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Karoo Broadband 1000 Unlimited is one of KC's mid range ADSL services, and is advertised as being "20x faster" than dial-up. This review aims to find out how the service performs, and hence whether this will suit your Internet usage. Overview
As with all Karoo Broadband services, if you sign up for this service, either as a new customer or migrating from a dialup service, you will receive a free ADSL modem with a USB interface, microfilters and free line activation. Note: This service was previously know as Karoo Broadband 750.
* Free technical support is only available to users of KC's Talk packages. 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 120KB/sec, you would have downloaded a total of 432MB. Note: On average, a single MP3 is about 6MB in size, which equates to 72 MP3s 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 above performance tests were conducted using a Netgear DG834GT router, with an MTU value of 1500 and RWIN set to 24820 on the computer used. Latency The following is an overview of some timings that might be of interest:
Conclusion The last time the KUG reviewed a 1Mbps service from KC, over a year ago, we were impressed by the speed of the service. Today, the download speeds of a 1Mbps service have been overshadowed somewhat by the faster 2 and 3Mbps services, however the 1Mbps service now costs £10 per month less than it did last time round, so does this make amends? That's hard to say. Although KC have managed to match the price of this service to the equivalent 1Mbps service from AOL, 1Mbps services today are becoming quite rare. 2Mbps has been set as the 'entry level' by BT meaning many other ISPs offer quicker speeds for less, but usually with a usage allowance. As a result, KC have also introduced a, much cheaper, 1Mbps service with a 2GB per month usage allowance which we have also reviewed. Karoo Broadband 1000 Unlimited however has no usage allowance. For users that were on the old Karoo Broadband 750 service, 2GB of data per month is probably not going to be enough for you, hence downgrading for financial gain not an option. More likely to happen is current Karoo Broadband 750 users and users looking for a speed increase will probably bypass this service in favour of Karoo Broadband 2000 Unlimited. As above, the KUG reviewed a 1Mbps service from KC last year, and this new 1Mbps service, performs almost the same. Download speeds are still around the 120KB/sec mark, upload speeds are a steady 30KB/sec and latency to the first hop is around 16ms. Karoo have of course introduced anti-spam and anti-virus systems to their email service since the last review however, adding value for money, and service reach has been increased to 5km, meaning more of you can experience high speed broadband! In closing, this service does indeed fill KC's product middle ground quite nicely, however it also poses a larger question than before as to 'which service is right for me', trading off speed and a usage allowance. To get real value for money from this service you should be downloading between 2GB and 15GB per month and like a bit of extra speed - otherwise Karoo Broadband 500 Unlimited is probably a better option. If you download more than 15GB per month, Karoo Broadband 2000 Unlimited is the way to go! Pro's
Con's
Additional Notes Since the KUG reviewed Karoo Broadband 1000 Unlimited, KC have tweaked the service slightly, so downstream speeds of around 125KB/sec are now possible. The KUG would like to thank KC for allowing us to trial the Karoo Broadband 1000 service for the purposes of this review. |
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