The Gamers Arms

My new fibre broadband... I've gone from Steam download speeds of 8mbps to 40

Jesus, how long did it take you to download anything!?

Animalmother wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 09, 2023 7:04 pm

Jesus, how long did it take you to download anything!?

So long

Was that Bytes, or bits?!

8Mbps is absurdly bad, I get 30Mbps (3.xMBps) and I'm in a village, 600 metres from my green box.

Steam display megaBytes don't they? In which case, 8MBps was actually not bad.

I have 7MBps d/l on Steam (around 50-60 mbps Broadband connection). Serves my needs well enough, plus I cant get fibre here anyway.

Yeah, my area (Basingstoke) only got fibre very recently, was notoriously bad for b'band speed. Some people were going around telling residents about it, so checked it out. The mad thing is it's only about £4 per month more than we were already paying, so it was a no-brainer really.

At our old house we had 350Mbps service from Virgin, so theoretically 43.75 megabytes per second.

At our old house we had 350Mbps service from Virgin, so theoretically 43.75 megabytes per second.


Under-promised and over-delivered. But when it's time to do anything with your account, their customer service is woeful.

The house behind me now I've moved gets "gigabit" FTTP (900Mbps really), whilst my road languishes on paltry FTTC where the cabinet is over a quarter of a mile away.

Edit: nerds for years bemoaned ISPs calling FTTC "fibre" because now people are actually getting fibre to the house they don't know what to call it. Full fibre? Fuck offffff. It's like "Full HD" again, didn't we learn anything?!

Drarok wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 09, 2023 11:26 pm

The house behind me now I've moved gets "gigabit" FTTP (900Mbps really), whilst my road languishes on paltry FTTC where the cabinet is over a quarter of a mile away.

That’s what I’ve gone to recently. While it’s faster than I could ever need in the foreseeable future, the reality is that you don’t get close to gigabit speeds because of hardware limitations. Most devices get anywhere from 200 to 600Mbps, depending on what they can handle.

You know when you get one of those totally random unexpected phone calls/emails or whatever from someone you were once super close with in school and partially beyond but have not had contact with for a decade or more? Two decades in one of these cases. Well, that happened to me tonight when two members of my old friend group both who I grew up with contacted the other and then me. In the space of just two hours it went from holy shit how the hell are you doing to a group of us are now due to hike a hill together at the end of next month. I do believe it's an 8-10k hike, depending on your trail of choice.

My leg seems to have mended itself pretty well after my calf injury playing football last year, so it would be the perfect excuse to really buckle down as part of a group and truly test myself at the middle age point. I know it may not sound a lot, but the most physically active I've been this year so far is carrying shopping for hours on end.

I only just came off the phone with one of them.

Great job mate! Outside is medicine! Spring is the perfect time for it too!

The weather is glorious at the moment, beautifully sunny but not too hot either.

Bit general but

When things start to go right. Got a huge reno job on the house I bought (unintentionally), and getting the tradespeople I require has been a huge pain in the arse with lead times etc. and it doesn't help that I've procrastinated. Nevertheless, I have a decorator lined up, and someone doing skirting boards next week so will finally have a usable living room and dining room for the first time in five months (currently typing this in my loft).

Rejuvenating heat-exhausted bees with sugar water. Came down this morning to let the dog out and spotted a dying bumblebee on the floor of our conservatory, so whipped up some very sugary water and dipped some kitchen towel in it and popped down by the bee. Instantly his tiny bee tongue was working away at the paper towel, so I poured a tiny bit more into a teaspoon and angled it near him. As soon as he had energy to move he was onto the teaspoon slurping away.

I sat having a cup of tea, listening to the birds and watching the bee until he had powered up enough, took off and flew away. Good for the soul.

My house has dropped below 20c for the first time in a month and it’s glorious. Basking in being vaguely chilly.