NathansFortune
Regular
Capitalism, how does it work...
The Internet Myth: Connection Quality and Speed (Europe vs US) *spawn*
- Thread starter joker454
- Start date
Capitalism, how does it work...
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Just because someone doesn't need higher than 10 Mbps broadband doesn't imply they are backwards.
For many people 1.5 Mbps is probably good enough for web browsing and checking e-mail. 4-5 Mbps is good enough for streaming 720p video at Youtube. 7-10 Mbps is good enough to stream 1080p video at Youtube.
For myself I don't really need anything higher than 7 Mbps. I only got the 20 Mbps because it was virtually the same price as I was paying for my previous 7 Mbps service (add in the fact that my 7 Mbps was stuck at 4.5 Mbps for the past year and that's the only reason I upgraded).
I doubt anyone that knows me would consider me "backwards." Sure it's nice to download a new game released on Steam in just an hour or two or whatever. But honestly, it doesn't bother me if I just start the download before I go to bed and just play the game the next day. And even that is a non-issue if the game's publisher allows for Steam preloads.
Outside of heavy downloads or heavy torrenting, people in general really don't need anything higher than 10-12 Mbps. At least currently. That may change in the future when people want to stream 4k video, I suppose. Then again, personally I question the worth of 4k video despite desperately wanting a 4k (or preferably higher) screen resolution for desktop computing.
Regards,
SB
I'd love 10-12 MB/s but we're still years from getting it in some areas. It's just a total postcode lottery.
For years I paid £35 a month for 1.5 MB/s from BT, now I'm still paying ~£22 a month for this crud < 3 MB/s Sky broadband. It's a national disgrace.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jul/06/broadband-speeds-postcode-lottery
£2 a month uncapped in central Cambridge lol...no wonder they talk about the north/south divide still.
For years I paid £35 a month for 1.5 MB/s from BT, now I'm still paying ~£22 a month for this crud < 3 MB/s Sky broadband. It's a national disgrace.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jul/06/broadband-speeds-postcode-lottery
£2 a month uncapped in central Cambridge lol...no wonder they talk about the north/south divide still.
I don't get what you mean. Capitalism is hardly a sure-fire way to make everything right. In this case, we have BT's telecom monopoly keeping prices high in the UK until governmental intervention (OFCOM). Limited fibre rollouts means a lack of competition in a lot of places - your choice is BT or Virgin or Sky, and you've no option to pick and choose your superfast BB provider. And that means they'll keep prices high.
NathansFortune
Regular
So you want BT or Virgin to invest upwards of £10bn on rolling out fibre to the cabinet and then price it the same as copper. Seems like a great way to lose money...
Also, BT were told in 2010 to open up their fibre network to other players and also forced to spin off Openreach so the main group weren't shown favouritism ahead of LLU players. That Sky and EE are the only ones willing to play ball on fibre LLU basically means the appetite for fibre doesn't exist outside of big cities. Mostly because the investment required is just too big.
What you are asking for is for BT or the government to subsidise the build out of a fibre network in the UK, BT have no incentive to do that and lose money and the government have proven themselves to be absolutely 100% incapable of managing even the smallest of projects let alone a £10bn network that will have to be linked into the current copper one. Infrastructure is expensive and early adopters like us will have to pay for the privilege with higher prices. I personally think it's worth it, I would never leave Virgin for anything other than Infinity.
NathansFortune
Regular
£42 for 120Mb/10Mb plus a phone line. I have Sky for TV though so I probably miss out on some kind of discount.
Well I can assure you I'd gladly pay £42 for 50x the speed I currently have, and campaign after campaign makes zero difference because they simply don't care unless the numbers in the postcode lottery support it. My sister who lives 2 miles away gets ~10 MB/s while paying the exact same. It's farcical.
You would get a discount with Sky, probably quite a big one as well - so you might want to check that out.
You would get a discount with Sky, probably quite a big one as well - so you might want to check that out.
If you lived by yourself where you only do one thing at a time, sure. In a multi-device, multi-person household which most people live in? Hell no. Because as soon as multiple devices/people start accessing the Internet, everything goes to hell in a hand-basket on a sub-10Mbps connection, unless you really like waiting.
This is true, when my girlfriend is at my place we can play an online game together but we can't for example have one of us download a tv show (which isn't awesome at 3 MB/s either, but is at least watchable) and game at the same time. When you consider a quarter of households in the UK are in this position it's a bad joke.
With the way the market is now, I'm not saying there's any solution; only that there's a problem with adoption. The question of whether a nation's infrastructure should even be run by the private sector or not is an RSPCA discussion and not one I'll enter into.
looking at speedtest from these pages, seems EU and US have rather good internet.
X1 with 1.5Mbps requirement will means that they exclude a lot of customer from asia though.
but asia was never MS' market priority, so maybe they just dicide to focus their market.
X1 with 1.5Mbps requirement will means that they exclude a lot of customer from asia though.
but asia was never MS' market priority, so maybe they just dicide to focus their market.
Oh Joker...
There's a clear distinction between how good the internet is when you use it for occasional browsing or if you're going to use an entertainment device that absolutely requires a 24/7 internet to function at all. That was the whole point in those topics.
I'm not sure anyone ever suggested the internet is better/worse in certain regions. As far as I recall, you were the only one to ever draw that conclusion.
The arguments brought forward (by me) were that most people who argue in these topics about stable consistent internet don't have the means to actually make those claims because most people don't rely on it. Just because every time you open a browser (opening a different website pointing to a completely different server every time you do) or check your email on a more or less regular basis from your phone does not mean that a specific client-server connection is indeed always stable. There's also a difference if we are talking about internet connection as a whole when you open a webpage and usually open 50 connections (and hundreds to thousand of packets) to various servers or a singular one, like a consumer-electronic device telephoning home to its singular or multiple servers.
In the context of the discussion we had on Xbox One relying on an internet connection it's not important that we messure the effect on such a requirement on the best, most reliable connections the internet has to offer, but what is found in the most average consumers livingroom. And possibly to a certain degree even lower than that, because the people who then can not use your device because of less stable internet connections will be more vocal than the ones that do.
It was also never the point to say that most people don't have stable connections most of the time - but that when they don't, it would be very noticable if they can't use their consumer electronics device. It's a bit like having an old wooden board game and not being able to use that anymore if the internet is down because of maintenance.
And in the spirit of this topic - my speeds by the way are 165Mbps up / 10Mbps down. (Sppedtest.net isn't very accurate in my case - they are testing to servers that are limited to 100Mbps). Internet has been very stable and not had any outtages worth mentioning in about a year. That however doesn't mean that a specific A to B connection is always reliable. Multiple PSN outtages (Maintenance), multiple outtages to specific services like E-Mail and an internal problem with my WLAN Access point a couple of weeks ago etc.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
I don't know how it is in the rest of Europe, but in Portugal the rise of unemployment rates in the large cities is forcing some families to move to less urbanized areas, where internet connections are poor.
I could try and find the news post where I saw that, but it'd be in portuguese..
It could be that, at least in European countries facing austerity, the number of people with access to stable and fast broadband connections is actually decreasing.
BTW, this is my connection at work:
(Worthless in the context of gaming, but it's nice to show off the e-peen)
At home I have a 100Mpbs fiber connection, ISP-limited, where I score some 98Mbps download and 23Mbps upload in speedtest.
I could try and find the news post where I saw that, but it'd be in portuguese..
It could be that, at least in European countries facing austerity, the number of people with access to stable and fast broadband connections is actually decreasing.
BTW, this is my connection at work:
(Worthless in the context of gaming, but it's nice to show off the e-peen)
At home I have a 100Mpbs fiber connection, ISP-limited, where I score some 98Mbps download and 23Mbps upload in speedtest.
NathansFortune
Regular
It's not a postcode lottery as much as it is just a basic return on investment calculation for different exchanges. The difference between your connection and your sisters is down to the distance from the exchange though as copper based connections degrade over long distance as the SNR goes up. I do think there is mileage in OFCOM forcing BT and others to lower the price of bb for customers who don't get over 5Mb because of their distance from the exchange, that might force BT and LLU providers to invest in FTTC faster than their current rate.
I meant the other way around, I figure there is probably a discount if I had Virgin Media TV, but I'm just so used to Sky+ and the new Sky box is so fast and slick compared to the Tivo box at my sister's place which has the ugly red and yellow colour scheme which burns my eyes out! I was thinking of getting Sky bb, but they don't have 80Mb in my postcode yet so I'll wait for that to change over. Either that or BT when they get 160Mb up and running.
It's a lottery as far as consumer are concerned, unless they had limitless choices with where to buy their house and had the option to perform those same ROI calculations to ascertain which homes would be in line to get to fibre first. Most people have limited choices in which home to buy, and whether their exchange will be upgraded in a few months or a few years is something they have no control over. You buy your house, move in, see what BB options you have, and then just wait and wait until someone decides to upgrade, while everyone around you (literally, your village could be on copper and the next 2 miles away is on cable) is getting faster BB and cheaper communications deals.
Yep I know it's about the distance to the exchange.
And yes Ofcom should be getting involved as BT clearly has no incentive to provide faster internet to people who are already paying what is basically the same for much slower anyway. The problem is it's a must-have utility now, and we have to pay for it regardless of quality. We can't just stop using broadband, it's not practical.
And yes Ofcom should be getting involved as BT clearly has no incentive to provide faster internet to people who are already paying what is basically the same for much slower anyway. The problem is it's a must-have utility now, and we have to pay for it regardless of quality. We can't just stop using broadband, it's not practical.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
That's why I don't use Speedtest to get an accurate picture of my realworld bandwidth, although in my case it comes pretty close.
I just queue up enough downloads until my connection is saturated and then see what I'm getting for total network throughput. Repeat the same with uploads.
Regards,
SB
Similar threads
- Locked