24meg Broadband coming to London

[scott_forester]

QoS isn't something the DSL connection handles. That's something that either the host computer or the router has to do. There's already alot of QoS capable routers like the DrayTek's on the market, or you can make your own.

I need a QoS connection for my softphone, apprantly Cable and Wireless are working on product that will suppoty QoS and hence my VoIP apps.

 

[Kameron]

By CD-quality audio , i presume you mean uncompressed audio such as .wav and monkey to name just two.

Monkey isn't uncompressed it is a lossless compression algorithm and container format.

I can't imagine what I'd use 24Mb for. I hardly use my 512 despite having a remote desktop open from home in my office all day email and web are the only things I use the net for.

 

[Kameron]

1mbit connection is fine for pings on CS.

If you get a bad ping with that (and your not downloading etc), then its probably the servers fault!

Pipe size doesn't have the effect you think it has on ping. How your provider connects you to a backbone is important and what kind of hardware they have between you and the outside world, this controls your latency and some providers are noted for lower latency than other. Obviously if you pipe is crammed then that is a different matter but RTS doesn't cram a 56kb dial up and the heaviest FPS doesn't have data rates that screw with narrowband even is your the server.

 

[oicur0t]

QoS isn't something the DSL connection handles. That's something that either the host computer or the router has to do. There's already alot of QoS capable routers like the DrayTek's on the market, or you can make your own.

I think he means something akin to an SLA from the provider.

 

[Oletjo]

UK Online 24mb does need a BT Line - even though it is unbundled. I know, I work for them. (This'll probably get me fired, not meant to post stuff as an employee - who cares, I'm just crazy!!)

 

[dogmatique]

be.com does too - seems the last "copper mile" monopoly of BT is still to be broken - unless you have cable into your house, I don't think you've got a choice...

 

[Allan]

I placed my order with Be.com yesterday.









Nothing's happened so far.......

 

[dogmatique]

Finally got my Mac code from Pipex today. Be is ordered....

Now is to wait...

For a month or more...

And then ?

Hopefully speed.

 

[Sunray]

be.com does too - seems the last "copper mile" monopoly of BT is still to be broken - unless you have cable into your house, I don't think you've got a choice...

It is broken fairly well now, the reason you need a BT line is that someone still needs to own and maintain that network and you need to pay something for maintaining that network. Its also a good idea to have a single company doing that.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

I can have this service from January 2006... it is asking me whether I want a static or dynamic IP address. If I want a static IP address I need to pay an extra £4 per month... I DO need a static IP address, don't I??? For file sharing??? (And it doesn't cost anything on BT does it?)

 

[tom k&e]

I can have this service from January 2006... it is asking me whether I want a static or dynamic IP address. If I want a static IP address I need to pay an extra £4 per month... I DO need a static IP address, don't I??? For file sharing??? (And it doesn't cost anything on BT does it?)

You don't need a static IP unless you're running servers. It's sometimes handy for bittorrent if you use private sites, but far from essential. It's also a liability for privacy and security.

BT don't give static IPs as standard.

 

[polo]

Here is a technical note regarding UK ADSL developments.

http://www.farina1.com/bookmark/000004/2005/02/27/00020260.HTM

It deals with BT Wholesale ADSL products and where they are going. This is important because the number of unbundled lines terminated on another companies equipment in the exchange is still very small. So for most people, what BT offers the ISPs is what they will get. The good news is that BT is following the same technology path as all those gung ho, fly by the seat of their pants, wackynoodle companies like Bulldog and UK Online who advertise much and deliver far less. This is not suprising, they all buy equipment from the same small group of suppliers. The unbundlers will terminate the lines on their own equipment and sell a wholesale service on to ISPs. Their offerings will be slightly different from BT and they are likely to combine Internet/Voice and Video into packages in a similar way to Homeview to a limited extent at the moment. This is known as the 'triple play' and it is common in more developed unbundled markets. The unbundlers are only interested in the most profitable exchanges where there is a high density of customers, the biggest only deal with a couple of hundred exchanges (out more then 5000.) Everyone else must rely on BT.

The forthcoming improvements seem to be

500k->2M
new 500k to 8M services based on MaxDSL
new 500k to greater that 8M services based on ADSL2 and ADSL2+

That 24M figure needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. You will need to live on top of the exchange to get anything near that, though it does make good advertising copy. ADSL2 also makes bonding of two or more lines into a single channel possible to get even more bandwidth. They will soon be shouting about that, without a doubt. Though all these exciting announcents have to be tempered by long time lag between their marketing announcements and the readiness of a reliable service. This really has been a summer of discontent for a lot of customers.

But generally it's all heading in the right direction.