Is it worth a one time ?400 installation fee for a Fiber connection @ Home?

[smouty]

This has turned all Monty Python.

Eee, I get 1/2 byte up every two weeks and 1 bit down a year and we're lucky. Tell that to the kids of today......

[charlesr]

This thread is hilarious. It's like an anti schlong-size thing.

eastyy... are you serious?

[eastyy]

yeah i am ....live in a little village...and this is only broadband provider i have here...its some sort of wireless antenna on a roof type of thing

[dataDave]

My connection is like Eastyy's, 30-50kbs per sec. It sucks big balls. But that's what I get for moving out of my posh flat.

[eastyy]

mine is free though so really shouldnt complain Lol

[capcom_suicide]

yeah i am ....live in a little village...and this is only broadband provider i have here...its some sort of wireless antenna on a roof type of thing

Awesome! Maybe its connected to a mobile phone or something.

Funny reading this thread.

I should have called it "How big's your pipe, and would you pay to get more width?"

[capcom_suicide]

I just got the house connected today. I had to make final choice about 30/30mb, 50/50mb or 200/200mb. Work will only pay for the 30mbit line, so I'll give that a try. It will be a tenner a month extra for 50/50 from my own pocket, and as per this thread, there doesn't seem any point.

A nice thing is that the fibre terminates in a corner out of sight, and the Switch is then with all my gear, meaning I can remove all the old Broadband stuff that was a bit of an eyesore.

Hopefully it will be a decent service, will be fun hosting as the jump from 1200Kb to 30Mbit upload is a big increase!

[charlesr]

Adds cs to ignore/envy list

[teddymeow]

I got a letter through the door today saying how BT were rolling out fibre-optic in my area yadda-yadda and that we're eligible and all that.

I've done a bit of research and it appears that one of the new green box thingys that gather all the cables and stuff has been put up, pretty much, outside my front door.

The letter says that it's £24.99 per month (what I pay now) for unlimited (probably fair use) downloads with no installation fee. They're advertising up to 40 mb/s but a guarantees minimum of 15 mb/s (I'm lucky to get 275 kb/s at present).

The, probably obvious, question is: is it worth it? And also, how much drilling etc are they going to have to do?

[smouty]

The new cabinets contain the mini DSLAMs that were previously in the exchange so your connection speed is pretty much guaranteed if the cab is outside your house. There should be no drilling or anything needed.

[teddymeow]

The line speed checker on the BT site says I can expect around 24.1 Mbps. If my maths is correct that means I can download 1Gb in less than 45 seconds. Is that right? Seems crazy fast to me!

EDIT: Ordered just a minute ago. Tuesday August 17th between 8am - 1pm is my installation window. Can't wait to test their Fair Usage Policy!!

[Psyduck]

Unfortunately your maths isn't quite right, or maybe your computer knowledge isnt...

24.1mbps = 24.1 megaBITS per second.
1Gb = 1 gigaBYTE

1 BYTE = 8 BITS, so there's a factor of 8 that you're missing.

24.1mbps connection will download at 24.1/8 = 3.0 megaBYTES per second, i.e. the 3.0 compares to the 275kb/s you're getting at the moment. Though in reality you won't quite get that. To be honest I'd imagine that a lot of sites would struggle to send you files at that speed anyway!

So you can download a 1GB file in roughly 1000/3 = 333 seconds, at top speed, which still ain't bad!

[teddymeow]

I didn't think my maths was right.

Thanks for setting me straight on that. Though a might have made it seem a little less hurtful and me feel a little less stupid!

[Psyduck]

oops - reading it back it doesn't seem too friendly does it? Sorry!



better?

[teddymeow]

better?

Yay!! Now I don't feel quite so stupid!!

Can't wait to get this. Be nice to finally watch movies over Zune the way they were intended to be seen.