it the impact on peak download speed would be negligible.

i don't suppose you'd care to qualify that statement at all would you?

ArthurG

Deleted User wrote: »

You have absolutely no idea what your talking about. The UPC fibre network is so far from saturation that if every user was given a cap of 1tb a month and used it the impact on peak download speed would be negligible.

Well true, I'm not a network engineer, so I could well be talking rubbish.

You on the other hand seem to know what you're talking about, so I'm sure you'll be able to back up your comment with independant information?.

livEwirE

So now that Eircom's 'Fibre':rolleyes: service will be offering 70mb down and 20mb up is this likely to mean UPC will increase their uploads to at least 20mb? Fingers crossed:D

UPC's upload speed could be a LOT better

ED E

livEwirE wrote: »

So now that Eircom's 'Fibre':rolleyes: service will be offering 70mb down and 20mb up is this likely to mean UPC will increase their uploads to at least 20mb? Fingers crossed:D

UPC's upload speed could be a LOT better

You should be getting 15 up.


VDSL isnt DOCSIS, and while Im not sure of the details Im pretty sure its not as simple as just assigning users more upload. Cable started as a purely downstream system and upstream was added later. To get 20Mb up you'd probably have to go for a 200Mb down package when it arrives.