Radio and Telly UK Forum - Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL

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Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL
Jul 14^th, 2007 at 11:17pm

Everso slightly off topic, but need some input from Virgin Media Broadband users... We've been asked the following question by a listener to our podcast:

"I have been told by a BT Engineer that my 2mb Broadband connection is unlikely to even reach 1mb performance levels because of distance from the Exchange. I am considering switching to Virgin Media via cable. Will the performance be better? My brother says not necessarily..."

As I'm not with Virgin Media, I'm not sure if we've added thge best answer to this question. Can some of our forum regulars take a look at our answer and let me know if this is correct or needs updating?

http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/cable.html#speed

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frank59

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Re: Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL
Reply #1 - Jul 16^th, 2007 at 3:24am

I'm with virginmedia, and have a 4MB broadband connection.
I can only comment that D/L speeds vary at different times of the day, afternoon and evenings can be very poor @ speeds of 1-2mbps, to mornings or late night, where speeds of up to 5mbps can be reached.
I heard someone on the radio today saying that when the USA is online, the rest of the world has to suffer with a reduced "share" of the internet, whether that statement actually applies to us all, I don't know !

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Re: Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL
Reply #2 - Jul 16^th, 2007 at 10:36am

I have been on NTL cable for some years and this has now become Virginmedia (2MB) by default. The fibre-optic connection terminates about 50m from my house so there are no copper losses as suffered from phone line connections.

There are times when the internet connection becomes a bit erratic, but if the connection speed is low, it is usually down to the server on the website to which I am connecting. I am not near any businesses so I'm not aware of any contention issues at different times of the day.

The reason I went for cable was, at the time, I was told that I was too far from the exchange to get any speed of broadband using the phone line.

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MrHappy

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Re: Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL
Reply #3 - Jul 21^st, 2007 at 9:00pm

Hi, I have access to a Virgin Media XL cable modem package, now up to 20MB

When using a Virgin Media cable modem the average download speeds float between 300KB/s and 600KB/s

Downloading a 100MB file this afternoon it averaged a download speed of around 349.55 KB/s

My friend who is also on up to 20MB with Virgin Media on a cable modem downloaded exactly the same file around the same time and got 1.86 MB/s

The speed of a cable modem should not decrease in the same way that ADSL does as it's not copper all the way from the exchange to the house.

As for the speed difference between my friend and I, I hope Virgin Media increase my speed to match my friends over the coming months.

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Re: Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL
Reply #4 - Jul 23^rd, 2007 at 4:16pm

MrHappy wrote on Jul 21^st, 2007 at 9:00pm:

Hi, I have access to a Virgin Media XL cable modem package, now up to 20MB

When using a Virgin Media cable modem the average download speeds float between 300KB/s and 600KB/s

Downloading a 100MB file this afternoon it averaged a download speed of around 349.55 KB/s

My friend who is also on up to 20MB with Virgin Media on a cable modem downloaded exactly the same file around the same time and got 1.86 MB/s

The speed of a cable modem should not decrease in the same way that ADSL does as it's not copper all the way from the exchange to the house.

As for the speed difference between my friend and I, I hope Virgin Media increase my speed to match my friends over the coming months.

Try downloading the same, or similar file, at a different time of the day, like, late at night or early morning, see if you get a different D/L speed.
As I said in my post, my D/L speeds in the afternoon or early evening are quite slow.

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ATB. Frank.

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MrHappy

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Re: Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL
Reply #5 - Jul 24^th, 2007 at 4:39pm

Hi.

I have done some speed tests using these two web sites http://vmedia.webhop.net/ and http://ntlspeed.webhop.net/

from the ntlspeed web site downloaded the 683MB CD .iso file

from the vmedia web site downloaded the DVD .iso file

The files come down at around the speeds I have mentioned previously.

if I then start to download DVD 2 and 3 from the vmedia site, they come down at around the 349.55 KB/s speeds I mentioned on my previous post.

So an individual file comes down at around 349.55 KB/s , and 3 DVD's come down at around 349.55 KB/s each giving a total of around 1050 KB/s, but I would like to get 1 file coming down at 2 MB/s.

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MARTIan

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Re: Cable Internet speeds vs BT ADSL
Reply #6 - Jan 19^th, 2008 at 4:02pm

Cable suffers from contention, even more so than adsl, as more and more users jump on the speed each gets slower and slower. Your example with the three files simply means that that particular site is throttling each individual download to a maximum speed to make it fair for all isers. WHen the usa starts up in the morning, it will affect the internet, but how much depends on how your packets are routed. sometimes a website in Brum accessed from london will route thru Los angeles. ALso ads on websites tend to be sited in different places, seperately from where the actual site is located. So your speed depends on (BSxTODxSSxUSA-TODxWORLDEVENTS)
BS=your broadband speed
TOD=time of day
SS=site speed (outward)
USA-TOD=whether yanks are asleep or awake
WORLDEVENTS= 9/11 or similar , means everyone on interweb

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