http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7919904.stm

Whats the point i ask
just means VM will active their "traffic shaping policy" after 10 mins instead of an hour

yep, pointless pointless

im interested in seeing H20 networks succeed though, might persuade BT to do the job properly rather than half a**ed like normal :P

Agreed. Any speed increase in broadband is pointless unless more cables are laid.

That doesn't make any sense

If I drive up the Mway at 20mph you would get a traffic jam the length of the Country

However if I could go at the speed of light, there would be no hold up.

As I see it the faster the speed the more information you can get down the same cable. Right or talking rubbish again

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There will still be someone on your bumper flashing there lights for you to get out of the way

Probably the old bill

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scruff:
its more akin to each persons internet line being a road, and their speed being the rate at which they release vehicles onto that road, too vehicles released at the same time = gridlock or too many vehicles from one road means that everyone else has restricted space. (or in plumbing terms someone running all their taps at once 24/7 reduces the water pressure in the surrounding area.)

People share allocated space as most people do not max their lines out 24/7, the problem comes during peak times when it is like the railways and roads, everyone wants to use it at the same time and if not handled properly space runs out and everything grinds to a virtual halt. (just like the roads in this country )

however it isnt a matter simply of "laying more cables" to cure the problem. It can also be that core routers (akin to junctions on a road) need to be upgraded in order to handle more traffic without locking up. Also placing restrictions on the heaviest 5 to 10% of users makes everyone elses speeds better. (Some ISPs go as far as to make the heaviest users share the same "pipe" to stop them affecting anyone else. Pipe refers to the ISPs connection to the rest of the internet, the vast majority of ISPs have multiple pipes which they configure dynamically to suit their needs and try to balance network load.)

Problem is that the infrastructure in this country for telecoms is a mess due to years of govt idiocy and BTs underhandedness. The infrastructure should have been either kept under national ownership or as part of a non profit group which would own all the infrastructure and could properly co-ordinate works being done and be the one point of contact for all companies involved (For example Network Rail is for the railways)
Also it would mean that upgrades would be done for the good of the network...NOT for BTs share price or to win the govt a few extra votes in a close seat (which is what happens at the moment )

Might also help if we had a regulator which wasnt in the pocket of the telecoms companies *looks at OFCOM*

Hope that clears things up for people.

But if they increase the size of the pump, everyone gets more water.

If info gets from A-B twice as fast, then it most be able to carry more traffic.

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problem is that all the information is moving at the speed of light anyway (When carried over fibre optics, prob slightly less over copper or coax) the problem is the data rate (amount of information that can be sent)

For example ADSL is provided across copper cables, problem being is that the further you go from the exchange (And phone cables are laid according to main roads so sometimes they take odd routes) the more "noise" you get on the line (basically electrical interference) meaning that the datarate rate drops (similar to being in a loud room trying to have a conversation, you have to talk slower (and in person louder) to make yourself understood)

Fibre optics get around that problem by not picking up noise but a) they are damn expensive b) cost of getting people to lay them c) they still have finite space d) fibre isnt easy to fix if it gets broken

finite space as in copper cable can only carry a certain range of frequencies and as you go faster you need more and more frequency range, and higher frequencies pick up more "noise" (copper cables make good antenna, xmas lights can seriously mess up net access when flashing)

Fibre optics suffer the same space issues but in a different way, they use different wavelengths of light to handle multiple data packets on the same cable (like lanes on a motorway, router picks the route for the data to follow, meaning that 1 packet might go a different way to the rest depending on network congestion reported by other routers, also means if a network route fails then the router will try and route around the problem, can mean slower speeds though if the alternative route has less capacity than the original route (B road compared to a 6 lane motorway for example)

Basically it boils down to higher data rate on your line means you can send more information in a given time. In plumbing terms - say the pump is running flat out without an upgrade path (pumping at the highest pressure rating for the water main, and everyone turns on their taps at the same time, water pressure plummets

Solution is bigger pipe to pump more water/data (greater cubic feet per minute of water for example), but also ironing out "kinks" in the system, bad routers and switches, balancing network load better etc

That costs money though to replace parts and install new capacity (plus maintenance costs) and the uk market is highly price sensitive which means corners get cut sometimes in network provision to keep prices low.

If I'm not making sense then let me know and I'll try to explain it more clearly.

No I get the gist of it

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scot-canuck

You sound just like the bloke on Numb3rs

well they do say computer expert types tend to show signs of aspergers etc (usually due to the close focus on one topic

I just wish i got paid as much as he does

You have to remember that speed depends on ALL providers. Can't get the speed form your pipeline if the pipeline you are visiting doesn't offer an equal speed.

If virgin offer x and BT offer y and you are accessing a slower y from x then you are restricted. EMC is also a huge problem at any frequency regardless. Everything produces a harmonic at set frequencies and we also have to cope with the electricity grid that produces white noise across the spectrum.

So until the whole planet upgrades to a set bandwidth then we will always have inconsistencies across the net. EMC will always be a problem and so notch filter will also be a bottle neck point.

500mb etc etc , your isp will still throttle your file transfers, thats the only reason i can see for faster having broadband

depends on your ISP, a lot of the LLU (Local Loop Unbundled - means that your net connection is connected to your providers equipment in the exchange rather than to BTs gear and then to your ISP further up the line)ISPs (sky, Be* etc ) dont throttle connections unless your REALLY taking the mick (sky dont at all now as they have enough bandwidth to handle their network usage)

My opinion on UK ISPs

Tiscali are dreadful and I'm glad they are going / gone bust

BT are a bunch of nasty spies and have useless tech support somewhere in SE Asia (unless you use their overpriced business broadband where you get to speak to some moron in Newcastle/Dundee/Insert other former industrial heartland with high unemployment) Google "Phorm" for more information

AOL : again overpriced and crappy

Talk talk : they are cheap...no other redeeming features

Sky: Trying to improve, Level 1 tech support almost can do their job and their equipment usually now just works, speeds good and on LLU CHEAP

UKOnline (owned by SKY but diff purpose) : relatively expensive compared to other LLU services but decent tech support, only get hassle if you massively impinge on other users connection speeds, I hammer my connection periodically and thus far have no letters.

Be* /O2 : Have no experience with as they have yet to enable my exchange despite marking it for an upgrade, speeds again good and prices fair (especially on O2 if you have an O2 mobile )

Entanet: sell their service via resellers, speed good, Enta tech support great (business quality tech support, polite, knowledgeable and very helpful)

Really you get what you pay for, I pay around £25 a month, but for that I get Service Level Agreement if there is an outage beyond a certain time, 24/7 tech support and lower contention (share space with less people)

Connection speeds can be improved a lot by using better quality cabling for extension wiring.

Server speeds are becoming less and less of an issue, a few minority sites (I.E. local newspapers) are still speed limited, but CNN, BBC, Msoft, Canonical, Redhat, Apple, Cnet, 1and1 and many other sites have very fast internet connectivity with a lot of redundancy. Also the fibre links between britain and the US have been improved a lot in recent years, speeds are pretty consistent between UK and american sites I have found during testing.

Though Britain on the whole has it easy compared to North America, a lot of places there struggle to get dial up due to massively long lines (one place I was had a line length of over 20Km as the exchange was in the nearest town (about 20km away) Therefore no hope of ADSL / Cable and barely got 33.6Kbps on dialup; less if the weather was bad )