

'Fastest ever' broadband passes speed test - sp8
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25840502

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sdfjkl
Meanwhile, in rural England, people desperate for internet access are bundling
four DSL lines at 1.4 MBit/s downstream each. BT has re-established its
monopoly with being the only provider of FTTC, a major step back from the LLU
days of ADSL. But none of this matters, because even if you have fast
internet, the government is working hard on expanding the existing censorship
to make it useless (just this week folks couldn't download an update to the
popular game League of Legends because it contained a file named
VarusExpirationTimer.luaobj).

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rayiner
> Meanwhile, in rural England, people desperate for internet access are
> bundling four DSL lines at 1.4 MBit/s downstream each.

Then they should move out of rural England. BT, etc, aren't stupid. If people
in rural England could pay enough to offset the cost of running cable or fiber
out to rural England, then BT would build that infrastructure. But that's
clearly not the case.

~~~
sdfjkl
Alas, rural is pretty much anywhere outside a few city centers, and even in
London there are parts where you can get stuck with an unstable 4 MBit/s DSL
link (from personal experience).

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clarkdave
I live in Bethnal Green (just down the road from "Tech City") and our entire
apartment block can't get fibre, just a measly 4Mb/s. I don't know if BT is to
blame, or the building itself, but it sure makes finding a flat to rent a bit
of a lottery...

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aidenn0
> said speeds of 1.4 terabits per second were achieved during their joint test
> - enough to send 44 uncompressed HD films a second.

Someone did their math wrong.

One second of 4:2:2 720p@24fps video is about 353.89Mb

A feature film is about 110 minutes, which works out to 2.3 Tbit; this can't
even send one HD video per second.

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nextw33k
Interesting that they are working on a hardware solution to a software
problem.

Multicast support would cure the majority of the streaming and torrent issues
if the ISP's enabled it.

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chronomex
If I'm not mistaken, the BBC streams to the UK in HD with multicast only,
creating pressure from the customers towards the ISPs supporting it properly.

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walshemj
um this is a core telco network fibre link and has about much relevance to
"broadband" as a picture of cute kittens.

Subs eh thy hook up their hipster mac book air to a airport hub and suddenly
they are a CCIE level guru.

~~~
Dakos
Agreed it's more of a technical exercise than anything else. The achieved
speed is irrelevant. The techniques may see some use in the future.

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qubyte
I live within walking distance of the BT Tower, and the maximum I can get is <
1Mbps...

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whizzkid
I don't remember the last time I complained about the internet connection
being slow actually..

It looks like hardware department is not doing its homework instead. Hard
drives, and cpus are the limitations most of the time for me.

~~~
Fuxy
I believe you're one of the few people who have that issue.

For most of us the internet speed is the biggest problem. My home internet
speed has some very big issued on peak hours.

It's not unusual for the connection to be unusable for an hour.

Luckily peak time is usually when everybody is home from work and i don't
really need to use it at that time.

~~~
whizzkid
I see your point, me living in Sweden may explain why i never had internet
speed problem. Here, almost everyone gets 10mbit if not 100mbit. (And it
actually is 10mbit)

But still, with bad infrastructure, you will not gain any more speed with 1tb
internet connection either. Im guessing your provider tells you that they are
providing 10mbit connection to you, which is a lie according to what you
explained, right?

~~~
dijit
You living in sweden is why you've never complained.

BT is outright shocking (probably infinite is ok, however this is in response
to Virgin deploying fiber- and they're directly competing- thus! in area's
with fiber coverage you get a choice of BT or Virgin, in the other areas..
well, sucks to be you!)

I get, on average 150KB/s with around 1s latency at all times (when it goes
lower than 1s I celebrate)[0].

I live in the tech part of london, seriously confused as to how this is
acceptable, but a leased line to bring me up to your speeds would cost me more
than I earn in a month (I checked).

[0]
[http://www.darkscience.net/quotes/126/](http://www.darkscience.net/quotes/126/)

~~~
whizzkid
Well that really looks too disappointing!

London and "average 150KB/s" ??

You should be getting better connection than that with 4g on your mobile then?

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dijit
I definitely am, however the latency is worse.

(and 4g for 3UK hasn't been rolled out yet)

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skyshine
"The test was conducted on a 410km (255-mile) link"

I know I'm from the North, but last I checked Ipswich was practically next
door to London. Did they route it via Manchester or something.

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InTheSwiss
This confused me too. Ipswich to Victoria is about 85 miles by road. Anyone
got any more details on the connection route?

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jackgavigan
It'll be a loopback on their Adastral Park -> Colchester –> Basildon –> BT
Tower link.

See
[http://indico.uknof.org.uk/getFile.py/access?contribId=2&res...](http://indico.uknof.org.uk/getFile.py/access?contribId=2&resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=25)

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rafski
London will always have the best connection — it's a major HFT hub.

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dijit
Really, I can see the BT tower from where I live, I'm lucky to get < 200k/s.

my mother lives 100 miles to the north (coventry) and gets 5MB/s for free, and
it actually -IS- 5MB/s

(free because of tv/phone package, and it's with Virgin)

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neilmcrae
Yes correct it's a loop fr Ipswich to BT tower and back.

