How fast is your Broadband?

[KneesUp]

I currently have Virgin Media at home, but it seems very expensive for what I get because we don't use the TV part really - everything we watch is on Freeview anyway. What we do get is fast broadband though - there is no fibre on our road, so their speed (about 40Mb I think) is way more than anyone else can offer. Everyone else is saying 3 to 8Mb for our house.

We don't have lots of devices using it at once, but my concern with dropping to a non-cable service is that iPlayer won't be very good -and we use that quite a lot. So I'd appreciate some real life examples of how fast your braodband is, and how usable iPlayer is. Thanks.

 

[fossyant]

Ours is Infinity 2 - bit pricey at £54 a month, but we get a reliable 76mb as the road cabinet is about 100 yards away.

We did struggle on 20mb with iplayer, especially when the kids were on line. No such problems now, we can stream in HD, the kids can game or upload files, with no problems. There is at least 12 devices connected, 2 SMART TV's, PS4, 2 laptops, 3 desktops, 4 phones, and other 'stuff'.

You'll suffer with 3-8mb streaming in HD

 

[wonderloaf]

I'm with Sky and get 10mb, iPlayer runs fine, even in HD. We don't have loads of device's using at the same time though.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

We're with Plusnet, which is BT in disguise, the cabinet is a good distance from us although there is one at the end of the street which we don't go through & we're currently getting 54Mb down, 8.5Mb up. on FTTC

 

[Drago]

50-60. More than enough to watch BT TV in one room, listen to internet radio in another, and use multiple computers or tablets ate the same time with no loss of performance.

 

[Deleted member 35268]

93 mbps for about £40 with Talktalk

 

[KneesUp]

I can't get FTTC at home sadly (have it at work and it's only 20Mb, but good enough)

At home the choice is 'upto' 100Mb of Virgin for £40 or 'upto' 8Mb for about £25. 100Mb is way too much, and 8Mb isn't enough - I want to spend £30 and get 50Mb

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

£32 pm for phone/line rental +80mb unlimited fibre with TalkTalk

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I'm on Sky and it is crap supposedly 20mb but if the missus is watching Netflix then watching streams on the computer buffer like hell. Will move to BT Infinity when I can be arsed to get around to it.

 

[Bazzer]

We changed to Plusnet a month or so back. Advertised rate up to 76Mb. When I have speed checked it, typically we have been around 60Mb. But dropped connections are now becoming a PITA. May be coincidence, but I've had more dropped connections in the last month, than 2 years with Sky.

 

[swee'pea99]

Interesting they think we're with BT - we're not. We're with Plusnet. Which is of course just BT rebadged, and a bit cheaper. We're on the Plusnet version of Infinity, and I think we pay a little over £30/m, including line rental. Occasional dropouts, but very rarely for longer than a split second. Oh, and the speed varies quite a lot - the speed above is right now - noonish; at peak times it can be half that.

 

[fossyant]

I'm on Sky and it is crap supposedly 20mb but if the missus is watching Netflix then watching streams on the computer buffer like hell. Will move to BT Infinity when I can be arsed to get around to it.

Both my relatives who are with Sky have had speed issues, and they aren't heavy users.

 

[ColinJ]

I am only about 150 m from the local cabinet and so am getting about 15 Mb/s (Plusnet) over copper.

The cabinet is ready for fibre to be connected (plastic cable guide pipes have been installed along drains leading to the cabinet ready for the fibre to be fed through) but the connection date has not been decided yet; it should be within 12 months.

It is normally just me using the broadband so 15 Mb/s is fine for most things - I don't have any buffering problems on Netflix, iPlayer, YouTube etc. I probably will sign up for a basic fibre plan when available though, mainly to accelerate uploads. I should get 35+ Mb/s then.

 

[Electric_Andy]

We are with Virgin and have internet and landline (though we don't even have a home phone). We get up to 50Mb and it usually averages about 45 so it's pretty good, even with 5 of us streaming Youtube videos. The stepdaughter's online gaming (shooting) does sap all the bandwidth at times but it's usually ok. They tried putting our bill up from £28/month to £38 so we complained, threatened to go elsewhere and they "dropped" it to £30.

My father lives in the country and manages 3mb at best - but still manages to stream from BBC IPlayer and also streams movies through an Android box. They recommend at least 3mb for this, but I'd say 2.5-3mb speed is the bare usable minimum.

In my experience, the SOURCE you stream from is the deciding factor. Paid-for kosher services such as Amazon Prime, Netflix and BBC iPlayer have a very quick streaming infrastructure, so I have never had any problems even with a slower connection.

However, streaming content from free sources (e.g. using Kodi) relies on faraway servers that aren't as stable, so even with my quick connection, some content occasinoally buffers to the point that it's unusable. But there are ways around it.

So, paying less for a 3-8MB speed is going to be ok for iPlayer etc but also factor in that this is measured through a wired connection, so your Wi-fi speed elsewhere in the house would be slower, and you may also struggle if multiple people are watching video and.or playing online games You could always try it and cancel for no charge after 14 days if it is not usable, but do check the small print because they are all cowboys and will illegally tie you in to a monthly charge if they can get away with it. VM have always been ok with us, but I've heard many horror stories about their ethics and customer service so beware.

 

[FishFright]

I'm on Virgin Media cable and pay for 70mb

Currently 77.46Mb/s with a ping of 9ms

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6280426493