Shall I go ADSL or Cable? (BT or NTL?)

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
6,669
Hey guys,

I've just moved to Belfast, in an area where I believe I can get both BT ADSL and NTL Cable.

I had NTL Cable in Nottingham (4Mb) and was very happy.

There's something 'better' in my mind about cable, rather than ADSL, but this is just a gut feeling / illogical preference rather than anything scientific.

I think getting ADSL will be easier, as it'll just plug into the phoneline, whereas cable will need an access point installing (I believe). So that's a plus for ADSL...

A postcode check on BT reckons:

"Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial check on your postcode indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to 2Mbps.

Our check also indicates that your line should be able to support a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 6.5Mbps up to 8Mbps."

But I guess this is pretty generic?

I'd say I'm a medium level user - I'd guess 2GB/month based on what I can remember from my Smoothwall logs?

Ooh, that reminds me, presumably, I can hook up an ADSL modem to a smoothwall box? Can I connect it using ethernet rather than USB? I'm totally 'wired' and don't really want to go wireless.

Thanks for any info!
 
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
1,768
Location
Victoria OZ /Germany/UK
One of the best things about Cable is that you now don't need to rent a telephone line but can use the internet for telephone calls. www.internetcalls.com
For a good in depth view check out the Message forums here:
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/
Ntl are soon to offer 2mb speed for £17.99 a month first 3 months £8 odd a month with a 1 year contract. One has the choice of course as to USB or ethernet connection.
Naturally forget Talk Talk; everything is in a great state of turmoil and expansion at this time
You don't appear a large downloader so you have a lot of choice with adsl provided on BT's line but not with BT as an ISP
 
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Man of Honour
Joined
25 Oct 2002
Posts
31,706
Location
Hampshire
I've just bought a house and had a similar dillema. In the end I went for NTL because it offered faster download and upload speed than ADSL MAX and usually slightly lower latency as well, together with a reasonable FUP (75gig/month).

In my old house I have 8mbit adsl from Nildram which isn't bad, but the download speeds are inconsistent (ranging from 300-800k/sec despite always being synced at 8128kbit, presumably due to contention at my exchange).

My NTL account was activated at the weekend, and after a couple of initial teething problems with my account setup it seems to be working very well. Downloads are a steady 1200k/sec, didn't have time to check upload. Latency is marginally lower than ADSL although only by a very small margin.

However, ADSL does have a couple of things going for it, namely price and being able to quickly switch between suppliers (1 month contract). If things go pearshaped on cable, it's not so easy to simply migrate away to another isp. Personally I've decided to pay the extra for a fast service (£35/month, half price for first 3 months) and then maybe look at getting ADSL from Be when they are available in my area next summer.
 
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