[webcast-l] Broadband Providers

[Martyn Haynes]

Hi All,

After years working in the community media sector I now work for a
large business based ISP who rate top in the Webperf link provided by
Nick (below).

We provide ADSL, SDSL, Leased lines and a whole host of transit and
provider solutions for just about anyone from our data centres in the
west midlands, London, Manchester, Birmingham and a few others around
the UK - we also peer with about 80% of UK ISPs.

Our ADSL rates are competitive and have little by way of FUP's and
restrictions as we generally provide only to business users.

We have recently also put into place a streaming media service and
adsl line for a local community radio group and are considering doing
more.

I would be happy to discuss any of the above with members should they
wish to get in touch .  Note this isn't a sales pitch by any means, we
are eager to expand our range of services to help community radio
stations (it helps having a boss who used to work in radio too!) so if
we can help in any way please get in touch.

Cheers
Martyn

On 3/20/07, Bill Best <bill.best at commedia.org.uk> wrote:
> Hi
>
> Yes there's not much more I can add to what Nick says below:
>
> Nick Blower wrote:
> >
> > Should have mentioned as well to have a look at ThinkBroadband (formally
> > ADSL-Guide) @ http://www.thinkbroadband.com/
> > It's will be focused more around home user and gamers but mostly any service
> > that rates highly for a gamer will be good for streaming. Look for low
> > latency, no download caps (or high), good support and issue resolution. Also
> > spending a bit more and getting a lower contention ratio may help (the
> > number of people sharing the same theoretical bandwidth. Business accounts
> > are often 20:1 and home 50:1 but you'll pay for it.
>
> I have not heard any reports from our webcasters of problems with any
> particular ISP.
>
> My home ISP is Telewest/Blueyonder/NTL/Virgin (whoever they happen to be
> this week...) and I have no upload/download cap and service has been
> faultless - though I don't do a great deal of streaming media work from
> home.
>
> The ISP that the CMA uses for the streaming servers is Avensys Networks
> based in Sheffield who have a prominent presence in Telehouse in the
> London Docklands through which the majority of the UK's internet transit
> is still carried.
>
> We chose Avensys as our ISP for a number of reasons and they
> consistently rank highly in this list of ISP performance:
>
> http://www.webperf.net/?id=perfsummary
>
> Avensys also have extensive peering agreements with most ISP's through
> the UK's network peering exchanges: LINX, LONAP, MANAP and LIPEX:
>
> Avensys (8553)
> http://www.linx.net/www_public/our_members/peering_matrix
>
> This means that internet traffic between peering partners is routed
> faster and more efficiently.
>
> In terms of data upload the CMA recommends a minimum bitrate of 34kbps
> for FM quality webcasting. So a few calculations might be interesting:
>
> 34kbps x 3600 = 122400 kilobits per hour
>
> 122400 x 24 = 2937600 kilobits per day
>
> 2937600 x 30 = 88128000 kilobits per (30 day) month
>
> = 88.128Gb transfer per month
>
> = 11GB upload per month
>
> The above calculations do not account for any other network use and just
> represents a 34kbps stream that is run 24/7.
>
> Most ISP's seem to be mostly concerned with download usage and it is
> difficult to find figures for upload caps but what is most important for
> streaming is upload speed.  Upload speeds are usually set at about 10%
> of download speeds and for broadband the slowest upload speed is
> normally about 256kbps which is quite adequate for the example stream
> above even allowing for network overheads.
>
> It would be sensible to assume however that an ISP offering 'unlimited'
> downloads would also offer 'unlimited' uploads - I use quotation marks
> advisedly as ISP's will always have a 'fair use' clause.  A quick search
> for 'unlimited broadband' brings up a number of sites including this one:
>
> http://www.broadbandchecker.co.uk/broadband-checker.html
>
> So, apart from AOL whose service provision is often reported to be a
> little uneven, there would probably be few problems using any of the
> ISP's mentioned in the above link.
>
> Hope that helps and best regards
>
> Bill Best
> --
> Community Media Association
> http://www.commedia.org.uk/
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