KC have kindly allowed the KUG to 'preview and review' their new Karoo RapidTime Stream500 service today (30th of March, 2004).

Note: The new Karoo RapidTime Stream500 service will shortly be replacing the old Karoo RapidTime Standard/Pro services.

The following review will hopefully give you a good idea as to what to expect from the new Karoo RapidTime Stream500 service:

Overview

Details

Downloading

A number of sites have been tested for download speed. The following results have been seen:

If you were to download for an hour at 65kb/sec, you would have downloaded a total of 234MB.

Note: The old Karoo RapidTime services download at around 50kb/sec (180MB per hour).

Uploading

A number of sites have been tested for upload speed. The following results have been seen:

If you were to upload for an hour at 30kb/sec, you would have uploaded a total of 108MB.

Note: The old Karoo RapidTime services download at around 30kb/sec (108MB per hour).

Latency

A few trace-routes were performed on two different types of Karoo RapidTime Standard/Pro services, as well as on the new Karoo RapidTime Stream500 service. The results of these trace-routes can be viewed by clicking the relevant links below:

• Karoo RapidTime Standard/Pro - Fast Mode
• Karoo RapidTime Standard/Pro - Interleave Mode
• Karoo RapidTime Stream500

The following is an overview of some other timings that might be of interest:

Conclusion

After trialling the 1mbit and 250kbit services previously, the new 500kbit service was probably our personal favourite of the services that we tested, as squeezing a further 15-17kb/sec out of this service provided a small, yet satisfying "whoa" effect, with the added pleasure of knowing the extra speed was for free!

At around 65-67kb/sec downstream, and 30-32kb/sec upstream, the transfer speeds are noticeably faster than the old Karoo RapidTime services, whilst remaining consistent across all of the tests we performed. The transfer speeds achieved on this new 500kbit service will put KC amongst the top, if not at the top, of the ADSL Internet providers in the UK! This is definitely something that KC can be proud of!

The latency is pretty much the same as the old Karoo RapidTime services, so for the gamers out there, it is unlikely to make the difference between life and death in your online games, hence you have nothing to lose by upgrading to this new 500kbit service! In fact, you have everything to gain, i.e. slightly better download and upload speeds, and something (innocent) to blame should you be gunned-down first in your favourite online game!

So, for those of you on the old Karoo RapidTime services, then the decision to change to at least the equivalent, but new, 500kbit service couldn't be any easier! Being slightly faster and still the exact same price, it simply speaking makes the service the infamous free-lunch that everyone says does not exist!

Pro's

• Slightly faster than the old Karoo RapidTime services, yet the exact same price!
• Low latency for online gamers.

Con's

• The Karoo news service can not utilise the Internet service to its full potential.
• The Karoo mail service will still perform like sticky goo.

Additional Notes

Any users who sign-up to the equivalent of an old Karoo RapidTime service, after the 1st of April, 2004, should automatically be using the new 500kbit service. Any users who signed-up prior to that date will remain on the old Karoo RapidTime services.

In other words, KC's initial intentions were to rely on the users subscribed to the old Karoo RapidTime services to Contact KC in order to request a change-over. However, the KUG have suggested that KC should really do these changes automatically.

In the mean time, whilst KC investigate the feasibility of the suggestion, the KUG are taking requests for change-overs to the new 500kbit service. The KUG will be taking requests up until the 4th of April, 2004. (no requests will be taken after that date)

The KUG are unsure when the change-overs will take place, but it is anticipated that they should be completed by the 9th of April, 2004. An easy way to see whether you have been changed-over is to check whether your connection speed matches those above.

Update

KC have decided to automatically upgrade all users of the old Karoo RapidTime services, to the new (equivalent) 500kbit service!

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