Internet quality?

Hi all,

Whats internet like in HK? For example what could I get for 100$/month USD?


In Australia that gives me ADSL2/24MB with a 40 gig download limit (pretty crap).


In Japan it use to give me a gigabit optical fibre into my house with no limits (the best).


Where does HK fall in that spectrum?

Certainly agree 100mb fibre connection is over the top. But just curious what money can buy basically.


For example 24mb only syncs to 6mb here in Australia. So I cant play a game and download in the background as its to bandwidth intensive. Also the larger the pipe the faster the connection is (up to the server limit and the more you can download) for gaming. So you can get the best ping times possible. So large bandwidth is useful for people like me who use the net mainly for gaming and downlaoding. Not so much for browsing.


No download limit is great. Is there a comparison site for ISPs to compare plans and prices or any big ISP people can recommend so I can just get an idea of how much different plans are?


Thanks.

In HK you can get 6 or 8 mbit DSL (768k upload) for around 200 Honkies a month.


PCCW have just recently started offering fiber service in many areas. 100mbit (up and down) for around 500 Honkies a month and 1gbit (up and down) for around 2250 Honkies a month.


2 year contracts.


"No download limit is great. Is there a comparison site for ISPs to compare plans and prices or any big ISP people can recommend so I can just get an idea of how much different plans are?"


Download limits on wired home lines are a barbaric practice that should be banned by UN resolution. In any case PCCW does not have them.


Most likely you won't be able to choose your provider since buildings are wired with only one.



"For example 24mb only syncs to 6mb here in Australia. So I cant play a game and download in the background as its to bandwidth intensive"


Depends on the game. WoW for example has no problem running beside downloads and uploads as long as you leave some bandwidth free. Distance to the server is a much is a much bigger issue. If, for example, you play on US servers your latency will increase despite high bandwidth, purely from having more hops on the route. Quite noticeable at times.



"Certainly agree 100mb fibre connection is over the top."


You can never have enough bandwidth! ;)




"The only reason you would need to spend US$100 a month on connecting to the internet is if you wanted to employ someone to operate the computer for you.


As already mentioned most modern broadband connections already can cope with far more bandwidth than the internet is capable of providing to you, so provided you're not using something from the last century like dial-up then you'll be fine."


That really depends on what you are doing with the connection. If you just surf and email you don't need a lot of bandwidth, but streaming video and gaming require another level of pipe.


I've been at festivals on 10 gb pipes. If you run a couple of downloads and then game on top of that, you can easily get up to speeds far exceeding your average DSL connections. And yes, I do that sort of thing routinely.

"Most likely you won't be able to choose your provider since buildings are wired with only one."


Thanks AXPTGUY. So its normal that most/all apartment blocks have their own ISP and you just have to deal with that ISP?


No download limits are a huge plus. I can definitely live on 8mb connection but would happily pay 500HKD 100mbit.

Some do some don't. More choice with companies other than PCCW and a few apartments have more than one choice.


HGC have been offering their 10Mb VDSL (10Mb up and down) for a few years now and costs around HK$160 a month. HKBN have been offering their 25Mb, 100Mb and 1000Mb services for around 18 months.


No download limits on any of the connections. PCCW is by far the largest company here for DSL but is way behind on technology compared to others and are far more expensive. Certainly quality falls way behind as well in comparison but in many places it's all you can get.

"Thanks AXPTGUY. So its normal that most/all apartment blocks have their own ISP and you just have to deal with that ISP? "


I have only seen PCCW to be honest but evildeeds seems better informed.



BTW note that PCCWs offering is bundled TV and Internet.

Not so much better informed!


Our first apartment here in a high rise we had a choice of PCCW, HGC and iCable (we went with HGC then), the high rise next door had PCCW, HKBN and iCable! So can change from one block to the next.


Villages will only have PCCW and even then not all villages have that.