Smart broadband... first day verdict

My brand new Thompson Speedtouch 585 v7 ADSL2+ Wireless router arrived yesterday - had it hooked up and set up on the UTV Clicksilver connection in about a minute... maybe two.
That sounds like an exaggeration, but it's actually pre-configured for Irish ADSL networks (preset to PPPoE, VPI.VCI 8.35), so it's really just a case of putting in your broadband account username and password and you're ready to go. The basic menus are there, but for advanced stuff you have to use the Command Line Interface, which is just Thompson's way of protecting overconfident fools from themselves (while annoying the rest of us ;-). There's very little missing, although I much prefer the comprehensive feature set and take-no-prisoners interface of my BT Voyager 2110 - if only I could get into the web interface after that bad flash...
That said, the Thompson is solid, very pretty to look at and pretty stable. I got faster speeds out of it on my UTV connection than I could from the BT (by 5-10%). I clocked a DL speed of 4521kbps yesterday (407kbps UL) on the local Westnet server.

When I got home this evening I realised (after a period of wondering what the feck was wrong with my connection) that I'd been "seamlessly" been switched over to Smart.
After entering my Smart username and password where the old UTV one had been in the router's Internet services menu I did a quick speed test (Westnet server):
DL: 5871kbps
UL:403kbps
A few more tests seem to clock me around the 6Mbps mark - which, based on the line attenuation is probably as good as I can expect, given how far I am from the exchange...
One of the things that has really improved is the ping - from ~150ms to ~100ms. I'll take that as a consolation, even though I seem to have lower upload speeds :(

Time will tell if this is as solid a service as UTV gave me over the last two and a half years (it was terrible for about a two week period over the last 6 months, before that it was perfect). I'll let you know if the speeds vary a lot.

In the meantime, have a look in the advanced menus of your router for the line attenuation (on download) and check it out using kitz's speed calc. This will give you an idea of what service you should go for - 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 or whatever. You'll get an estimate of how far you are from your local exchange, but remember that Smart's servers might well be elsewhere, so they might not prove to be a great option. Wiser people than me have tried the basic 4Mbps service first and then upgraded once they saw how they were going. If I'd done this I'd probably be choosing a 6Mbps connection now, saving myself €5 per month.

Ah well... sod it - I've got it now. I'm hoping I won't be regretting it.