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So we live in a rural location and currently get about 1mb broadband. I was told that I can get Sky fibre because they run a new fibre cable overground over the existing phone poles. I don't know anything about this. Do people who do have some knowledge of these things think this sounds worthwhile? It seems like a good option since BT are never going to dig up the street to put in a cable.
Sky won't do that they just rent space on the existing open reach network
OK. So does that mean it would just be fibre to the cabinet and the copper wire from there which wouldn't be any faster than our existing situation?
Fiber to the cabin is UK standard unless your minted.
If sky can offer fiber so can bt. A postcode check on the bt website will give you rough idea.
Oh and fiber to the cabin even if your miles away should give you better than 1mg
The last mile
Both BT and Virgin Media use fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology to deliver the majority of their superfast broadband services.
This means that fibre optic cables, which carry more data at faster speeds, are run from the BT exchange or the Virgin Media hub to the green telephone cabinet on your street.
But from there, the two providers each use a very different type of connection that can make a real difference to the speeds you receive.
Known as the "last mile", the connection between the cabinet on your road and your home could be made up of a number of different wires, some of which give you far better speeds than others.
Virgin Media's very fast, reliable cable connections are possible because of the cables that it uses to connect your home to the cabinet.
These electrical cables, known as coaxial cables, do not lose broadband speed over distance, maintaining your broadband speed through the length of your connection. This allows customers to receive at least 90% of their advertised speed, says Virgin Media.
This means that even customers on the provider's cheapest 10Mb package "typically receive 9.68Mb".
On the other hand, BT uses traditional copper wires for the last mile on its FTTC connections. This means that you might still lose some of your connection speed if your street cabinet is too far from your home.
BT says that it expects customers on its 40Mb package to receive an average of around 30Mb and a "guaranteed minimum" of 15Mb.
Fibre-to-the-home
Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology runs fast fibre optic broadband cables direct to your home, bypassing the streetside cabinet completely. For BT, this means much faster connections than are currently available through its Infinity network.
BT expects to make up around 25% of its fibre network with fibre-to-the-home connections, offering speeds of up to 100Mb from spring 2011.
Virgin Media is trialling FTTH in some areas that are not currently cabled, such as Woolhampton, Berkshire, using electricity poles to bring its superfast broadband to new areas.
However, the provider says that its current network of fibre optic cables coupled with coaxial connections is capable of handling future speeds of up to 400Mb.
Where did that cut and paste come from 2011 ,)
Alexx, we are about 3-4 miles from the cabinet. Just checked BT site which says we should get 1mb. Further investigation required I think.
Are you sure fiber is in your area. 1meg is not fiber I'm not sure you could class that a broadband tbh.
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13922/~/bt-infinity-has-reached-my-area,-but-the-availability-checker-says-i-can%E2%80%99t-get
alexxx, unless I'm very much mistaken, this delivery mode from Virgin isn't used anywhere- they've never delivered it.
I think what VM did was conflate FTTC with FTTH in this blurb, to big themselves up. I've never seen VM offer FTTH anywhere.
I think they did for a selection of business users in that london. Not sure if that are still offering it for business
Did they, pk13? Typical of them to make it sound like its available everywhere.
It's in my distant and blurred mind That may or may not have happened. 😆
Bt wanted to get most small and medium offices on fiber to property by 2014 but that went belly up.
What is surprisingly is that broadband works at all its running on antique systems installed before the www was invented.
BT(Fttp)fibre to prem can be offered up to 300mb at the moment,and not at full capacity.Fitted a few both ug(underground) and overhead.Some in very remote areas
There is a product called Fibre on Demand available to CP's using Openreach's network, it offers 300mb. It can be delivered over poles or UG. It is a premium product and I've only provided one line, you have to pay part of the installation cost which is capped at £3000 from memory (A CP may charge more). If you have a fibre network in the vicinity but you are outside the served area it could be fairly affordable. I think the line rental is the standard Infinity pricing.
However, £3000 sounds a bit of a bargain for the one we did, I installed roughly 2500 metres of blown fibre which took 36 man hours, and when I left they were surveying the remainder of the route for new poles and overhead fibre which was going to involve a road closure with a huge 20 mile diversion. If it was a regular business fibre line the costs would tens of thousands!
(If you just ring up and ask if you can get fibre, its very unlikely you will be offered this option, although for the OP, it might be what Sky are offering via Openreach)
Only thing to watch is that Sky aren't keen on you using a 3rd party router on their fibre service, and the one they provide you with is garbage (802.11g; non-GB ethernet; unstable and needs regular resetting). There are ways round this, but they involve packet sniffers and breaching the T&Cs.
Not that I would know, if Mr Murdoch is reading this.
Your area will be enabled within the next six months and we'll provide more details nearer the time. At the moment you can't order Superfast Fibre.
Meh its been years the roll out to more rural locations has been very poor.
just moved from Sky "broadband" to BT Infinity Fibre - rural location, was around 4Mb off-peak, now on 14/15Mb
not sure what all that complicated nonsense above is,
just pop your postcode in hear and it will give you a good estimate/cost
There are ways round this, but they involve packet sniffers and breaching the T&Cs
Unless the new routers are different, you used to be able to key in your router serial into a website and generate the username / password for the connection. From there you can use whatever router you like (T&Cs aside).
Not yet! Sorry, you can’t get BT Infinity right now
same old and were not the rural!
Unless the new routers are different, you used to be able to key in your router serial into a website and generate the username / password for the connection. From there you can use whatever router you like (T&Cs aside).
Think it's a bit less straightforward than that, and not all routers will work. There's some Asus one that apparently does, and if I were to breach the T's & C's I might be able to tell you that setting up a Draytek 2760n is dead easy, but of course I wouldn't do that.
Speaking of routers... BT have finally seen fit to run fibre to the green box 50 yards from my house, so i have a man coming to change me over in a couple of weeks.
The trouble is, the router I have been given is, well, scheisse. It's the most basic piece of junk I have ever seen and feels like a kid's toy (it's not, I checked it).
What would people recommend as a decent modem/router for FTTC that allows DHCP leases, static IPs, firewall control, port forwarding, etc?
If you're switching to a fibre package then BT should be providing a router.
Never had an issue with the sky router btw, only needed reset a few times in a couple of years.
Understood, but the router that Plusnet has supplied is basic. Very basic. I work from home and have a lot of other machines around the house, so I need some of the more advanced features that it just does not provide.