- This topic has 62 replies, 34 voices, and was last updated 1 year ago by Rich_s.
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FTTP – educate me!
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sharkbaitFree Member
Much excitement on my behalf as we can now get FTTP!
Being in the sticks our current fibre download speed is never more than 9Mbps so there’s going to be a big improvement [hopefully].
For those that have it already, what speed have you gone for, from whom and what speed are you actually getting?I’m thinking of sticking with Zen but interested in the options as they’re not the cheapest.
Also, seeing as it doesn’t need a phone line, have you kept one on? I’m thinking I’d ditch it BUT I run a business from home…. although no-one ever calls on the land line nowadays, so maybe I can get rid. I presume there’s a IP:mobile solution for that anyway?
captmorganFree MemberTo be honest if you have survived with 9Mb/s I can’t see you needing any more than 100Mb/s a single 4K movie stream is ~25Mb/s.
We use Zen solely for the service aspect as up until recently we too were a wfh business
As for the phone line there are ways to convert you existing number to a voip system and have it on you mobile and pc or a hardwired voip phone
Take a look at voipfone.co.uk as one supplier
sharkbaitFree MemberI do actually think 100mbps would do but might just go with their 300 option!
Thanks for the link also.
robolaFull MemberGot 150, even with chunky game downloads it is more than enough. Restrictions are often on the server side now so not much point in faster unless you have more than 1 heavy user.
seosamh77Free Member100mbps is fine here, I stream 4k all the time, streaming is from 2 users, gaming/downloading etc. Have never thought I need any faster.
sharkbaitFree Member100mbps is fine here
So are these your actual numbers or the advertised ones? Zen say that the 100 service actually averages 60 and the 300 averages 150 – hence looking to go with the 300.
captmorganFree MemberIn general providers will let you increase your plan even while in contract so I’d always suggest erring on the lower side knowing it’s easy to upgrade should you find it’s a limiting factor.
The real question is what changes are you planning that need greater bandwidth than you have today to ensure you are ‘right’ sizing the service?
sharkbaitFree MemberIn general providers will let you increase your plan even while in contract so I’d always suggest erring on the lower side knowing it’s easy to upgrade should you find it’s a limiting factor.
Good point and I was thinking about this…. might start on the lower rate and see what the actual number are.
The real question is what changes are you planning that need greater bandwidth than you have today to ensure you are ‘right’ sizing the service?
Ahh, well…. nothing in particular, but as well all know bigger is better and – just like storage space – we’ll always fill it with some crap!
timmysFull MemberIf you really are ‘in the sticks’, then it might be whichever company put the fibre in is the only one you can get it from.
docrobsterFree MemberMy mum in law just moved in to a new build which has fttp. I think we went for the very cheapest plan but she wanted the landline option so they put her on the next one up. 50 meg maybe. Any plenty for an octagenarian on her own in a flat.
Re the landline though.. dect hardware is included in the bt router and they sent (2 actually, in error) cordless handset to use with it as mobiles fox her and she likes a natter. There is a phone plug in the router so you could plug an existing phone in there. The service does t work if it’s not activated though and I wouldn’t have thought many people under 60 would want one.
Remember stuff that uses the landline like alarms won’t worksharkbaitFree Member….. its BT so there’s a bit of choice. Zen have offered a good discount on their published prices though so I’ll probably stick with them.
steviousFull MemberI’ve got nothing helpful to say except File Transfer Transfer Protocol
gauss1777Free MemberIn general providers will let you increase your plan even while in contract
However, don’t you tend to get offered a better deal at the outset than if you try to upgrade?
seosamh77Free Membersharkbait
Free Member
100mbps is fine hereSo are these your actual numbers or the advertised ones? Zen say that the 100 service actually averages 60 and the 300 averages 150 – hence looking to go with the 300.
i usually top out at 108ish download and 10 upload on virgin media. I’m right across from the box though.
Rich_sFull MemberI went with Zen when we had c.14mbps speed as plusnet and ee was too flaky. Always seemed to drop out.
FTTP followed, we have 300 still with zen. Dropped the phone line, took the everyroom option and bought a 2nd hand mesh repeater off FB marketplace. It flies! 😁
Worth every penny imho. 3 kids, I WFH and wife occasionally. Don’t really want more, but I’m sure I’ll be tempted by 1k when the kids are teens.
jrawarrenFull MemberAnother Zen 300mb FTTP here. Migrated from Virgin, and the difference is night and day. Solid, fast, reliable connection. Ditched the phone line too and migrated the number to Sipgate, works fine with the Zen router (which is an excellent Fritzbox unit BTW) and works out cheaper than the Zen ip phone option.
juliansFree MemberRecently had fttp installed with talktalk,on their 150mb contract, tend to see between 100 and 120 in practise,sometimes dropping to 60.
oceanskipperFull MemberI’ve just had FTTP installed, I went for 1000mb as it was the same price as my existing 70. I get 950 up and down wired and up to 650 wireless dependent on how far I am from the nearest AP (I get 180 in the shed!)
CougarFull MemberIt astonishes me how many people still want a landline. I’ve been trying to wean my mum off hers for years but she’s like “what if someone calls?” Her callers are me, her cousin, two or three friends, the GP surgery and the hospital. Plus the usual spam, obvs.
dect hardware is included in the bt router and they sent (2 actually, in error) cordless handset to use with it as mobiles fox her
What’s foxy about a mobile that isn’t with a DECT? Genuine question. Get a docking station for it, it’s then functionally equivalent surely?
midlifecrashesFull MemberWe got Sky FTTP recently to replace Virgin 200MB. Went for 1000MB, though a speed test suggests we may be getting 930MB, but we cope ok. Paying £50/month for broadband, telly, landline and calls.
sirromjFull MemberI got overly excited by it, after suffering with the broadband equivalent of dialup and went with 500. Should have saved my money and gone lower.
aphex_2kFree MemberOur national broadband gives fibre to some areas. Alas, after 6+ years we’re still on fttn. Not hugely fast (85/20 wired) but it’s stable. I’m hoping we get the nod for fibre soon. We can do a “tech upgrade” and be an early adopter but the quote I had was $20k AUD. I’ll pass and patiently wait.
dovebikerFull MemberJust had Openreach connect FTTP to our new build house – only 8 months since we moved in! Delay was waiting for a new water main installation. Placed an order with BT yesterday and it’s still going to take 10 days to ‘activate’ even though the new box under the stairs is active with 2 green lights. Gone for 150Mbps and there wasn’t much variation in price – but know there as BT technicians on the island. We have 4G at the moment which does vary depending on how hard the wind blows!
lovewookieFull Membersorry to resurrect this, just signed up to an EE FTTP contract. the cabling was installed also our road last month, so keen to see what they’d do.
I live in a row of cottages perpendicular to the road. What do they normally do to connect the ‘house’ to the road, bearing in mind that the existing ducting for the phone lines (for all 6 cottages) will be very very old, so blowing a cable up there will be nigh on impossible, and my cottage is about 60m from the road.
we’re supposed to have a BT engineer turn up this week to do a preliminary survey. I’m mostly expecting them to say, yeah, but no due to excessive construction costs.
what’s others experience of it?
mattyfezFull Membernothing in particular, but as well all know bigger is better and – just like storage space – we’ll always fill it with some crap!
Not really, as others have said, you could go 100mbit or more, but thats a very wide pipe, unless you have mulitiple users hammering the crap out of the connection all the time its not really worth it.
I’m a prolific downloader/gamer/streamer and downgraded from 80mbits to 40mbits and didnt notice any difference at all.
jam-boFull MemberIt keeps tempting me and Zen keep offering me a 900Mbit service. I can see the box on the pole from my window but I get a consistent 40Mbit on copper so until the price drops a bit more I can’t see me changing.
sharkbaitFree MemberIt keeps tempting me and Zen keep offering me a 900Mbit service.
Any FTTP is potentially 900Mbps – it depends what you can really get and what you pay for. For example I pay for a 300Mbps connection with a guaranteed minimum of 150…… I actually get 160!
A friend pays for 900 and actually gets about 350-400 I think.
so until the price drops a bit more I can’t see me changing.
Personally I’d just get it done now as you can get a fixed for life price until the end of this month and chances are it’s possibly just going to get more expensive.
I’ve found that since going FTTP the connection is much more stable than FTTC.Oh and it may well be cheaper than you’re paying now as you don’t need to pay for a phone line – I’ve saved 20% on my old FTTC service from Zen (ring them though as they’ll do a discount if you’re an existing customer)
ta11pau1Full MemberFor most people anything over 100/200mbps is unnecessary, however I love having my 750-800mbps 5G broadband, downloading a 100gb game on the PS5 I don’t give a second thought to, none of this 6 hours to download nonsense. It’ll max out the (limited) PSN bandwidth at about 500-600mbps, 100GB takes under 30 minutes. And doesn’t affect anything else being streamed etc at the same time.
simon_gFull MemberZen 300mb here – more for the 50mb upload than the better download speeds. Been super stable, and get the advertised speeds on ethernet. Didn’t bother with a phone line. Note their price guarantee stops for new services after 1 June, if you have it before then it applies (price won’t change in future), after it’ll just be for the length of the contract.
I live in a row of cottages perpendicular to the road. What do they normally do to connect the ‘house’ to the road, bearing in mind that the existing ducting for the phone lines (for all 6 cottages) will be very very old, so blowing a cable up there will be nigh on impossible, and my cottage is about 60m from the road.
Normally the same way your current phone line goes to your house – so if underground they’ll use existing ducts or mole in new ones if needed. Our house is 1930s, the copper duct was part collapsed but they did a couple of visits to fix before the fibre was run.
Once it’s at your house it can enter where you like within reason – so e.g. if you want it terminated in an upstairs study that’s fine, it doesn’t have to be where the copper cable came in. Our copper came through the wooden door frame into the hallway so I was happy to get that cabling out of the way finally.
EwanFree MemberI have 300 up and down from Gigaclear. Lovely and quick. Nice to have the same speed up as it means you can treat google drive a bit more like hard drive.
molgripsFree MemberFor most people anything over 100/200mbps is unnecessary,
It’s all about the upload. I don’t need 900 down but 70 up is very handy.
ta11pau1Full MemberIt’s all about the upload. I don’t need 900 down but 70 up is very handy.
Agreed, I’m normally at 40-60mbps upload, with 2x people on teams calls/Vpn etc it’s a lot less hassle than being on sub 10mbps and hitting limits.
TheGingerOneFull MemberWe have just gone to FTTP. 12mbps down and 0.4 up to 140 down and 25 up. The upload speed has made the really noticeable difference as we can now do video calls and upload ‘stuff’ far faster.
We stuck with Sky broadband to avoid an early termination fee. Went with the middle option as felt that would be enough of a noticeable improvement which is guaranteed to 100 Mbps from memory.
All of our neighbours removed had their copper connection removed from the pole at changeover, but we left ours there as he connected and tested the fibre to the box in the house before switching us over. He was a bit reluctant to faff around getting the old cable down as it was a bit fiddly with the ladder. Made no odds to me visually and in theory means we could still have a landline if we wanted and in extreme theory means we could switch back if there was a fault on the fibre in the future which would not be as quick a fix.
molgripsFree MemberAgreed, I’m normally at 40-60mbps upload, with 2x people on teams calls/Vpn etc it’s a lot less hassle than being on sub 10mbps and hitting limits.
I find myself pushing docker containers which are 500Mb and it’s soooo nice to get that done in a minute or so. Not too long ago that would have taken about an hour and a half, which would have really screwed up my development process. And it would have knackered the whole house’s connection at the same time!
nedrapierFull MemberI’m on a trial/promotional period, 6 months free at 900. I’m glad I’m not paying for it!
Wired to my laptop, I get 940 ish. Next to the router: 600 on a good day, 200 in the far bedroom. Except when it isn’t, when it’s more like 30/40 in the far bedroom and 100 next to the router. And it’s not that stable. I’m trying to track down whether it’s the router or the connection.
Would get 40-50 in the far bedroom on a 60mbps fttc and the EE router, and it would be a lot more stable.
ta11pau1Full MemberI’m on a trial/promotional period, 6 months free at 900. I’m glad I’m not paying for it!
Wired to my laptop, I get 940 ish. Next to the router: 600 on a good day, 200 in the far bedroom. Except when it isn’t, when it’s more like 30/40 in the far bedroom and 100 next to the router. And it’s not that stable. I’m trying to track down whether it’s the router or the connection.
Would get 40-50 in the far bedroom on a 60mbps fttc and the EE router, and it would be a lot more stable.
I’m guessing you mean WiFi for anything other than the wired laptop.
100% it’s the router WiFi, you’re getting 940 wired so it’s obviously not the connection into your house. To confirm this, test on a wired device when you see the slow speeds.
600 on WiFi next to the router sounds like it’s a WiFi 5 router, which is going to have an upper limit on 5ghz of 500mbps or so. Then you’re at the mercy of the ISP provided router, which generally have crap WiFi. Hence the worse speed the further away you are. If you went to a permanent fttp set up you’d want a mesh WiFi set up for decent coverage, and depending what’s speed you need one WiFi devices you might want WiFi 6 and a mesh set up with a dedicated backhaul. You could also be on a congestion WiFi channel. So many variations when it comes to WiFi; devices, interference, 2.4ghz or 5ghz, etc etc.
My mesh is only a WiFi 5 so max I get is 500mbps with an 800mbps connection, but I don’t really need any more on WiFi devices. 2 of my deco nodes are hardwired, the third connected to the main via wireless. Worst I get is 150mbps.
sharkbaitFree MemberIt’s all about the upload. I don’t need 900 down but 70 up is very handy.
Absolutely.
I didn’t think it would make much difference generally but it makes things like video call quality way better than it was beforelovewookieFull MemberNormally the same way your current phone line goes to your house – so if underground they’ll use existing ducts or mole in new ones if needed. Our house is 1930s, the copper duct was part collapsed but they did a couple of visits to fix before the fibre was run.
Openreach have just been out to have a look/survey.
Lots of head scratching, a few ‘oh, not come across that before’, which ended with a quick look around neighbouring cottages to see if it’s all the same, and a call to his boss to see what to do next.
Move on a couple of hours and he’s back, with his boss, doing a bit of light digging around the phone cable. They now suspect it’s buried armoured cable, not ducted.
I’ll update as I go…but a preemptive possibilities list of stuff they could look at….Chase along the gas main duct? – unlikely to be allowed on other infrastructure
dig a trench along the shared drive – I can see that upsetting the neighbours.
dig along the rear of the cottages – that will definitely upset the neighbours, plus there’s the sewer that runs at the back.
above ground duct? would need to run the whole length of the cottages, and then connect with the road somehow….I’m slightly worried about neighbours permissions and if Openreach need it, but I’ll wait to see what the plan is from them, or if openreach just say no.
TheGingerOneFull MemberWould it not be easier to put up a pole, ‘cable’ comes out of the ground and up the pole and then overhead to each individual house and then route it down \ around the house to an entry point, drill a hole through, box on outside, box on inside, job done?
At the end of the day, at some point our fibre comes out of the ground and up a pole before coming across from our nearest pole to the house and all our neighbours. A pole is way cheaper and easier than any kind of digging etc and takes them literally 20 mins to stick in (once they have got planning permission to put it in and found the right location.
bentudderFull MemberWe’ve just had STL up our road blowing fibre for HeyBroadband. They’ve done exactly what TheGingerOne says up there: hooked up the street cabinets, then terminated on the poles and look to be running fibre that way rather than from the pavement across front gardens, which is where the DOCSIS coax from Virgin Media goes.
We’re going to go with them, by the way – Virgin Media are price gouging, the service is up and down like a yoyo and they won’t cut tariffs. I’ve also had enough with regular calls trying to upsell us and refusing to accept that we don’t want to spend more.I’m hoping to persuade them to run it through our flowerbed into the front room, rather than mess around with overhead cables. The biggest challenge so far has been persuading Mrs Udder that there are alternatives to Tivo.
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