Jump to content

Yahoo BB or NTT Fiber Optic?


Recommended Posts

Seems like there is no longer much of a price difference between these two services.

 

I've had Yahoo BB for a couple of years now. I chose the fastest of their options. The speed was advertised as "up to 52 megabits". Actual speed depends on your distance from the exchange and the number of other customers on the same line. My actual speed is normally only around 300k or 700k, which makes me wonder why I had to pay extra for the 52MB service (there were cheaper services with slower speeds like 30MB and 16MB).

 

I'm moving to a new place and could go either way. I hear fiber optic shilled out at "up to 100 megabits per second", but hear rumors that the actual speeds are even lower than ADSL customers are getting.

 

Do any of you have personal experiences with these two services?

Link to post
Share on other sites

I have personal experience with Yahoo BB. It was crap. Admittedly I live in a suburb remote from an NTT station which is apparently a problem. But speed was very low with frequent cut-off, BB Phone irritated everybody who called us and drove us half crazy too, and every aspect of Yahoo's customer service was stupid and infuriatingly bad. We've done much better for speed and service with KDDI Metal Plus. We now pay for the phone unlike with Yahoo, but Jeez, some things are worth paying for.

 

When we move, we're going to stick with KDDI for a month or two until cable service becomes available, and then go with that.

 

Fiber optic sounds good in theory, but I hear they don't have enough engineers to maintain it, so service often goes down and stays down.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I was with Yahoo BB for a few years on the 12MBps option. Had no hassles with quality, but I don't live to far away from anything. I changed recently to Megaegg 100MBps fiber optic cable, and it is damn fast. Have been using it 4 or 5 months now with no service/quality issues at all.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm using k-opti.com which I think is only available in Kansai so no use to you, but others may wish to look into this as it's super fast, includes a phone line, meaning you dont need a NTT line and NTTs monthly charge. It's basically 50% cheaper than doing it via NTT line + broadband provider, and Ive had zero problems with slow speed or downtime in the 4 months Ive had it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am with Plala hikari.

I get about 65mbps on speed tests but if I use my apple airport express I get about 15mbps!

 

I noticed the difference in DL speeds straight away. Some homepages are slow but that depends on what I'm doing on my comp.

I have the hikari phone and we pay 500 for connection per month compared to 2500 before with NTT. Int. calls are pretty cheap too.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am happy with Tepko hikari and So-net provider. I am using it for 4 months now and it hasn’t yet gone down. I have a 100Mbps wireless LAN rooter, which gives me 54 Mbps connection to my laptop. The wireless connection speed is actually slowed down by my laptops LAN card that supports only up to 54 Mbps connection. When I connect straight to the rooter with a LAN cable I pretty much have the speeds they advertise.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Holy crap, you guys are all getting much faster speeds than me. Listen to my tale of woe...

 

In 2000-2002, I had "12 mbps" Yahoo BB that actually only worked around 300kps.

 

Then from 2003-2004 in the US, I had Comcast DSL advertised at maybe "5 mpbs", but again it actually worked at only 300 kbps or so.

 

Now from mid-2004 I've had the "54 mbps" YahooBB, with no problems or complaints except that it only works around 300k or 700k.

 

WTF?! Why me? I think it's time to change providers.

 

I own an NTT phone line, got it 10 years ago, but I don't need to use it if my provider gives me cheaper IP phone access that actually works. I would have to pay about 1800 yen/mo. to keep the NTT phone line active. But I think I can put my NTT phone line to sleep for free, and then reactivate it anytime I need to in the future.

 

Maybe I should sell it. Is the whole NTT phone line racket finished, e.g. no more ridiculous 70,000 yen initial line charge? Is there any reason not to sell my NTT line? Can I get a new one for next to nothing, or should I put mine to sleep in case I need it in the future?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Get Tepco Usen or NTT fibre.Remember a lot of those services are piggybacked.So you will never get you full line speed. i.e. shared with several people in your area.In kansai they are offering full fibre on it`s own. and it`s coming in kanto.

 

You should check which fibre connection is full 100mpbs and unshared. I know tepco is vdsl which is dial up fibre and usen isn`t dial up and is on it`s own backbone.

 

and for the people getting confused about their theoretical linespeeds compared to their actual line speeds, well you are never going to get your full linespeed. You have no idea what the weakest link is between you and you destination, which basically governs your fastest speed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Dumb question, but when you get a service without a regular phone line, how does the IP phone work? Is the connection quality acceptable? Are there service or web outages when it is down or not working right? It works as long as your modem is powered up, right? You don't have to be on the PC to use it, right?

Link to post
Share on other sites

> Is the connection quality acceptable?

No, not where I am. Anything less than perfect on the phone annoys the hell out of everybody.

 

>Are there service or web outages when it is down or not working right?

W-ll y-- and --. What a----ly con--tute- a- ---tage?

Wh-t- wrong wi-- y--r f--king -hone?!

 

> It works as long as your modem is powered up, right?

Yes.

 

> You don't have to be on the PC to use it, right?

No.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Your line speed in most cases is Asynchronous which means your uploading is in ratio to your downloading.

 

Another reason you can never achieve your theoretical line speeds is that routers will always reserve 10-20% bandwidth for reserve or other purposes.

 

As for the speedtest it still governed by the fastest link between you and the test server.pick different servers and you will get different speeds.

I get 948kps and I can get up to 3800kpbs from usenet.

 

As for VoIP you plug the phone into your modem and it has an IP address used for your phone so as long as your modem is on and you can establish a connection with your isp then you should be good to go.As for quality, VoIP is pretty good quality.

Link to post
Share on other sites

there's a campaign for kddi hikari one fibre optic.

 

Go to the side street where Sofmap Mac Connection is in Akihabara and you'll see them set up. If you join up for a 6 month contract you'll get a free gift/s worth ¥20,000 from Sofmap. I'm probably going to do it - I'll be happy to get off NTT and update my iPod at the same time. (you can get your present from Sofmap PC or Sofmap Mac). I think the campaign runs till the end of the month.

Link to post
Share on other sites
 Quote:
Originally posted by fjef:
http://www.speedtest.net/index.php

This one is also cool and selects a server close to you.
This site is also linked from the site that O11 has posted.

I got 10406 Kbps down and 5162 Kbps up from the Yokohama server. I usually test my speed by pinging from home one of the machines I am using in the Lab. If it is less than 1 ms roundtrip, its fast enough.
Link to post
Share on other sites
×
×
  • Create New...