[john22rob]

Not that this test means anything but.....I'm ranked 39th with 191ms. What did everyone else get? Look on the leader boards for john22rob

[OriginB]

We're doing a MAX product at the moment, and we're seeing speeds around 70 down and 15 up. That good enough for you? ;-)

[Bonjon]

Originally Posted by OriginB

We're doing a MAX product at the moment, and we're seeing speeds around 70 down and 15 up. That good enough for you? ;-)

Yes, if it was the same price as the 40/10 package

[Swampster]

Originally Posted by Bonjon

Yes, if it was the same price as the 40/10 package

Indeed, or didn't require a new 18 month contract just to upgrade with the same company.
One or the other I could perhaps begrudgingly accept.. but not both.

[walkerx]

Originally Posted by Swampster

Indeed, or didn't require a new 18 month contract just to upgrade with the same company.
One or the other I could perhaps begrudgingly accept.. but not both.

I know with BT they keep the price the same and don't charge for the upgrade, but they do put you on a new contract if you went through the upgrade process - as i had only been with them a few months i was happy to accept the new contract

[Swampster]

Originally Posted by walkerx

I know with BT they keep the price the same and don't charge for the upgrade, but they do put you on a new contract if you went through the upgrade process - as i had only been with them a few months i was happy to accept the new contract

Yeah that's usually the case, either they charge the same and you tie in for a new contract.. or you pay more, and maintain your current contract term.

[walkerx]

Originally Posted by Swampster

Yeah that's usually the case, either they charge the same and you tie in for a new contract.. or you pay more, and maintain your current contract term.

i think though if you left bt to just upgrade you to the newer speeds then they don't renew the contract as you haven't requested it or accepted the new terms.

if done manually like mine (i went through their order process) then would expect to resign new contract

[AlexAtkin]

Back to latency, to load this very forum page took 55 resources.

That means with 30ms latency on your connection you have 1650ms of latency just to establish the connections to the server to load each resource (not counting any DNS lookups).

Granted, pipelining and concurrency will reduce that time considerably, as much as 1/8 I believe, but then there is 30ms latency on each and every ACK packet too, which are sent to the server after each packet of information is received, to confirm you are ready to receive the next.

That basically means that for 30ms your connection is just waiting for the next packet of information to come in, for every single packet of information. Again, the fact you have multiple connections all slightly offset in time from each gives the illusion that your connection remains busy all this time, but it IS slowing things down subtly.

Now on a 15ms connection that is 825ms of latency to establish the connections and again half the latency for the ACKs, and so the data comes in quicker. The end result, the page loads faster. Its just simple maths.

That is why web pages can sometimes load faster on a low latency, low bandwidth connection than a high latency, high bandwidth one.

None of this of course takes into account the speed of your PC and monitor actually DRAWING the page, but I can tell a difference. It might not be the end of the world, but its there, and becomes much more relevant when your connection is busy as the higher the latency the more things will queue up waiting for a free slot to send/receive data.

You only need look at peoples pingtest graphs to see how when the connection is in use the latency goes up, the lower your latency started, the lower it is during use. Just compare my connection (the latter) to someone on lower latency than me. See how the yellow spikes mostly remain much lower than mine.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/s...e274bc0fca.png
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/s...20f8c95627.png

That means the chances of being able to keep decent enough latency to game, VoIP, etc, while still doing browsing/downloading are much higher when your latency is low to start with.

But my real point in all this is why put up with 30ms latency if you can get 15ms or lower?

Even if you do not notice the difference, doesn't it make sense to get the best connection you can for your money?

[Greengeek]

Originally Posted by AlexAtkin

None of this of course takes into account the speed of your PC and monitor actually DRAWING the page, but I can tell a difference. It might not be the end of the world, but its there, and becomes much more relevant when your connection is busy as the higher the latency the more things will queue up waiting for a free slot to send/receive data.

Not an issue for me as I use Cfosspeed on my network.
I can download from newsgroups, play XBL and the wife can use the Voip and there is no problems as it as ACK priority.
Also, now on 15ms ping whilst retaining the full capacity of my package.

[AlexAtkin]

It helps, but as I understand it there is no way to 100% prevent latency issues once your connection hits capacity. I have QoS enabled on my router and as you can see from the ping chart, it doesn't prevent those spikes. (although it is making me wonder if its working as I previously used it on DD-WRT not OpenWRT)

Besides its not really the point, the point is a latency of 30ms causes a 30ms delay per packet, a 15ms latency halves that. No amount of traffic shaping will make a 30ms latency become a 15ms one and lower is ALWAYS better, unless it causes excessive errors on your line.

[Greengeek]

Originally Posted by AlexAtkin

It helps, but as I understand it there is no way to 100% prevent latency issues once your connection hits capacity. I have QoS enabled on my router and as you can see from the ping chart, it doesn't prevent those spikes. (although it is making me wonder if its working as I previously used it on DD-WRT not OpenWRT)

Besides its not really the point, the point is a latency of 30ms causes a 30ms delay per packet, a 15ms latency halves that. No amount of traffic shaping will make a 30ms latency become a 15ms one and lower is ALWAYS better, unless it causes excessive errors on your line.

No, that's not what I'm saying though.
I'm saying that my traffic is prioritised before it even gets to the router, the ack packets get there on time so you aren't waiting for an open slot for them to go.