Cyprus Broadband Forum

how do i find out how close or far i am from the nearest adsl exchange?

The first thing you need to do is stop thinking like you're in the UK. It's pretty likely that Paliometocho is covered by Cyta's ADSL service so your first stop is going to be Cyta's Customer Service Centre (I'm guessing in Nicosia for you) - Despite all the Cyta bashing and whingeing we hear, Cyta is actually not that bad.

Cyta's website used to have a part where you could put in a phone number and find out if there was ADSL available where you are, that is no longer there so I'm guessing most of the main exchanges are now covered.

Yeah. You have to realize that you are living in one of the least technologically advanced countries in Europe. Not only is your internet connection slow and expensive, but so is everything else that relates to technology. With such little population, temperatures reaching 45 C and no will or way to develop anything useful, depending mostly on tourism to keep the country's economy going, Cyprus is a doomed country where only patriots, mad people and some others can stand to live in. If you want to surf the net freely and have a choice of what to buy, how much you pay and how you get it, move to a different country in Europe where you are respected and your opinion can be heard and might actually matter and make a difference.
Cheers.                   

The grass is always greener in the other mans garden. To be quite honest, this view that other countries somehow represents somebody's vision of utopia in no way reflects the reality of the situation.

Your post is full of bullshit!

I'm amazed how many Brit's (I'm a Brit too, so don't shoot the messenger) come to Cyprus and whinge. Lets face it, it's their national pastime.

Connectivity in the UK might be viewed as "cheap" yet you get what you pay for and over there it's "up to" speeds. At least in Cyprus I have always gotten the speed I have paid for, more often than not pretty damn close to dedicated.

Sure, there have been occasions where there have been issues, though they are usually fixed (I'm speaking Cyta here and not Cablenet) in a timely manner.

Most of the complaints I see are one of 4 types:

1) Why is my ping time to x not 0ms - this is for the most part due to the limitations of the network and to be honest, it's pretty damn good when we consider the realities of what we are doing - Online gaming with someone half the planet away - not so long ago that would have been impossible.

2) Why is my download slow - this is likely down to the server you are downloading from and the network conditions between you and that particular server. If a gazillion other people are trying to download the same file or use the same server then it's quite possible that the bandwidth available is being shared between all users of that server.

3) Why can't I get full speed on my p2p download - believe it or not, the problems tend to be either with the tracker (demonoid goes down quite often, so do other trackers) - with the seeders (people actually limit how much of their upload bandwidth is being used so as to not saturate their connection and still be able to use it) or with the speed just generally being slow (how much of your upload bandwidth is being used? If it's all being used you likely won't be able to use your connection for even web browsing at the same time)

4) Why is (insert name)Ville messing around again? This is down to the sheer popularity of the Facebook games with millions of users playing them at any one time - they do a pretty good job most of the time, it's just that at certain times of the day even their servers get hammered to the point that they can't cope.

In many cases there are valid reasons why things don't work as we seem to think they should and most of them are not down to the ISP's. My partner was almost at the point of throwing her laptop out of the window back in the UK as she perceived it as being the cause of the problems she was having with connectivity. Increasing her RAM sped up her computing experience somewhat and a gradual understanding of how the internet worked allowed her to comprehend why things happened. She laughs now at her UK based friends who whinge about their internet connections on a near daily basis. She even says that our 4Mbit connection with Cyta is better than an 8Mbit connection in the UK and is looking forward to the upgrade to 8Mbit in the very near future.

thanks for your replies!

I think uk because i went once for holiday and saw their internet lol...

i have been a cytanet customer for maybe 6 years now from 512kbit and now on 4mbit. the reason i wanted to know the distance is to see if i would even receive full 8mbit when the upgrades where to happen. cytanet told me i am 2.55 away and there is an exchange in kojinotrimithia... and yes it is in lefkosia :)

do you thing 2.55km is close enough to see 8mbit?
 
yes i know even ps3 games are 70 euros and technology we get things 500 years later and more then double the price...

you dont have to tell me about the weather i was born and raised here and i am still not used to it lol every year i hate the summer..

I have no british blood in me.. actually when i went to england for holiday they called me bloody foreigner :( i worked in a tesco for a while and one of my customers called me that lol

but back on topic... thats why i wanted to know. and i am in a non cable area. my friend further in the village is un able to even get more then 256kbits lol but hes maybe 10 minutes with car really far into the fields..

the prices we charge you english can get 50mbits lol. but i read on cable forums on the internet even the english are complaining they have to pay 38 pounds a month for 50mbit!!!!!! i would be very happy to get such a good deal. but i think they put caps on the 50mbit now

I've been living in the UK for the past 10 years. I payed 14 pounds for my 20 Mbit connection from BT. Most of the time my torrents would reach a 2.1 MB per second, Skype video calls between other high speed users was great, online gaming with no glitches and I also had other WiFi devices connected at the same time. Plus I had evening and weekend calls. I also never had any loss of service. We my Cyta 2 Mbit connection in Cyprus not only is it not fast enough to handle all that, service drops like 3 times a week for a few minutes or an hour and the price I pay for this c*** is not what I should be getting. I think the government over here just doesn't care about technology and doesn't view it at a priority, since most don't even now how to use it...     

Distance should be ok BUT better to double check it.
- Either you call CYTA support and they should see at what bitrates your modem locks.
OR
- Connect yourself on the CYTA modem and read the max speed .
(Passwords are very well known ..it is somewhere on the internet.)

There are software tools that can continuously read the modem parameters and show how good the line is. I posted here once some links from a forum in Greece.

euxairstw re :)

i still have the blue thing from cytanet lol. maybe i should call them so they can send me a hub

Indeed the prices are higher than the UK but this is the only thing i agree with of what you said so far. The population numbers of Cyprus do not allow fierce competition which will lead the prices down and the speeds up.
Despite this this there was a major improvement within the last 12 months or so. Let me just remind you that a year ago the highest package speed wise you could get was 4 mbits. Now 20 mbits are available and most ISPs offer 8mbit packages.

how much is the 8mbits? 90 euros i read lol

I think we can safely say that you get what you pay for. At least I know that I will actually get 8Mbit from Cyta when they start to offer it. The UK on the other hand is another story with speeds rarely reaching the "upto" advertised:

http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/news/ofcom-speed-test-results-reveal-real-speeds-not-quite

in uk if you download things in a regular basis they will also report you to authorities and cut the internet especially if you down music and movies..as for speeds the same is for greece they offer up to 24mbit package but they mostly get around 12-15mbit

no thats for adsl customers who are far from the exchange, even adsl in the uk offer 40mbit with a 10mbit upload and cable has a 50mbit connection, check virgin media. oh yes and they are rolling out 100mbit.. i have used the 50mbit connections in england and they get full 50mbit..

nai o filos mou ekatevase tenia kai esteilan tou gramma na paei dikastirio lol

in cyprus they dont care what you download. maybe it will become the same. they have caps and download limits of the cable. if i download more then X amount during certain hours they drop your speed. and the 50mbit if you use new groups or p2p they cap you, but eftixos i dont use either :D..

cable you dont have to be close to the exchange but every one shares a connection so the more who use it the worse for you.

adsl you have to have a good quality phone line and be next door to the exchange to see any where near even 24mbit let alone the 40 they now offer from bt and soon to offer 100mbit.. but they are also rolling out fibre and their cable already has it.

so even greece is far behind the uk.. for 35 or so pounds i can get 40 mbit down and 10mbit up from bt. and their infinity lines will be amazing.

here we pay 69 euros a month for 10.. soon to be 20.

but your correct with cytanet its always been good. though i dont think i will see any more then 8mbit. i will be surprised even if i receive all 8mbit, cytanet say i am about 2.55km away from my exchange in kokkinotrimithia :/