What is a good speed/price for an Internet connection?

My current 2-year contract with my Internet provider is running out and I want to get a better idea of price/speed ratios.

Here are two deals I got from T-Online in Germany:

Call-n-Surf Comfort Flat Rate Internet and phone 3 Mbit/s 33 Euros ($45) / month

Call-n-Surf VSDL Flat Rate Internet and phone 25 Mbit/s 48 Euros ($67) / month

I read that someone has VDSL and "high is 768/128kbit", I assume is upstream/downstream. This means that he is getting 32x less speed than advertised.
And wikipedia says that VDSL in Germany is "25:5 Mbit/s or 50:10 Mbit/s downstream/upstream", what do these two speeds and the colons mean? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-bitrate_digital_subscriber_line

What is a good price / good speed for Internet connection today in general and how can one tell beforehand if the speed will actually be the speed they advertise?

Edward Tanguay

Posted 2010-10-18T15:22:54.860

Reputation: 11 955

225:5 means 25Mbps on download, 5Mbps on upload. 50:10 means 50Mbps on download, 10Mbps on upload. – Sathyajith Bhat – 2010-10-18T15:33:11.527

6Prices and speeds will vary strictly on location. This will be different for every person and is a tough question to answer directly. Lets focus this question on the advertised vs actual speed part and explaining the connection speed terminology. – Troggy – 2010-10-18T15:34:05.677

1Most providers offer a check for availability of different speeds by entering the address. I will shortly switch to alice who claim that at my address "more than 25 Mbit/s" will probably be available. I hope that they are right ... The big problem is that any provider will always give you "up to" the promised bandwidths. – Martin – 2010-10-18T15:48:39.243

2This question would be better if you only asked about the technical issues of DSL and not the pricing. – James Mertz – 2010-10-18T16:27:33.817

Current form is all about shopping for an ISP, re-word it better if that's not the case – random – 2010-10-18T23:21:29.767

Answers

what do these two speeds and the colons mean?

To the left of the colon I would understand that to be the downstream and to the right would be the upstream.

I am in Canada and I have found that the more money you pay the higher the download/upload. I have also found that when you go with major Internet providers the more restrictions you will face.

What is a good price / good speed for Internet connection today in general and how can one tell beforehand if the speed will actually be the speed they advertise?

I would contact a few friends and if they have similar accounts with T-Online, run some tests using http://www.speedtest.net/ or some other online speed testers to see if you will actually get what you are paying for.

Also have a look here for some comparisons: http://dsl-germany.com/de/main.php

ricbax

Posted 2010-10-18T15:22:54.860

Reputation: 4 894

I assumed that broadband connections would be good in Germany.

I get very close to the maximum 40mbit down and 10mbit up on BT Infinity VDSL. It costs £27.00* with phone (free calls to UK landlines at anytime).

You should be able to find consumer websites from Germany that will about the quality of service available at the different providers in your area.

* $44.50 USD

paradroid

Posted 2010-10-18T15:22:54.860

Reputation: 20 970