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Slingbox broadband upload speeds

Our Broadband Expert says...

Dear Howard, using a Slingbox - a device that connects to your digital TV or Digital Video Recorder (DVR), allowing you to watch your TV no matter where you are in the world - is a great way to keep up to date with your favourite programmes. Anything that you can do with your remote - such as changing channels or accessing your DVR - you can do with your Slingbox control.

However, as you have found out, because the Slingbox streams content to your laptop or mobile phone, it needs a good upload speed.

Superfast upload speeds

Sky Broadband (www.Sky.com) currently offers upload speeds of up to 400Kb on its Base Broadband, 600Kb on its Everyday package and 1.3Mb on its Unlimited Broadband. If you don’t live in Sky’s local loop unbundled (LLU) broadband area and are on of its Connect customers, then you will have a maximum of 448Kb.

Although you don’t live in a Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) cable area, there are copper wire ADSL broadband providers that offer upload speeds of up to 2.5Mb - currently the fastest available on consumer ADSL lines.

Both Be Broadband (www.BeThere.co.uk) and O2 Broadband (www.O2.co.uk) offer upload speeds of up to 2.5Mb on their top packages, with Be offering up to 24Mb downloads and O2 offering up to 20Mb too.

However, you should bear in mind, that like your download speed, the “up to” before your advertised upload speed is also a rarely achieved maximum that is affected by factors such as distance from the exchange.

Business broadband packages

Choosing a business broadband package could also improve your upload speed. Many businesses need fast, reliable upload speeds to send data to their server, for example, and business broadband ISPs recognise this.

While you might not get a higher advertised upload speed than that offered by Be or O2, traffic on some business broadband packages will be prioritised, so even a slower maximum upload speed might deliver a faster actual result - and a better quality stream from your Slingbox.

Eclipse Broadband (www.Eclipse.net.uk) offers business broadband packages, with unlimited broadband uploads at speeds of up to 1Mb, from £17.95 a month. As one of its business broadband customers, you will also be able to prioritise the traffic over your connection.

BT iPlate

According to BT Broadband (www.BT.com), its Broadband Accelerator - or iPlate as it’s also known - can boost some users download speed by up to 4Mb, with an average improvement of 1.5Mb for those that can benefit from the gadget.

It works to remove the “bell wire” that used to make old telephones ring, and so reduces interference on your ADSL broadband line, and this can also improve your upload speed. While not all users would benefit from fitting an iPlate, BT is currently giving them away free to those customers that could potentially see an improvement.

You can visit BT’s Broadband Accelerator page to see if you can get one for £1.20 postage, or alternatively you can buy one online for less than £10.

NB Best buy tables (orange background) are always current.

Examples in the text of the article (white background) are correct at time of publication.

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If you have a general switching or provider query please email us at OurExpert@broadbandchoices.co.uk

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