uk cable VS us cable

[bobajobrob]

ok here's the deal. I have cable internet with a top english company, telewest. I can get 40 - 50 kbps for my £33 ($50) per month whilst my american friends are getting 100 - 150 kbps for $25 per month. You can get a T1 connection for $40 per month, less than my cable connection and 10 times the speed. Now what the **** is going on here? I think there is some kind of **** going on with my telecommunications company because it's not just me getting ****ed on the deal, it's every citizen in england. Anybody like to enlighten me or do I have to move to america to deprive you amercans of jobs with my superior intellect and talent?

[bobajobrob]

sorry if that sounds a little arrogant, but my IQ is around 130 (that's bordering on genius).
[Edited by bobajobrob on 05-08-2001 at 10:11 PM]

[*gearworx]

$40 for a T1 line? lol, impossible! unless the T1 line is like a framed relay, which is still like $900 a month. What's the T1 provider? I want to check them out... the cheapest I've ever came across was $200 and that is only when you sign a 5 year contract with them (worldcom) for those whom wanted to know.

Globix, which sucks by the way charges my company about $1200 a pop and we have a dual T1 line in here so $2400 for a dual. So you see my British friend, the world of T1 is expensive.

[aversion]

agreed, i have never seen a T1 line for such a price, i think someone was having you on.

i've been talking to people who have optus cable in australia and they can get speeds of up to 800kilobytes per second, which is freaking fast. But there are a lot fo complaints that it's not too reliable, but this is the same as anywhere i guess.

i live in england and i'm lucky, i get a 256kb line for a tenner a month, from that i get speeds of up to 32KB/s, good, fast enough for most things, but still way off 800KB/s!!!

if you're on telstra in australia you're capped at 512kb/s i think....

[quistaquay]

don't worry BT are slowly but surely opening up the market for their competitors

[aversion]

yeah they are freaking slow, plus there's not a tradition of cable in this country like there is in the states, most tv is satellite.

hopefully we'll make up for it with a superb dsl network, but i doubt it....

[*gearworx]

how about Satellite internet? I heard if you go with the right provider you get a very nice speed.

[PAlexC]

Originally posted by *gearworx
how about Satellite internet? I heard if you go with the right provider you get a very nice speed.

Satellite is download only though, you still need to dial-in somewhere to upload and send out requests. Kinda pointless.

Could part of the crappy cable speeds in the UK be because of the PAL standard? Does that hog more bandwidth on the coax lines or require different hardware at the switching stations that inhibits the otherwise unused bandwidth they send data over? (I dunno, just asking...)

[steve777]

Originally posted by bobajobrob
ok here's the deal. I have cable internet with a top english company, telewest. I can get 40 - 50 kbps for my £33 ($50) per month whilst my american friends are getting 100 - 150 kbps for $25 per month. You can get a T1 connection for $40 per month, less than my cable connection and 10 times the speed

I have a UK ADSL connection with iomart/madasafish - £54pm plus the quarterly cost of the BT standard line rental - so approx £65pm

i bet our american cousins are not paying anything like $90 per month for an ADSL connection

[FatalJay]

i'm getting DSL next week when i go home from college (right now at the university my current connection speed is 10Mbps, yes that's an M , it's nice)

anyway, I expect to pay $40-45/month for the DSL when i get home, i'll check in later when i see what speeds i get there

[FatalJay]

Originally posted by bobajobrob
sorry if that sounds a little arrogant, but my IQ is around 130 (that's bordering on genius).
[Edited by bobajobrob on 05-08-2001 at 10:11 PM]

it sure is a shame that humility and tact don't come ingrained in genius

it is another virtue entirely

[TheOriginalFlashDavo]

One thing the UK is defintely ahead of the rest with - interactive TV. Happening now in some cases, will be happening a lot more very soon, courtesy of BskyB. That's why the UK's going to get ahead of everyone else - it's simply a network issue. I even spoke to someone in the States involved in the development of interactive TV software, and they said the UK is where it's at for the next few years.

So get into that and make your future...
I'm there by the end of this year so watch out!

Cheers
Dave

[steve777]

Originally posted by TheOriginalFlashDavo
One thing the UK is defintely ahead of the rest with - interactive TV. Happening now in some cases, will be happening a lot more very soon, courtesy of BskyB. That's why the UK's going to get ahead of everyone else - it's simply a network issue. I even spoke to someone in the States involved in the development of interactive TV software, and they said the UK is where it's at for the next few years.

So get into that and make your future...
I'm there by the end of this year so watch out!

Cheers
Dave

i guess some companies such as NTL amy be pushing this because it may be quicker and easier for them to deliver the goods with this than try and provide a fully-fledged braodband service to their existing customers

i am an NTL (ex cable+wireless customer) and ntl inform me that because of the hardware infrastructure they inherited from C+W, I would not be able to have broadband access until the network hardware is upgraded at their exchanges (even though the digital TV box that i have actually contains the cable modem - they dont have the software or network hardware to support it yet)
[Edited by steve777 on 05-09-2001 at 08:34 AM]

[Napalm]

Originally posted by bobajobrob
sorry if that sounds a little arrogant, but my IQ is around 130 (that's bordering on genius).

If you're so intelligent, why must you keep pointing it out?

Can someone say "INFERIORITY COMPLEX"?

[steve777]

QUOTE]Originally posted by bobajobrob
sorry if that sounds a little arrogant, but my IQ is around 130 (that's bordering on genius).
[/QUOTE]

still room for improvement then - get it up to 150 and they'll let you join MENSA ;-)

[AN!MAL]

Originally posted by steve777
QUOTE]Originally posted by bobajobrob
sorry if that sounds a little arrogant, but my IQ is around 130 (that's bordering on genius).

still room for improvement then - get it up to 150 and they'll let you join MENSA ;-) [/QUOTE]

If your so intelligent then you will relize that IQ is an unrealable and faschest mesurement of inteligence.

Any Mensa Members here - then **** you!

[PAlexC]

Originally posted by AN!MAL

Originally posted by steve777
QUOTE]Originally posted by bobajobrob
sorry if that sounds a little arrogant, but my IQ is around 130 (that's bordering on genius).

still room for improvement then - get it up to 150 and they'll let you join MENSA ;-)

If your so intelligent then you will relize that IQ is an unrealable and faschest mesurement of inteligence.

Any Mensa Members here - then **** you! [/QUOTE]

Well if we're going to be pickey...'realize', 'unreadable', 'facist' are the correct spellings. Cursing is also an indicator of both intellectual and emotional intelligence levels. Don't take it personally, I'm just being a pain.

However, there is a field known as psychometrics. A breed of psychology and science that aims to come up with statistical measurements of the mind. This is where IQ and Emotional Intellignce comes from. Even they admit it can never be an exact science.

IQ isn't determined as a basis for anything. Last time I checked MENSA's acceptance hinges on how well you do on THEIR IQ test, meaning there's no standard of IQ. They only want folks who can prove to be at a certain intellectual and problem solving level based on what they feel is a fair measuring tool.

Of course intellect means squat if you're a sociopath.

[vampstko]

here give the mensa test a try -out
i did real bad 11 out of 30 just not my day

http://www.mensa.org/workout.html

[aversion]

Originally posted by TheOriginalFlashDavo
One thing the UK is defintely ahead of the rest with - interactive TV. Happening now in some cases, will be happening a lot more very soon, courtesy of BskyB. That's why the UK's going to get ahead of everyone else - it's simply a network issue. I even spoke to someone in the States involved in the development of interactive TV software, and they said the UK is where it's at for the next few years.

yeah, it can be pretty amazing, every time i turn on the football there's a new option to look up the referees nose or something... it's cool though, last year you could watch all the wimbledon games on one channel, picking player info etc. My only complaint would be that it's a little slow to sort out information, i guess interactive cable would be a lot faster, i think the max speeds over a satellite are about 600kb/s, though i don't know how that effects tv...

as for IQs, they are a stoopid measure of intelligence, but they're fairly reliable - if you've taken 5 tests and averaged out the total like you're supposed to, seems odd to comment on how high yours is though, there are probably people here with higher scores, i wonder why it came to your mind to write that...

[CyberSaint77]

I've found that, having an IQ in the negatives, I actually carry on conversations well because I don't have to try and sound intellectual and nobody expects me to be smart. I have found that the truly important things in life require no intelligence... as my mentor and personal hero, Forrest Gump, once said: "I may not be a smart man, but I do know what love is."

I hope one day to be shrimp boat captain myself, and to find a bitter war vetran with no legs to be my first mate...

Okay, guys, sorry - I can' keep doin this with a straight face! Seriously, I've always been of the opinion that one should follow their dreams and not worry about their IQ- that's what all stupid people say, right .
I've never even taken an IQ test but I haven't had any problems succeeding in life so far!