512kb vs. 1MB

Hello all,

thought I get a few opinions here on a question that I have... I used to connect my laptop to my University network and the speed was great... Then I went to see my parents in Germany for a good month and only had a 56k modem which is as 7day timeouts really slow and painfull ...

Now I have a 1MB broadband connection and am happy with the speed here. However, would one really feel the difference between 1MB and 512kb ?? None of my downloads ever reached 512kb anyway (max I had once was like 80kb a sec.) ... At my Uni the max I have ever reached was 1MB (when downloading from Microsoft directly ...)

Any views welcome

Boris

Originally posted by The Slow Pawn
Hello all,

thought I get a few opinions here on a question that I have... I used to connect my laptop to my University network and the speed was great... Then I went to see my parents in Germany for a good month and only had a 56k ...[text shortened]... loading from Microsoft directly ...)

Any views welcome

Boris

Originally posted by Russ
I have 600kb (NTL gave a free upgrade from 512kb to put one over BT) - and I often make full use of it when downloading.

For general surfing, I don't think 1Mb would make any difference at all over 512kb - for example, our server speed would be a limiting factor anyway.

Are you sure you are not getting your bits and bytes mixes up?

-Russ

You never get the quoted speed (and are they refering to upload/download speeds etc...)

I'd save your money and go for the half meg. Especially if you are with one of those ISPs who have a download limit anyway (BT).

The only time I ever saw a notible difference was on x-box live. The lower speed connection suffered some jitter. For general use though, there seems like little difference to me.

Btw, Telewest recently did something similar to NTL, ie Free 500->750, 1000->1500 and 2000->3000! Hopefully the market will get even more competitive so we all get better deals ;-)

Cheers

Originally posted by Lazaraus
You never get the quoted speed (and are they refering to upload/download speeds etc...)

I'd save your money and go for the half meg. Especially if you are with one of those ISPs who have a download limit anyway (BT).

The only time I ever saw a notible difference was on x-box live. The lower speed connection suffered some jitter. For general use thoug ...[text shortened]... 00! Hopefully the market will get even more competitive so we all get better deals ;-)

Cheers