Maybe i'm bored s***less, or maybe i had to get away from CS because Strex was giving me a hiding. Either way i decided to do this roundup of O@H & BPA as I have both connections in my home, it may help people decide which of the two to get.

Now I'll start by stating that both of the companies are as unorganized as f***! When i first got telstra they ran out of cable modems and i had to wait 2 months before recieving one, And after getting my modem the next day there was an outtage for half of the day! Where when we had O@H installed , they lost all of our paperwork twice, and when the technician came to install it, he was 80 years old and i reckon had never used a comp in his life so i ended up installing it mainly myself!

Obviously before even talking about the quality of the connection of the two companies the instant thing that people are drawn to O@H is because of the non Downland cap. Where BPA is capped at around 60k/sec. Both Connections are capped at roughly 18k/sec Upwards.

Now obviosuly the connection rates will be slighty different for everyone as the routers are different, and all the routes/routing points are different.

Gaming Ping Times: In CS (aus Servers only) i have noticed that the ping times are nearly identical, with BPA usually notching out O@H by only a few MS on most servers. Even on O@H servers i have seen the BPA score better pings although never by much. (Yes I own 2 copies of HL to be able to test them at the same time on the same server)

Downloading from AUS: Obviously this is where you are going to feel the difference. From Ausgamers i have seen O@H recieve nearly 450k/sec down. BPA on the other hand only 58k/sec due to the cap. Even when my BPA account was uncapped i only ever saw 350k/sec from Ausgamers Http & Ftp. Although 1337 WAREZ h4x0r3z beware, where do you ever see warez on AU servers? And if you do it's probably cable so you'll only see 18k/sec download anyways.

Downloading from US/other: So far in my adventures searching for warez to download (usually US Ftp's) at fast speeds O@H seems to have the upperhand. Seems as though O@H have a better linespeed to the US than BPA, Maybe this is because O@H use @Home lines (@home being the largest cable provider in the US). When i say the 'upperhand' i mean its better than BPA but not by much, rarely have i seen either connection on the same ftp reach speeds up to BPA's 60k/sec cap.
E.G. Yesturday I was Downloading SACRIFICE ISO:
O@H: 35k/sec average
BPA: 22k/sec average
So in total the cap on BPA means s*** all when downloading from US sites as neither connection rarely even sees 60k/sec. Although O@H normally performs better by a few K/sec.

Browsing: Browsing websites using IE5 is much of a muchness between the two connections, It's all the same really so no big winner here.

Stability: Both of the companies have their stability flaws, with O@H there seems to be an on going proxy collision and with BPA there is always some s*** going wrong with them server side. I Haven't Had O@H for as long as BPA so we'll soon see I suppose.

Well I hope maybe someone got some helpful information out of this. All tests were on similar machines:
pIII 700 & 733 - 256MB 133 SDRAM - ASUS CUSL2 M/B

Remember that this is for my area which is Browns Plains, Different areas may see different results due to routing points, but not that significant.

Even though the US link is slow, you can still open multiple download threads or multiple files at once and instead of that weeny 33k/sec you will get much more. Its quite common to tag all the files of some program and get download mage/getright to suck them down at 300k/sec or more - each file will be at 33k/sec or so but the file are done in parallel.

Also, you don't need two copies of HL to play twice on the one server. Theoretically you can have three copies of HL existing on the one number, but 2 is easiest with the auth. server swap thing.

there are 3 auth servers, and we had 5 of the same copy online once (thats an effort:)

routing points dont matter, its only gonna be very short ms to it wherever you are, just depends on how many people are using the same line as you.

keep in mind the fact that you can download almost twice as much in one day on BPA without breaching AUP and I think it wins.

i think they are both gay cause i dont have cable in my street :P


f***ing cable whore

How much can u download a day on BPA per week without breaching the AUP?

It's about 6GB on optus@home I find.

Oh and if I want to watch an mpg movie I can stream it straight off the site instead of having to download it first. That's something u cant do with BPA's cap.

not quite almost but not quite

6GB a week on optus without breaching, not from what I saw at metals.

You can download just under 1GB a day on bpa and not hear a peep.

then you get 2 warnings before you actually get the boot.

i only like optus when someone i know has a grace period

grace period?

i didnt read any of your post. but i read the title.

all u have to type is this :

BPA SUCKS ASS.

review over.

yeah, no netstats

That was a very good post Cezar. Not only was it informative, well structured and written, but I got a mention!

Anyhoo, I am on BPA and it does me fine. I am just the average dude who plays games and downloads a few mp3s and I have never had any probs with the DL cap etc.

Yes, pings do get up to 100ms+ during peaktime, but I prefer not to play during that time anyways cos that's when all the kids and general f***wits are online. I rather go on early or late and have a nice ping of around 19 :)

Awwwww You Make Me *Blush* Strex :P
Ta D00d!

yeh, props cezar.

yeah, thanks mate should be gettin cable with optus soon so that makes me feel better :)

ooh married with children.. w00t

anyone want to go and bash or run over some telstra employees?

i figure if i do that enough they will put more lines in my street so i can get ADSL

capping sucks cock, but optus should own with their new 160gig/sec pipe out of hawaii, especially with mulitple ftp's open.

Cezar, quite a nice write up.

Though unfortunately my results for BPA differ quite a bit :(

Reply from 144.132.144.1: bytes=32 time=213ms TTL=63
Reply from 144.132.144.1: bytes=32 time=165ms TTL=63
Reply from 144.132.144.1: bytes=32 time=82ms TTL=63
Reply from 144.132.144.1: bytes=32 time=230ms TTL=63

Pinging my default gateway.

On a good day.

Downloading is ok from Australia, though internationally Im lucky to get 50k (with multiple downloads at once). Usually about 30 or less.

Oh, and I don't know about O@H's tech support, but if I hear 'its not our problem' from BPA tech support again...I'll do something really nasty to them...(ok, I'll probably just whinge on some forums again...)

pinging my default gateway:

C:\>ping 192.168.1.220

Pinging 192.168.1.220 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.220: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.220: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.220: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.220: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.220:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

W0w Nice to see so many nice non-flaming replies!

well, our modem broke and got replaced with docsis.

now at 9pm when we used to have 150ping we have 10.

gg telstra, way to assf*** 3/4 of your commited customer base and reward the 1/4 of new signups.

but I'm not complaining, now NOONE ELSE IS ALLOWED TO GET TELSTRA CAUSE I WANT TO KEEP THIS ROUTER UNCONGESTED, OR I WILL CUT YOU!

hmmm Acid share your wisdom,

did your modem die of old age.... or did it have an "accident" ?

NutzraM, you dont want docsis, it sucks total ass, isnt that right acid :(

Maybe its the area you live in...
I live at chermside and downloading from the US idles at about 350kbps, at one point it went up to 980kbps..
The 980kbps was a 'spike' and only lasted for about 6 secounds...
I have optus@home..
Oh, some peaple have been over to my house and said i have a different cable modem from thiers, i might have the "upgraded" one??
It's a SURFboard SB3100 cable modem.
One thing i have noticed is peaple are using the USB ethernet adaptor for cable...
Throw it away and get a 10/100 PCI ethernet adaptor, as the USB side is slow for transfering data..

hehe res,

i just want to share the pain of you guy's, being forced to use the evil docsis network :)

W00t we may get flames at this r8 :P

f*** yas i'll do it

hmmmmmmmmm
u guys are lucky to even be able 2 get cable my drive way is 100m+ which costs $10000 for telstra 2 dig it up + lay cable
which is very ghey
so adsl for me which comes in 6 days