The wait was finally over and Virgin come and fitted today my brand spanking new 50mbit service complete with new modem, new router and even a USB Wireless Adaptor. This post goes over what equipment you get, what levels of speed you should expect to get and how my install went. It is to be noted this is of course UK Based ISP and on a cable connection provided by Virgin, I am sure USA people might get less down load but higher upload – depends on what you are looking for.
The previous service
I have a choice of 10mbit/512k (Cheapest by far), 20mbit/768K (what I was on) and finally 50mbit/1.5mbit which comes at a price of both the install, the activation and the extra money per month of course on your bill. Both the 10mbit and 20mbit comes with the wonderful world of bandwidth throttling – I wrote about this HERE but to put it in a nutshell:
Between the hours of 9am and 9pm (yes that’s 12 hours) if I use the internet too much to either download or upload, my bandwidth gets capped to 75% of my speed for FIVE Hours. This is 4mbit download and 100k upload – in other word it renders my connection pointless.
The Cost of going to 50Mbit
I have to pay £35 for installation and £20 activation fee and on top of my normal bill (About £48 a month for TV, Phone and Broadband) I have to add another £8. Now I thought this was a bit much but I needed a router anyhow – so £55 is not too bad right?
Installation day
I was worried the personally installing this might get it wrong and I was at work all day but they managed to install this just fine and had to use my laptop to test it out. he left my old router in place with the view that the new one would be wide open to all – he even left his number to call (mobile) should I have any problems.
What gear do we get?
First up is the new Modem – a very sexy black and silver affair indeed. On the back we have the cable connection, Ethernet port and power. The power cord had an in-line on/off switch, very handy indeed.
The front as you can see is a nice black number with Blue lights (they look green in that picture) and this device would not look out of place against any computer or even in the main living room for example.
Next Up is the router, this is a D-Link DIR-615 and is basically a Wireless N Router with 4 10/100 ports. I am not sure if the installation guy put in some details but I was un-able to log in with the default details.
Once I had reset the router (Holding in the rest button for 20 seconds) I could log in and set everything up. I had some issues with certain sites (such as google) but once everything was reset – everything worked as it should. The router has QOS and SPI firewall and the only downside (for me) was not having gigabit ports.
Left on the side still shrink wrapped was the D-Link DWA-140 USB Wireless N Adapter. It does not mention on the box if this is a true 300mbit version or the slower 150mbit but as I have wireless already in everything I need wireless in – this can serve as a handy spare.
It comes with a nice and heavy mouse looking extender if you wish to use it on your desktop. This is a nice touch and heavy then any usb extender I have got before.
The Speed test
You can see that it is close to 50mbit and in fact on the various tests I have done already today, it hit 50mbit with easy every single time. The upload is what I need and 1.6 is fine with me, there is talk of upgrading to 5mbit in the not to distant future.
Conclusion
With no throttling of my line no matter what time of day, an extra £8 a month and speed unheard of a few years ago – I am more than happy to pay the cost and upgrade.
