Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 58 total)
  • Fibre optic broadband – facts, fiction & realistic expectations…
  • rkk01
    Free Member

    Copper wire broadband is giving us about 3.5mbs at the mo 🙁

    I’ve seen the BT vans in the area adding in the fibre optic cabling, and my existing ISP is offereing fibre optic service.

    What are the realities…?

    PlusNet claim 38mbs.

    BT claim 38, 75 or 100 (depending on area…)

    is ADSL2/2+ 24???

    kimbers
    Full Member

    bt are installing mine on friday they told me 40
    ill let you know…………..in about a months time when they finally activate it if its anything like getting our broadband installed!

    sam_underhill
    Full Member

    ADLS2+ is up to 24 if you are next to the exchange it gets slower the further you are away.

    FTTC is Fibre to the Cabinet and your speed will depend on the copper length from your house to the cabinet. BT offer upto 40 or 80 sync speed on FTTC. I assume others will do the same.

    The FTTH (fibre to the Home) is a fibre cable all the way to your house and you should get the full 100, but I think installation costs are through the roof.

    Edit : p.s. I am on 5.5 at the moment and moving to FTTC next week on an estimated 44!

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    br
    Free Member

    We’ve had cable for years, currently I’m paying for (and getting) 10MB. I could have upto 100MB.

    TBH – we can have 2 laptops and an XBox (with XBox live running) on WiFi, plus phones etc – and no problems whatsoever, so I wouldn’t bother paying for any more.

    PeaslakeDave
    Free Member

    we pay for 30mb/s on virgin and receive 32mb/s which soom will be doubled for free to 60. however I would recommend getting virgin 20mb as this will be trebled for free to 60

    woody2000
    Full Member

    Is there anywhere to find out which areas will get Fibre? Details seem a bit thin on the ground 😕

    Drac
    Full Member

    http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=29017

    Edit: Turns out that’s to that good there is somewhere I found a few month back gave you an idea.

    willard
    Full Member

    All redundant in my case… Too far away from a small exchange to ever get upgraded to fibre, or to get a decent speed on ADSL. Currently on about 1.5MBps

    Drac
    Full Member
    bruneep
    Full Member

    woody try this http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search put your number in

    says my exchange is FTTC enabled 30/09/12

    woody2000
    Full Member

    Cheers Drac – this link suggests my local exchange is already enabled, but BT say I can’t have it. Presumably that means they still need to dig up the road or summink.

    Cheers

    thehustler
    Free Member

    well the download speed can be ‘claimed’ to be whatever, but if the ‘source’ code cannot upload at the same speed then it doesn’t matter 1 iota, I wouldn’t worry about the ‘claims’ just undersand that in general your connection should be faster……..

    Drac
    Full Member
    smoggy
    Free Member

    Virgin here, pay for 20 meg and regularly get just over 20 meg through the ethernet. But if i’m using the router i regularly get just under 20 meg……

    choron
    Free Member

    Pretty much all “consumer” services that are advertised as being over fibre are FTTC. Assuming that the cabinet to house distance is the same (it may well not be), Virgin “should” be able to offer higher speeds as they use coax cable, which should offer lower loss.

    Best way to find out is to ask your neighbours what service they have and what speeds they get. Proper fibre to the home is eye-wateringly expensive: hyperoptic might be able to hook you up if you’re willing to pay a fortune for the connection, although their pricing (per month) is very reasonable.

    Things start to get really crazy if you need dedicated bandwidth: I heard recently that a dedicated 100Mb/s connection (in Canada) is $10k per month.

    Jamie
    Free Member

    Edit: Turns out that’s to that good there is somewhere I found a few month back gave you an idea.

    Translation?

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    I still find that pretty much everything I do that requires high download speeds is limited by the other end anyway, sitting way below my lines capable speed of 8 meg even off-peak. Not sure I really see the point.

    Drac
    Full Member

    Translation?

    Dyslexia and Mac Book auto correction are a bad combination. 😳

    woody2000
    Full Member

    I understood it 🙂

    I read it as:

    “Turns out that’s not that good. Here is somewhere I found a few month back, should give you an idea.”

    aphex_2k
    Free Member

    When I was at BT 7 or 8 years ago they were talking about FTTP (fibre to the premises).

    Isn’t FTTC what Telewest/Blueyonder/Virgin have been doing since they launched? And copper from the cab?

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    When I was at BT 7 or 8 years ago they were talking about FTTP (fibre to the premises).

    I knew someone who worked at BT who was talking about FTTP about 16 years ago, then the government of the time IIRC said they had to share their kit with other people (or else they had an infrastructure monopoly) and this dented the business sufficiently that they changed tack and left the old copper in instead. Shame, could have been pretty advanced by now!

    Drac
    Full Member

    That’s how I read it Woody until Jamie highlighted it.

    Yup Fibre optic been spoken about for decades now, I remember reading about it as a kid and was a touch over 8 years ago. There was little point then though but now so many households have internet access it makes sense.

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    There was little point then though but now so many households have internet access it makes sense.

    I think the point was they predicted the increase in traffic expected and were going to roll it out to all households for futureproofing, but a slightly misguided policy stuffed it. It was an active project/plan that got shelved, rather than “ooh we have this stuff, look what we could do in future with it”.

    Drac
    Full Member

    Sadly Coffeking I was referring to aphex as 8 years ago I was far from being a kid then too.

    jeffl
    Full Member

    Ok so I have the FTTC service via Plusnet, which is essentially BT. When it’s good it’s good but sometimes it is slow. For example at 9pm I checked my upload speed on speedtest.net and I was getting around 8Mbps which is rubbish. Check it now 11:30pm and it’s up to 38Mbps.

    I’m guessing that it’s a contention issue at peak time. Prior to this I was with Talk-Talk and got a regluar 4Mbps. So even when this is slow it’s way faster.

    Overall it’s costing me a couple of quid a month extra so I’d say go for it. It’s great downloading Gigs of data quickly. Do note though that as someone has already said you do semetimes find the speed is limited by the server at the other end not being able to push it out to you quick enough.

    ourmaninthenorth
    Full Member

    FTTC is available from lots of ISPs now, and has been for best part of 2 years.

    FTTP still isn’t sorted as a product available to ISPs yet. Later this year is my understanding.

    TBH, FTTP will give 100 meg down (and poss up). But there’s now an 80/20 FTTC product variant available, which is where a lot of the ISP action will be.

    ourmaninthenorth
    Full Member

    I’m guessing that it’s a contention issue at peak time. Prior to this I was with Talk-Talk and got a regluar 4Mbps. So even when this is slow it’s way faster.

    Did TalkTalk offer you a fibre upgrade when you left?

    TooTall
    Free Member

    http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/broadband_speed_in_my_area.aspx#

    That can be useful to see what other companies are giving in your area. We went from normal broadband to BT Infinity – I believe this is how the internet should behave now! Over 10 times quicker than we had, which is worth a couple of ££ per month to us.

    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    then the government of the time IIRC said they had to share their kit with other people (or else they had an infrastructure monopoly) and this dented the business sufficiently that they changed tack and left the old copper in instead. Shame, could have been pretty advanced by now!

    That has happened, and this is why you can get copper broadband with loads of suppliers, and FTTC via several. ISPs can install their own equipment in our exchanges, we even rent duct space to other companies now, although this is not reciprocated by Virgin! FTTP as far as I know has largely been put on the backburner as its so much more efficient to use FTTC, new builds may get FTTP. I essentially install FTTP for businesses (which is the dedicated bandwidth Choron mentioned) and it is slow to install, it takes on average 10-15hrs/ on average for myself and a colleague to install a typical new provide, and we work hard. FTTP would probably be a bit quicker as I would be working in one area intensively before moving on. FTTC is one installation to the cab and suddenly you’ve done several hundred properties.

    Murray
    Full Member

    FTTC is great unless BT Wholesale decide to do all the cabinets in your area except yours. The exchange is marked as “done” and as far as I can see will never be revisited.

    The only way I would be able to get fast broadband is to do a deal with people who live behind me who are connected to the right cabinet.

    rkk01
    Free Member

    Planning to go for FTTC with Plusnet. Price is same as current package, or a few quid more to include free telephone calls.

    Not sure if Plusnet are offering FTTP just yet, even though they are a BT subsidiary.

    Anyone know what the installation costs are for FTTP?

    rkk01
    Free Member

    Also, having praised the Billion BiPac 7800N wireless modem router on here recently, I would be reluctant to accept Plusnet’s offer of a Netgear N150WNR100.

    Anyone used their existing router in preference to a new one supplied for the fibre upgrade???

    Alphabet
    Full Member

    One of my IT guys has Virgin at home and gets 48M.

    ourmaninthenorth
    Full Member

    Not sure if Plusnet are offering FTTP just yet, even though they are a BT subsidiary.

    No-one is.

    stilltortoise
    Free Member

    I find this quite interesting. I get 6.5Mb and find it perfectly fast enough for streaming HD movies. I don’t do online gaming; is that what you need higher speeds for?

    EDIT – although I could do with faster uploads

    ourmaninthenorth
    Full Member

    That has happened, and this is why you can get copper broadband with loads of suppliers, and FTTC via several. ISPs can install their own equipment in our exchanges, we even rent duct space to other companies now,

    This “local loop unbundling”.

    What happened was that BT had to put all its infrastructure into its division, Openreach (who Spooky works for).

    Openreach has to sell its products to ISPs on an equivalent basis – i.e. it can’t charge BT Retail or BT Wholesale preferential rates. But…. Openreach is still the monopoly provider of exchanges and “the last mile”, so it’s not a wholly free market.

    I work for an ISP, and the bane of my life is Openreach – even though we’re the customer, we’re treated like the supplier..!

    muppetWrangler
    Free Member

    I was told we would get around 32Mbit/s, the lowest I’ve had is 26Mbit/s and the highest 36Mbit/s. It normally stays above 30Mbit/s.

    One thing that I do find strange is that despite the data rate being 10 times what it was previously I still get buffering on iPlayer, even on standard definition. I mostly upgraded to avoid this but it doesn’t seem to have made much if any difference.

    ourmaninthenorth
    Full Member

    Anyone used their existing router in preference to a new one supplied for the fibre upgrade???

    Is it a combined modem/router? If so, you’ll have to use it – the output from the master socket (the NTE5) isn’t ADSL, but VDSL.

    If it’s a separate modem and router – which they certainly were to begin with – then the router will need to be compatible with the modem.

    Oh, and you’ll need to have power sockets near to the NTE5. If not, the engineer should move the NTE5 for you. Can’t run it from extension sockets (as there’s a VDSL specific faceplate put onto the NTE5).

    ourmaninthenorth
    Full Member

    I was told we would get around 32Mbit/s, the lowest I’ve had is 26Mbit/s and the highest 36Mbit/s. It normally stays above 30Mbit/s.

    You can’t actually measure the real “speed” at home – this can only be done by your ISP using the Openreach speed checker it has as part of the platform betwen the ISP and Openreach.

    Your issue might also be a server problem elsewhere on the delivery of iplayer.

    stilltortoise
    Free Member

    One thing that I do find strange is that despite the data rate being 10 times what it was previously I still get buffering on iPlayer, even on standard definition.

    Really!!? As per my previous post, my “up to” 8Mb line gives me HD streaming through iPlayer, Netflix etc with very rare buffering. Are there other factors at play for you?

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 58 total)

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