Aren’t Virgin in the process of trialling 10Mbits/sec upload speeds at the moment? So, upload speeds could get better in the future for us cable customers. As for BT’s claims that they’ll be able to squeeze 15Mbits/sec out of FTTC – I’ll believe it when they put it into practice.

At last! Someone has got this issue into the media! I’ve been jumping up and down about this for years! I manage web sites and servers for clients all around the globe, and uploading applications and updates has been the bane of my life for over 10 years. I’ve asked ISPs to increase the upload rates innumerable times, and offered to pay more even, but none of them (BT, Virgin, and several minor resellers) have ever responded positively. Please keep pushing the issue. Thanks.

What’s the problem? It’s no good saying “something must be done – it’s terrible!”

The reason the up<down is in the name of the service – ASYMMETRIC digital subscriber line (ADSL). It’s a technical and economic bodge. The Wikipedia article gives a pretty good run-through of it all. If you want faster uploads, then you’ll have to pay for it in one way or another.
It’s somewhat annoying when continual references are made by conurbanites comparing the virtues of BT with Virgin etc. For large chunks of the population like me, this is a dream world. The Virgin pipe stopped at Weston Super Mare when it’s fore-runners NTL/Blueyonder ran out of cash. That was nearly a decade ago and despite the recent consumer boom no-one has had the cash and wherewithal to push on with any sort of high-speed rollout.
The reason for that is probably the continual pressure on lowering costs which has made a ’service’ most suitable for the lowest common denominator at the expense of the bigger picture. The same thing is happening now with the ordinary postal service which at it’s inception was a brilliant concept.

To expand on what I said, it all has to be paid for in one way or another and ADSL is just a technical and economic bodge plastering over the cracks of an under-financed infrastructure..

There are many versions of ADSL available to consumers, especially since the advent of ADSL2. If you have a requirement for higher upload bandwidth then ADSL2+M is a natural choice. This variety “pinches” some of the download bandwidth in order to create a more symetric service. Costs are no different to a standard ADSL line and in some cases, cheaper.

I don’t see why chucks of bandwidth can’t be reassigned from download to upload to meet the demands placed on the connection at any instant. I remember reading about this somewhere (possibly PC Pro), but it seems to never have caught on. I thought it was called VDSL but very hight data rate DSL seems to have taken over that abbreviation.

Automatic reassignment may try too much to second guess the users requirements but I would have thought that manually flicking the upward:downward ratio to 1:1 for say video conferencing or to 9:1 for online back-up should be feasible. Another idea as an alternative to expensive SDSL for SOHOs and SMEs I remember reading about was to obtain two ADSL lines, one configured upload:download at 1:9 and the other at 9:1. I’d have thought most business would have two phone lines, one for voice and the other for fax.

If anyone more technically savvy than me would like to jump in here, please do. I realise some of my points may have been mis-informed.

PS to SKGiven, Adblock Plus works a treat in firefox for blocking bandwidth choking ads. Can block flash content too, as can FlashBlock and Flash Killer.