We moved from Oxford to Camden, and despite a week of lead time, BT still needed another week to send someone out to set up their shitty connection. Then, it didn't work. For the geeks: I was getting ping timeouts around 30%, and an average ping time of 80ms. There were plenty up to 800ms and 1000ms as well. The following picture should give you an idea...
bt = sucks
...and this shitty level of quality went right out the window after 5pm at night, when you simply couldn't get on at all! So, I did a little snooping around and found out the following:
* all UK broadband carriers (except one) share BT's infrastructure
* my neighbor uses Talk Talk, and it's even WORSE than my BT connection
* there was a cable box in my office from something called "London Cable"
* London Cable bought out a company called Camden Cable which had laid fiber in Camden in the 1980s.
* London Cable in turn was bought by Virgin Broadband, who thus actually have an infrastructure alternative to BT's.
So, I switched to Virgin, the only non-BT broadband carrier I could find (or probably that even exists) and now I have "up to" 20 megabits per second download and ~700 kilobits per second upload. The "up to" seems pretty theoretical, since I seem to get anywhere from 8 to 17. But who cares?! I've got lots of bandwidth and so far, only a .05% loss rate. Now, I will resume my normal internet focused activities: the blog will get updated, photos added, songs posted, etc. This will also help me find better local shows so I can play new music on the radio show, AND I will actually be able to broadcast from the flat instead of having to haul my gear over to Kaysa's.
More to come soon!
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