broadband speeds.

I work in BT exchanges and to say that one service over another is better is laughable.

BT Wholesale distribute it where there is no other provider presence, it is they that Sky, Talk Talk etc go to when the service drops.

Where a third party has its rack in an exchange, then you may get a better service. It really does depend on the distance from the exchange and the state of the copper wires to your house.

Even fibre is not exactly fibre as it is often fibre up to those green boxes then its still copper.

I live 4 miles from 50 meg+ fibre optic fraudband and can only get 1.8 meg copper at best.

Have a look online at how to connect the sky broadband box and tv box to the wall, apparently a lot have been connected wrong meaning horribly slow speeds, worth a look for free?

Yep, plus correct line termination (which should be in the primary socket). Extension cables beyond this can cause reflections which distort the signal and slow down data throughput due to failed messages and retries etc. even if the router isn't at the end of the extension.

i'm with bt now, just checked my speed.
4667 kbps, well happy now.
al though i noticed my speed with sky had shot back up to 3.5 meg.

Just tried speedtest, got 18.58mbps, don't know much about this sort of stuff is that good, bad or ugly ?

very good that is 4 x faster than what i am getting now.

18 times faster than mine

Virgin all the way.

BT is a joke.

I'm on Virgins 30MB service and am currently getting (runs a test)... 29.66mb/s

I'm with the Virgin 10Mb service and it is always between 9.5Mb and 9.9Mb. Very reliable and steady speeds.

Knology here in the hills and in a place where snow on the dish is a real issue

anyway just tested and 17.78 download and 1.83 upload although being a small town and with a number of providers peak times can see this drop by half