Tiger
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Registered: 12th Jun 01
Location: Leicestershire Drives:Astra VXR
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BT is to increase its broadband speeds by up to four times from 31 March.
The firm said 78% of its users would be able to access at least four megabits per second (4Mbps), compared with the maximum of two available now.
Almost half would get 6Mbps and those close to their local exchange would be able to access 8Mbps.
Some rival providers already offer up to 24Mbps, but their services are restricted mainly to clusters of users in big cities.
BT said more than 5,300 exchanges serving more than 99.6% of UK homes and businesses were being upgraded to support the higher speeds.
As well as making web browsing and e-mailing quicker, higher speeds mean people can do more with their net connection, such as watching video, listening to audio, and playing online games.
I know people say they are rubbish - but ive never had a problem with them so I welcome the change 
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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I was looking at something the other day that said my connection was in red zone which meant it was broken and crap and due for an upgrade, but it seems fine.
I think a lot of this now is marketing. Its largely theoretical if when the speeds get quicker, people just download more, so you don't notice an increase.
While downloading is actually a problem for the network and they're not about to deregulate p2p ports or give up on traffic shaping, it doesn't actually appear to go any faster.
Becomes an issue for computers that you're getting stuff off as well. A lot of web server links are now going unmetered but capped at like 10mbps. We had this option for CS hosting to keep the bill down, as even if it got absolutely hammered with downloads/videos etc. we would still only have a maximum possible bandwidth figure that we couldn't exceed.
Basically makes the place slower though so we ended up going for fast as you can but nothing fancy like the video hosting, which would be lovely, but which would compromise performance in other areas.
Its not a free lunch like.
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Tiger
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Registered: 12th Jun 01
Location: Leicestershire Drives:Astra VXR
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I see exactly what your saying. To be honest - im on 2MBPS and the pages are already loading up instantly. I guess like you say its for File Transfers etc but generally I wont probably notice much difference at all.
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Ren
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Registered: 16th Oct 04
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Arnt BT supposed to be blocking certain ports (ie the bit torrent/p2p ports) anyway? Whats the use of having a 8MB connection, if you cant download anything with it?
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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File transfers on here are still quick, but if we needed to cap the speed they wouldn't be. It'll go that way - a few threads after a big meet full of pics can already affect the traffic quite a lot.
Video hosting and people stream the video instead of download it, then show their mates by streaming it again etc. etc. - its always quick for them but it would cost loads!!
The solution is www.corsasport is on uncapped billed by traffic passed and vids.corsasport is on 10mbps cap pass as much as you like. That would require is to have more cash to throw at the hosting bill, plus either some fancy network setup or a whole new server just doing that.
Plans eh hehe
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Cybermonkey
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Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
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sounds like it Ian  you should get a Bigpond Cable Extreme connection, no caps or limits, just meg fast 10MB/sec download speeds 
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MikeLamb
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Registered: 23rd Sep 03
Location: Crowthorne Drives: Veccy SRI
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quote:
Originally posted by Ian
The solution is www.corsasport is on uncapped billed by traffic passed and vids.corsasport is on 10mbps cap pass as much as you like. That would require is to have more cash to throw at the hosting bill, plus either some fancy network setup or a whole new server just doing that.
Plans eh hehe
I thought you still had the old server?
Cant you give that vids.corsasport.co.uk and change the connection setup of that server for pure downloading?
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Tim
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Registered: 21st Apr 00
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It's already all possible. I am happy to host the videos as soon as we get round to the necessary code changes.
Cybermonkey: Yeah but I bet the upload rate is still crap  Plus we can't exactly host a site on a home internet connection -- it'll hardly the same SLA as our current datacenter...
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Tiger
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Registered: 12th Jun 01
Location: Leicestershire Drives:Astra VXR
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quote:
Originally posted by Ren
Arnt BT supposed to be blocking certain ports (ie the bit torrent/p2p ports) anyway? Whats the use of having a 8MB connection, if you cant download anything with it?
Yeah but port forwarding will still be enabled so it shouldnt be a problem 
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Forwarding ports has nothing to do with bt blocking well known p2p ports on their network.
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Tiger
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Registered: 12th Jun 01
Location: Leicestershire Drives:Astra VXR
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There is no advertised press about it so i'm not going to worry.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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They don't just block ports now anyway. They traffic shape. Which is worse imo.
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Tiger
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Registered: 12th Jun 01
Location: Leicestershire Drives:Astra VXR
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What is that exactly?
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James_DT
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Registered: 9th Apr 04
Location: Cambridgeshire
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http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+traffic+shaping&meta=
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Tiger
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Registered: 12th Jun 01
Location: Leicestershire Drives:Astra VXR
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And whats all that in Laymans terms?
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James_DT
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Registered: 9th Apr 04
Location: Cambridgeshire
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I don't know.
I was hoping you'd be able to work it out.
edit: I think it's basically prioritising and throttling bandwidth, so certain connection types get much less bandwidth than others, so P2P isn't blocked it's just severly slowed down. I know that BitTorrent clients have now started coming with encryption as a method to combat traffic shaping.
[Edited on 05-03-2006 by James_DT]
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Cybermonkey
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Registered: 22nd Sep 02
Location: Sydney, Australia
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quote:
Originally posted by Tim
Cybermonkey: Yeah but I bet the upload rate is still crap
yes 
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danny_vx
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Registered: 20th Feb 05
Location: Swansea
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this is awesome news, i loved the last upgrade from bt.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Its not just BT that are doing this btw.
Its called adsl max and everybody with an enabled exchange will be able to get it.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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traffic shaping is a new system, forgotten which company has brought it all in, but basically it packet sniffs traffic coming in and determines whats P2P, internet/email, VOIP etc and then limits the speed/delay the packets of information - so p2p stuff will be slower, whilst browsing quicker etc
but i know torrent clients/servers have started encyrpting the data sent (the actually headers) so it should get passed this all - though the author of BT doesn't agree with this i believe.....don't know why, but there you go 
However, its also being used for big telcos who have their own VOIP services to allow them to limit other companies VOIP services and making their ones better etc Its all very sneaky......
as for ADSL, wait til ADSL2 comes in, will solve a lot of it or when BT upgrades its copper cables to fibre (2010 i think it will happen)...until then, if you can get cable, i would - offer better speeds, especially if you're after 4mb+ connections (unless your exchange is close to you)
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