Videotron Ultimate 30/50

[CMetaphor]

Woohoo! Videotron now has Ultimate 30 and 50 in my area! For those of that don't know, its some sort of "new" cable connection (requires a change of modem) That can push the download speeds up to 30Mbps or 50Mbps. The 30Mbps is actually the same price per month and their "Extreme High speed internet". The only real drawback is that the download cap has been reduced from 100Gb to 70Gb. A fair tradeoff I think for internet that's potentially 3x faster. I will be posting before/after benchmarks on this page once I get the new modem install on Saturday.

More info:
Cable Internet access - Fast connections

[SKYMTL]

Isn't this new connection already well known for its crazy amount of throttling?

[CMetaphor]

I've heard nothing about that yet... and it's only been availble to me (in the west-island of montreal) for a couple weeks now. We'll see just how much throttling is involved. First month is free and I can switch back whenever I want, so I don't see a risk in giving it a shot.

[kingnubian]

Higher speed with a reduced cap has always seemed like a contradiction to me. Every time there has been a speed bump in service there seems to be a lowering in the cap which works in the isp's favor naturally.

Look at Bell's plan to force UBB (Usage based billing), on 3rd party isp's for example.

Bell proposal puts 'unlimited internet' plans in jeopardy, critics say

Canadians, fight Internet Usage Based Billing (UBB) | Zen and the Art of Programming

I applaud the "potential" speed increase with the Videotron service but cringe at the prospect of ever shrinking caps & high overage fees.

[CMetaphor]

The overage fees do scare me a little. But at least there is an easy way to check your current usage online via videotron's website. I don't download that much either, so I think i'll be just fine. Now... for some real-world tests . I'll start tonight by posting some current download speeds/tests.

[CMetaphor]

Speedtest.net


Downloading XP SP3:
Link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/i...P3-x86-ENU.exe


Downloading Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop:
Link:http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ub...sktop-i386.iso


More this weekend once the new modem gets installed!

[Inik]

Euh.. this is your current line ? (10/1, extreme package?)

[CMetaphor]

Originally Posted by Inik

Euh.. this is your current line ? (10/1, extreme package?)

Exactly, Videotron Extreme High Speed (not the plus version). 10Mbps download, 1Mbps upload. It's pretty close to the actual speeds im getting. We'll see how close the 30/1 is to actual....

[Inik]

Yeah, as advertised

I was planning to go with Teksavvy, but the CRTC decision made me go with Videotron. I'll just get the regular high speed with the student discount until I'm willing to pay for the extreme package

[Chilly]

Once I can afford it I want to transition to Cogeco's "High Speed Internet Ultimate" which is 50Mbps down, 1.5Mbps up, and unlike Videotron and the like, my bandwidth cap would go up from my current of 125GB to 160GB!

Explore - High Speed Internet | Cogeco - Ontario

Though I'm also thinking about just getting two "High Speed Internet Pro" and load balancing them for an end result of 32Mbps down, 2Mbps up, for the larger resulting cap of 250GB at the same price.

Best thing about Cogeco? No throttling on the downstream(they do throttle upstream but oh well, decent trade off)!