Speed confusion

bogboy1978 · 11-10-2004, 00:17

After checking the NTL site on saturday I found that broadband speed in my area was upped from 150 to 300 in august. I called CS and told them I hadn't had the upgrade and the man upgraded us there and then. He also told me to go to a speed test page and the result was 271kbs. I was wondering what a normal download speed was on the 300k service? Before the upgrade I had downloads in the region of 30 to 32kbs, after the upgrade the speed never tops 35 which doesn't seem like much of a jump. Maybe I was just expecting a bit much but this seems like a small increase. Can someone tell me if this is normal, and maybe what speeds I should be getting, so I know whether it is worth phoning CS to try sorting this out.

Thanks in advance.

punky · 11-10-2004, 00:53

I'd say 271k for a 300k service is very respectable. That 300k is including overheads. I've worked out that 36k/s should be your maximum download speed. I don't know why you had 30 when you was on 150k. Your maximum download speed should have only been around 18k/s

XFS03 · 11-10-2004, 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by punky

...I don't know why you had 30 when you was on 150k. Your maximum download speed should have only been around 18k/s

...unless bogboy1978 was using a STB in an area where the minimum speed was 256kbps. This would have resulted in a download of about 31kB/s.

**Paul M** · 11-10-2004, 02:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by bogboy1978

After checking the NTL site on saturday I found that broadband speed in my area was upped from 150 to 300 in august. I called CS and told them I hadn't had the upgrade and the man upgraded us there and then. He also told me to go to a speed test page and the result was 271kbs. I was wondering what a normal download speed was on the 300k service? Before the upgrade I had downloads in the region of 30 to 32kbs, after the upgrade the speed never tops 35 which doesn't seem like much of a jump. Maybe I was just expecting a bit much but this seems like a small increase. Can someone tell me if this is normal, and maybe what speeds I should be getting, so I know whether it is worth phoning CS to try sorting this out.

I'm 98% sure this is because you must access the internet via your STB, and not a cable modem. The "150k" service on these was really 256k, so you have actually gone from 256k to 300k.

bogboy1978 · 11-10-2004, 02:20

That would explain it. I am indeed using the STB to connect.

Thanks a lot for the quick replies.

BBKing · 11-10-2004, 10:59

You were on 256k before, and 300k afterwards. No one on an STB would have been on 256k after August, so the man on the phone didn't actually need to do anything to upgrade you. 30 to 32k is about right as a noticeable increase.

bogboy1978 · 11-10-2004, 11:38

Well the guy did say that the upgrade had'nt gone through for us, which is why he did it there and then. But then again it was probably a good way to get rid of me. I know it is working the way it should though, so no complaints, and you don't hear that very often

.

BBKing · 11-10-2004, 11:55

Um - there's no way he could check - STB customers are either upgraded as a whole or not. Oh well, it's working, as you say.