Partial solution

[ffutures]

The situation so far is that I've disconnected the long cable that serves the computer by the TV in my lounge and used that to take the network connection through to my work room - I'll eventually need to replace the TV cable but it isn't urgent, I'm not using it much at the moment. With the router in there I will only need a 10M cable.

In the work room I have the incoming network connection and my main PC plugged into a switch, and that's giving a good connection - as in I just downloaded a 350mb torrent in less than 10 minutes, and made a phone call while simultaneously opening a couple of sites - but I can't get my printer or network hard drive to work plugged into the switch.

I have a feeling that there is something wrong with the switch that I knew about the last time I used it, a couple of years ago, which is why I haven't been using it, and that it's currently working as a passive link between the two cables rather than doing things actively. The bottom line is that I can live without the printer and drive overnight, and there are a LOT of computer markets I can get a switch at tomorrow, so this isn't an insoluble problem - but does anyone have any recommendations for a basic switch with at least three output sockets, preferably more? Available in the UK, of course!

So far my shopping list looks like

1 10m ethernet cable
1 network switch
Cable clips

I also need to think about whether I want to get a DECT phone with a couple of remote handsets to replace the current phones - I gather it isn't a good idea to have more than one handset plugged in to a line that's also handling ADSL. Again, any thoughts on model?

And tomorrow I get to phone Virgin / NTLworld and tell them to get lost! YAY!!!

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

At 10Mbps (the lowest Virgin Media speed -- and I do get close to that most times) a 350MB file will take about 5 minutes minimum. I've certainly had ones where they've been well under 10 minutes (it usually takes time for the torrent to "wind up", get enough connections. I have both ADSL and VM (the former getting 4Mbps if I'm lucky, VM 10MBps), and torrent (although not web or straight file download) will make use of most of it if I let it, I've seen aggregate speeds over 12MBps on occasion. Thefiles appear before I'm ready for them. Why people bother paying for 50MBps connections I don't know...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

You surprise me - my experience with Virgin / NTL has been that in this area traffic gets throttled to a crawl a lot of the time.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

In general VM came out best of all the providers at getting close to the advertised speeds (16-18Mbps on "up to 20MBps"), most ADSL providers managing less than half the advertised rate:

# BT's "up to" 20Mbps - average 7.3 - 9.1Mbps
# Plusnet's "up to" 20Mbps - average 6.6 - 8.4Mbps
# Sky's "up to" 20Mbps - 7.2 - 8.1Mbps
# TalkTalk's "up to" 24Mbps - 7 - 8.5Mbps
# Virgin Media's "up to" 20Mbps - 16.4 - 18.1Mbps
# Orange's "up to" 20Mbps - 6.6 - 7.6Mbps
# 02/Be's "up to" 24Mbps - 10 - 11.5Mbps

Source: Ofcom via BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14295046

That certainly matches my experience. Obviously, if there are a lot of heavy users in the area then the actual throughput will go down (the 'contention ratio') and ADSL depends on your phone line and how far away you are from the exchange. In London companies like Be will get better rates because the distances are lower.

Admittedly, VM's customer support is pants (better than NTL's, which was crap), but since I have rarely had any need to call them that doesn't matter much to me.

When you say it gets 'throttled', do you actually have evidence that they are doing it deliberately? Or is it just that in your area there are loads of people pulling down terabytes of files? The term 'throttled' usually applies to deliberate 'caps' on certain types of traffic or as punishment for massive downloading.

(Note that during the week I use fairly little bandwidth, generally it's when I get home on a Friday evening and at weekends. I'm not a heavy user, on average, rarely breaking 3GB per month, so I don't get throttled as an individual.)