HomeHighway/ISDN Users, opinions please!

[[GA]KillMachine]

Hi

I've just come off the phone to a nice lady at BT HomeHighway, i've found out the cost's to install the line and the cost of an ISDN TA (£99.00 from BT) and the cost would be £40.00 per month with £15.00 worth of calls per month. WHat i want to know is:

Is it much faster than 56K?

For all this money, i am expecting somthing pretty damn MEGA!

Am i really going to notice the difference a great deal? Also, as single ISDN is 64K does that mean that it's less than 1kbps faster than my 56K modem? Or does the digital connection make it faster anyway? And if i use dual ISDN, i know it'll cost double, but what speeds are we talking? I.E Has anyone d/l somthing big like Q3Test? That took me 3 and a half hours on a modem, i'd expect ISDN to be about hals an hour (i may me optimistic on this but its a lot of money, £120.00 per quater + calls)

So, opinions please

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[GA]KillMachine
extreme@barrysworld.com

 

[Paul B]

OK these are only my personal experiences but...

Ping:

I perviously had a Hayes Accura V90 External and got pings on the BW Tribes servers of 120-200 with regular drop puts and lag.

With a single ISDN my ping is 30-50 on the same servers with no-lag and the only dropouts I've had was when I dropped a book on my ISDN cable and pulled the plug out of the socket

.

Download Speed:

Previously on my Modem I got upto 4.5K/s download on a good day.

Single ISDN gets 6.5-7K/s and Dual ISDN gets 13-15K/s.

Obviously all these vary from site to site and day to day.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I.E Has anyone d/l somthing big like Q3Test?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Downloading Q3 was the first thing I did once I had ISDN installed. I can't remember exactly how long it took but it was around half an hour for each of the 20M sections using both lines.

As for whether it's worth it. I wouldn't go back to a modem now, but it may be worth hanging on a bit to see what is happening with ADSL.

When you sign up for ISDN you sign a contract for 12 months and if ADSL does come out in the next couple of months anyone willing to bet that BT will allow ISDN customers to change ?

If you do decide to go for it, personnally I'd use an internal ISDN card instead of a TA. Mainly 'cos they're cheaper.

Check out www.solwise.com not only do they stock Asus ISDN products (the Pace of the ISDN world), but if you order your half price ISDN line through them you get £35+vat of anything you order from them (eg ISDN card or TA). [Effectively the conversion cost only £14+vat

]


OK thats my $0.02.

Anyone else care to comment ?

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Paul B
paul@pbrowning.freeserve.co.uk

[This message has been edited by Paul B (edited 16 June 1999).]

 

[SimbobX]

I agree with PaulB. ISDN is cool .. but you will be gutted if you sign a 12 month contract and then ADSL is even cooler .. that's a real pain in the arse of a choice to be honest and I'm glad I'm not making it

You will notice the difference between your v90 and ISDN. I only ever use a single channel and that seems plenty quick enough for me (and allows the missus to chat to her mum all night too

)

I use an internal BT speedway TA which has worked fine for me since I got it (no install problems or anything). Some people claim the Asus TA is quick (don't know haven't got one) but also that it can be a pain to set up (it needs dedicated IRQs and other such irritations). Probably worth getting some more comments on this from people who actually use them.

I usually ping around the 80 mark and I do sometimes get some packet loss or even PJs, but it's pretty rare.

20Mb downloads are not something I fear any more. I usually get 8K/s with a single line.
(erm .. I think that works out to be about 50 mins for a 25Mb download? maths anyone?)

basically .. erm .. I like ISDN .. the cost is roughly the same as having two lines. Which is okay because you get two lines.

 

[camazotz]

My V90 modem connection was really bad, 250 ping at best, so I got HH. Having two lines this also solved the additional problem of family arguments over use of the phone.

Remember that a "56k" connection is actually limited by FCC rules to 53k, and my best connections to BW rarely got to 50k, I would normally have to settle for 45k.

ISDN, once connected, is always at 64k and very stable, whereas I found modems to vary considerably during downloads or gaming. Actually connecting with ISDN is immediate, you only wait for the username verification, so reconnections are faster too.

Dual-bonding to get 128k is only good when downloading from a "local", i.e. UK, site, then you get the maximum 1mb/minute rate. Typically I will download from sunsite to get this.

Using Q2 on BW ISDN I will get 75-100 ping on any fast UK games site (BW, CIX, Claranet, Fury). Dual-bonding does not seem to make a noticable difference for me.

Regarding the BT Speedway ISDN card, which I think is still supplied free, it is actually made by a German company called AVM (www.avm.de), originally called a "Fritz" it uses the same (english) drivers, their support is excellent and I have asked them several technical questions in the past.

The *actual* additional cost of ISDN is £75/quarter, as long as your calls cost more than £45/quarter.

As yet we have no real idea how much ADSL will be or its availability, the only real consideration on the 12 month contract is you can't transfer it if you move house.

 

[Mr B]

Downloading stuff for me wasn't the reason I got HH....I've got a 2Mb connection at work.

Main reason - and very sad reason - was Q2.

No more PJ.

Ask anyone who has HH if they are prepared to go back to modem.....*tumbleweed*

If d/l is what u are after wait for ADSL, if Q2 pings/latency then go for HH.

0.02

next............

 

[[GA]KillMachine]

Thanks for the info guy's

After speaking to the woman at BT again, she's wexplained this 12 month contract and then went on, as most of you have about ADSL

I think i'll wait, she seemed to know quite a bit about it, like they have had lots of calls about it. Anyway, she thinks it'll be here before the end of the year, which is good enough for me!

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[GA]KillMachine
extreme@barrysworld.com

 

[frankie]

compleatly different, them pcmcia cards for lappys, when hooked up to a mobile phone, how fast kbits would i expect, will it connect at 40 kbps ??
and, what kind of lagg, would i expect ??


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members.xoom.com/alfa1000

=DI=DR_FRANKENSTIEN

 

[Shelob]

Mobile phones are 9.6kps I believe =D
So lots of lag and shiter than shite downloads.

 

[DApea!]

Expect to get a 60 ping with ADSL (if you are in a lightly populated area that is) lucky for me i live in the sticks (Weymouth, Dorset [VERY SOUTH]) and will have all of dorsets allocated ADSL bandwith to myself

hehe

Anyway, i have a Rockwell v90 (crap)(internal) and when i connect to *cough* BT i get a 50kbps connection and if i connect b4 the 6pm llamas then i get 52.. dont beleive meh ? ill give ya a screenie.

if ya think its a comm port problem / drivers then explain a 120 ping to globalnet/ BT and BW servers.

i can download at 5.6k/sec from Sunsite, and somtimes i download lots of files at a time (5+) and get 1.5-2k/sec.

That is why i dont have ISDN yet.. i am GOING to get ADSL, pings will be good. i know ppl using the ADSL trials in london and they are getting 80-100 pings and thats with alot of ppl using it too, somtimes (at abt 3am, you can reach amazing speeds and pings [like 50])

another bonus is that i am going to run an FTP server perminently and a web server..
plus i can play q2, and use BW proxy to run my other 2 machines through it.. resulting in all of em being abt 90 ping i reckon.


I have read everything possible abt ADSL and had my mates opinion's too.

also whats this abt 80 pings fer ISDN.. everyone i know in weymouth has 50-70 pings. usually always 50.

they use single line and with BT's cheap0 terminal card. (internal)


sort yur config out.

 

[Mr B]

Anyone not pinging in the 50's with ISDN needs to do 2 things:

1) Sign up with an ISP that has a dedicated ISDN only number (Nildram for example) and use their ISDN only number.

2) Get a decent TA. (AsusCOM Internal PCI one springs to mind - It's cheaper than the shitey BT Speedway one to boot £42 and available on same day delivery from www.solwise.com