internet speed

[keyser]

hi all, could you let me know the best internet provider and what is the highest connection speed you can get
thank you

[Stravinsky]

Originally Posted by keyser

hi all, could you let me know the best internet provider and what is the highest connection speed you can get
thank you

That would very much depend on where you were going to live. Here in Valencia region I get less than 1 mb. Down the road they get 3Mb. I hear of people who have 6.
Most everything uses Telefonica lines. There are plenty of secondary suppliers around, but they wont be able to give you any more than the Telefonica system for that area permits

I regularly get people telling me they can give me 3 or 6 mb, but I know its not possible

Your originally from UK, showing expat in Spain but your location is Dubai?

[keyser]

hi stravinsky
where we are going to live is the million dollar question!!! ive narrowed it down to south and costal ( love the warm weather). we are living in Dubai right now but because of my husbands future job i will be lucky enough to be able to live anywhere so im looking to move closer to the U.K to be near the family.

[keyser]

thats a really slow connection!!!...oh well, i suppose it means i'll spend less time glued to my lap top lol

[steve_in_spain]

Originally Posted by keyser

thats a really slow connection!!!...oh well, i suppose it means i'll spend less time glued to my lap top lol

The speeds to depend on so many thanks. Telefonica (the dreaded) offer up to 20mb through landlines but this depends on where you are in relation to the new upgraded exchanges. Some ISP´s offer faster.

In my old house we had to use WIMAX because telefonica dont exist and we got about teh same as Starinsky but here (again with WIMAX but a diffrent supplier) we get 5mb down and 1.5 up, and they offer faster if youw ant, but for me 5mv is more than enough.

It is hit and miss... my friend has the most dodgy connection through her landline and yet 2 blocks away another friend has an amazing speed. Pick an area and then research your options... WIMAX (with a good firm like i now use) is a good option because doesnt rely on old delaperdated phone exchanges... but WIMAX tends to be mroe rural areas where landlines are not an option.

[Alcalaina]

Originally Posted by Stravinsky

That would very much depend on where you were going to live. Here in Valencia region I get less than 1 mb. Down the road they get 3Mb. I hear of people who have 6.
Most everything uses Telefonica lines. There are plenty of secondary suppliers around, but they wont be able to give you any more than the Telefonica system for that area permits

I regularly get people telling me they can give me 3 or 6 mb, but I know its not possible

I think the service provider DOES make a difference even though they all use the Telefonica network. We used to get an average download speed of 3 Mbs when we were with Telefonica (we were paying for 10); then we switched to Jazztel and the average is 6 Mbs (we are paying for 7).

We are in a country town surrounded by mountains, 50 km from any major centres of population.

[steve_in_spain]

Originally Posted by Alcalaina

I think the service provider DOES make a difference even though they all use the Telefonica network. We used to get an average download speed of 3 Mbs when we were with Telefonica (we were paying for 10); then we switched to Jazztel and the average is 6 Mbs (we are paying for 7).

We are in a country town surrounded by mountains, 50 km from any major centres of population.

From what I know of the UK internet system (and I presume Spain works to a similar system), ISP´s buy bandwidth from the wholesalers who in the UK are BT and in Spain Telefonica. This means that they get certain speeds and amounts of data. Therefore they can control what their customers get. This is why often with alternative providers you get a better speed, or more realistic to what they say than with telefonica (who frankly dont really give a monkeys anyway). Obviously there are many "cheapy" providers who buy in bulk and sell cheap and sometimes their service can be very poor indeed, so i say always best to ask for recomendations.

I pay for 5mb down and 1.5 up and pretty much alwyas get 4.91 down and 1.45 up which is near as dam it what I pay for. Also, depending on what you use internet for you should be looking at other factors not just speed.

For example, i use the internet for voice calls which requires a number of other factors. I use a business telephone system through a very godo supplier but many use things like skype for voice. For voice you only need a tiny upload and download speed but need other things that are worth considering:

Try Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test to get a good idea of your speed and Pingtest.net - The Global Broadband Quality Test to test other things...

Packet Loss. When you browse the net millions of pieces of data go back and forth (packets). Sometimes packets get lost in cyberspace but for browsing the web it doesnt matter because your system will just request them again and in miliseconds they come through, but for voice, video, gaming and other real time applications packet loss is a real problem because when you talk, it only happens once. Test your packet loss with ping test.. it sends out 250 pieces of data and counts how many return

Ping: This is how long each amount of data takes to return back.. again for voice very important to be a small number.

Jitter: This is the varience in pings, the "jitter" in yoru connection shoudl be low to keep voice quality good.

Currently I get the speeds mentioned
I get 0% packet loss every time
I get a ping of about 16ms
I get a Jitter of 1 or 2 ms

AND its raining and i am on wimax.. would be interesting to see what speed but more importantly what QUALITY of connection others get with various ISP´s... maybe some others will run the two tests and report back!

[keyser]

so the question begs , connection first, area second or visa versa .... husband would go with the former, i would go with the latter...looks like area wins!!!! lol
thx so much for all your replies, this will probably be the first of a gazillion questions in the coming months.....xxxxx

[Alcalaina]

Originally Posted by keyser

so the question begs , connection first, area second or visa versa .... husband would go with the former, i would go with the latter...looks like area wins!!!! lol
thx so much for all your replies, this will probably be the first of a gazillion questions in the coming months.....xxxxx

Keep 'em coming!

Location, location, location ... You can always change your service provider, you can't change where you live quite so easily!

[gus-lopez]

Originally Posted by steve_in_spain

From what I know of the UK internet system (and I presume Spain works to a similar system), ISP´s buy bandwidth from the wholesalers who in the UK are BT and in Spain Telefonica. This means that they get certain speeds and amounts of data. Therefore they can control what their customers get. This is why often with alternative providers you get a better speed, or more realistic to what they say than with telefonica (who frankly dont really give a monkeys anyway). Obviously there are many "cheapy" providers who buy in bulk and sell cheap and sometimes their service can be very poor indeed, so i say always best to ask for recomendations.

I pay for 5mb down and 1.5 up and pretty much alwyas get 4.91 down and 1.45 up which is near as dam it what I pay for. Also, depending on what you use internet for you should be looking at other factors not just speed.

For example, i use the internet for voice calls which requires a number of other factors. I use a business telephone system through a very godo supplier but many use things like skype for voice. For voice you only need a tiny upload and download speed but need other things that are worth considering:

Try Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test to get a good idea of your speed and Pingtest.net - The Global Broadband Quality Test to test other things...

Packet Loss. When you browse the net millions of pieces of data go back and forth (packets). Sometimes packets get lost in cyberspace but for browsing the web it doesnt matter because your system will just request them again and in miliseconds they come through, but for voice, video, gaming and other real time applications packet loss is a real problem because when you talk, it only happens once. Test your packet loss with ping test.. it sends out 250 pieces of data and counts how many return

Ping: This is how long each amount of data takes to return back.. again for voice very important to be a small number.

Jitter: This is the varience in pings, the "jitter" in yoru connection shoudl be low to keep voice quality good.

Currently I get the speeds mentioned
I get 0% packet loss every time
I get a ping of about 16ms
I get a Jitter of 1 or 2 ms

AND its raining and i am on wimax.. would be interesting to see what speed but more importantly what QUALITY of connection others get with various ISP´s... maybe some others will run the two tests and report back!

I'm on WIMAX & mine are
packet loss 0%
Ping 104ms, normally this is around 70ms but the weather is not good here at the mo.
jitter 18ms
graded at B . Ok for everything but might be a problem with some gaming.
Just a thought, this did the test to a server in Barcelona whereas normally it uses Elda.
Justtried it on Elda & the ping is at 81ms.