Thinking of changing Broadband Provider.... BT to UPC

Riesen_Meal

Hi There Guys,

Just a bit of advice needed -

For the last 4 years ive been a customer of BT with their broadband service, ive a 3mb connection and am paying 32.50 a month for a 3MB connection, I mainly use my connection for Xbox Live, PSN and general browsing, I download the odd film and a bit of music aswell, like any normal BB user!

I was in my friend house last night in Swords and he got a 20mb connection from UPC into his house for 40 a month, which left me thinking why am I paying what im paying when I can put an extra 7.50 a month to get a big boost in speeds!

I just kind of want to know the pros & cons of NTL versus BT and a few questions in regard to UPCs service

1. I heard torrents & rapidshare do not work on UPC, I know this possibly could not be true as I used both in my friends last night, no problems at all, is there any file sharing sites blocked? I dont use many anyway but my sis uses Frostwire, im wondering would that affect her?

2. I heard that being realistic, NTLs speeds are generally 60% of what they are advertised at, so that would equate a 20mb as around 12 or 13mb, the exact speed I was getting last night, is this true????

3. The fact I was using it in my friend apartment in Holywell in swords, would he be wired for Cable BB "better" than I would, I live in an old house, in Santry, he lives in a new apartment in swords, another point a friend of mine made was that the cable in ground would have to be good in my area as the exchange im near surely would be near the Airport & a garda station in proximity of my house, would that be true?

If anyone could help and post the pros and cons that would be great!

Cheers,

Dave

DingDong

Fieldog wrote: »

3. The fact I was using it in my friend apartment in Holywell in swords, would he be wired for Cable BB "better" than I would, I live in an old house, in Santry, he lives in a new apartment in swords, another point a friend of mine made was that the cable in ground would have to be good in my area as the exchange im near surely would be near the Airport & a garda station in proximity of my house, would that be true?

Santry was recently rebuilt so all the cables should be new for most of Santry. If its still old cabling you probably won't be able to BB. Also UPC don't use an exchange like dsl. An area is fed by a fibre node which is usually not too far from your home as the distribution lines are fairly short. The only different between yourself and your friend is his is a totally underground system(I'm guessing yours is overhead as its an old house). This shouldn't make any difference in performance. The nodal area are kept small so you should get or close too the advertised speed.

faoile@n

Do you have tv with UPC? If not it will be €46 per month.

Have it myself 4 months and i've had no complaints at all. As for torrents and rapidshare there has never been a problem with rapidshare but there has been mixed reports about thottling torrents. I'm in D12 but from what i can gather problems with UPC seem to be location specific. My advice would be to ask someone in youe immediate area if possible how they find the service or better yet try it at theirs.

Riesen_Meal

Thanks for the replies guys,

I do actually have the TV through NTL, I dont have any problems with a signal either, my boxes in the house never hop or skip or anything like that, so I presume my connection is pretty good, think I might give UPC a ring tomorrow and see is it possible to get it!

By giving my phone number on the site it says that the BB is available! Even though I know it has nothing to do with getting cable BB