ADSL - 512kbps download - 256kbps upload DIVIDED BY 20?!?

[old.Stuart_Granger]

Well it seems ADSL will be just as crap as Cable modems (although cable will be free

).

It seems from Nildram's latest email that the bandwidth ... 512kbps download and 256kbps upload will be shared by 20 people. Therefore when all of those 20 are online you're looking at speeds of:

25.6kbps download and 12.8kbps upload.

You'll be paying £305.50 installation and an additional £1,251.37 rental ... plus a line to BT which could be between £50 and £745 per year ... so let's consider that at £150.

Therefore for £305.50 startup ... plus £1,401.37 per annum which per month would be: £116.78 ... which at current BT evening prices would mean you would have to use the Internet for about 195 hours per month to make it worthwhile - about six and a half hours per day!?! But I've not even mentioned the data cost ... data per Gb of bandwidth you use ... which could be a further £30 to £80 additional per month?!?!

Let's say the average scenario will be 8 users using the bandwidth at one time. Therefore 512kbps divided by 8 = 64kbps upload. And 256kbps divided by 8 = 32kbps. Not impressive as these figures are therefore 6.4Kbps (the usual single channel ISDN) and 3.2Kbps = a combination which equals 9.6Kbps ... which on a good day I can get with my single channel ISDN connection.

It just doesn't look like a good deal to me ... I'd happily pay £116.78 if I knew I was getting the full 512kbps download and 256kbps upload!

By the time ADSL comes out, I believe flat rate Internet will be available ... so what are you gonna do? I sure as hell won't be getting ADSL if that is the service potential.

You might as well go out and get yourself a leased line ... 64Kbps (10 times speed of single channel ISDN Guaranteed) for £400 per month inc. BT line. If you can afford it that is

.

Let me know what you think of these figures and services coming from Nildram.

With thanks

Stuart_Granger



------------------
Proud Member of [A&I]

 

[xane]

Yeah, I was forwarned about this from a mate who runs a small web-hosting company who is getting into ADSL and the trialling, the 20:1 ratio is lame, in the US its 10:1 at most, and they have the full 2Mbps download option available, thats 200kpbs per user -now that is nice.

With cable, the bandwidth share is done locally, i.e. you share with people geographically close to you, but ADSL the share is further down on the line, therefore you are almost guarenteed to not get the full bandwidth.

Regarding your ISDN figures, I thought ISDN was 64kbps/128kbps regardless of leased or not, a leased line effectively gives unmetered access, so is better for business connections, but performance bandwidth is the same.

I agree with you, I will probably stick with my Homehighway account and go for an unrestricted and unmetered scheme, when they eventually come out

------------------
[UKSG]camazotz

 

[old.Stuart_Granger]

Maybe I was wrong on the leased line figures ... but I was considering setting up an ISP a couple of months back ... NewNet told me that I would require 256Kbps to handle 60 dial-up connections ... that would mean 4.2666666. Kbps per account ... which is the same as a dial-up account.

They recommended it ... so that's why I said 64Kbps leased line is 10 times size of dial-up ... BW should know so ask them

.

With thanks

Stuart_Granger

------------------
Proud Member of [A&I]

 

[old.LLAMA Rama]

I think you're getting confused between Kilobits and kilobytes - Kb and KB respecticely - typically connection speeds are measured in kilobits - ie 1/8 of a byte so 64 kbps is your ISDN line speed, = 54kbps Leased Line... I guess that was relyin on a very low dial-up session : customer ratio
Anyway hope that clears up the confusion - the 512 kbps from ADSL would be about 64 Kilobytes per second...

 

[old.Necro]

I personally think that the UK will not see proper and universally available broadband until 2003 at the earliest (for instance, Cable modems are still vapourware for most of the country).

I'm also not surprised that BT have been dragging their heels over ADSL (how much does the average person who would buy ADSL spend per month on their phone bill..?)