Question.....

[Xbandito]

Now this maxdsl thingie is all over the place, one minute we have a speed of 4/5mb next minute we have a speed of nearer 512kbps 
Now if we had stayed at 2mb (or if anybody has stayed at 2mb, please speak up) would we still be getting the near as damm it 2mb speed or will maxdsl kill that as well ?.
I know its all about contention etc etc but as the days have gone by since end of training, I have noticed (on most days) -:
7am till 11am speed roughly in the area of 5mb 
11am till 6pm speed roughly in the area of 2mb 
6pm till midnight speed in the area of 512k to 750k 
now the part between midnight and 7am I will leave to Jeff   

I have also noticed pings rise throughout the day, from 25ms 10am to 110ms at 9pm, same game servers  (making Desert combat nearly unplayable)

Another thing, I have a friend working/partying in Japan at the mo and he is enjoying the internet as is should be. They are on 100mbit connection downloading stuff that would take me hours (if not days) in a matter of minutes  and he played on the same server as me and he had a ping of 12ms  .
How can our so-called "advanced" country fail to get things right 

[Scott]

The Jap thing is soooo true...a bit like UAE and other oil-rich arab states...I've read many of them are pushing out FTTH as a standard like mains leccy, gas and water.

Remember though our BB is being shovelled down WWII era copper pairs...and our boffins are having to come up with cleverer and cleverer solutions in order to get more data down the same physical pipes as no-one in the UK can afford the wholesale rip-up and relay of the POTS.