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We've been with BT Broadband for ages, got lazy with contract haggling and are now paying way too much for a service that they seem to have downgraded!
Was going to switch to VF, who promise to provide a certain level of download speed (albeit a modest 35ish).
Have just seen the BT Black Friday fibre specials and thought I'd try and see what we should be getting in speed terms. A lousy 13-17!! We actually get mid 20s at the moment!
As crap as that is, if I type in next door's address, BT promise in the 70s. Using the house the other side - its 45!!
Can anyone explain ANY reason why this is!!? Previoulsy we've been told by engineers visiting that we're connected (for some reason) to a box 900m away on the other side of the estate.
Can BT link us into a box nearer to us, should they wish?
Thats probably the reason - long distance to the BT cabinet - strange that your neighbours are better.
I get the distance bit but we get more now than they claim we would get as a new customer? I can't see next door being routed to a different cabinet either? Maybe some historical nonsense?
The 13-17 will be an estimated speed and/or a minimum guaranteed speed. ISPs have to be a lot more cautious now when giving estimated speed.
And its quite possible that next door is connected to a different cabinet, speed on FTTC is all dependent on the length of the last copper connection from the cabinet to your house.
Also remember that other ISP might say you'll get 10mbps more, but unless they have thier own network (like virgin media) they'll all be using the openreach infrastructure and the speed will still be dependent on your copper connection.
I 'think' most of the online speed estimates from the providers err on the side of caution. It looks better if you get faster than forecast, as opposed to slower than forecast if they were to be overly optimistic with the estimates.
Regarding you and your neighbour, is the cable via a telegraph pole or is it underground?
Look at the wholesale tool for your line:
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL
Anyway, if you can get "full fibre"/FTTP that's a new line, so you'll get up to 900Mbs depending where you are.
cable is underground
Look at the wholesale tool for your line:
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL
Anyway, if you can get “full fibre”/FTTP that’s a new line, so you’ll get up to 900Mbs depending where you are.
That shows FTTP is available for me, although 'only' at speeds of 330. As we are not a priority exchange what sort of money would we be talking to upgrade to that from normal FTTC broadband? Any guesses?
I did someone mention £50 per metre! So £45k in our case!!
Following the link, I assume that FTTP on demand is just that - we have to ask for it and pay for it?
EDIT BT site seems to suggest £2.5k plus 496 quid a year
OK the mystery deepens!
Using the wholesale link I have tried entering both of our home numbers.
Our home landline that we have always had suggests download speeds of up to 80 are available to us and gives the number of the cabinet that we are attached to.
Entering the number associated with the broadband 'landline' number suggests 17 is the maximum and is connected to a completely different cabinet!!
Any BT employees on here that might have a clue!?
Why have you got 2 landlines?
BT Wholesale checker, if you enter the number the broadband is on will most likely return the existing BB sync rate as shown in the "observed speeds" section along with the date/time as reading was last taken. On that section does it say VDSL or ADSL?
Could well be that when one of your two lines was installed that there was only a single Cab serving the area and since then demand has meant that there's been a second cab installed. Key thing with VDSL2 (FTTC) or (Fibre broadband - makes be cringe as its only fibre cab to exchange) is the length and quality of the copper (or aluminium) pair from your home to the cab. So your second line might be on a shorter/better line, hence the better predicted speed results.
Why on earth have you not had the broadband on the land line you've 'always had'? Which has 4x the speed...
It's not dial up, you can use the phone at the same time as the Internet! 😁
Sounds like you've had a second line installed for the broadband which (probably due to the can being full) had been connected to a cab far away giving you slow speeds, whereas if youd used your main land line your have been getting 80mbps the past xx number of years...
This explains why your neighbour is getting that speed, they're using their original line.
Russell - it says VDSL
We have two landlines because two of us work at home but I think also at the time we assumed that we would have to! Maybe it was to keep the orginal number, I can't remember.
Tallpaul - sounds like that could be the way things have happened. Question is, can we get the broadband changed over to the other line?
You will need deep pockets to get bt to do anything,our estate gets about 15mbs 1mbs up with lots trying to WFH that’s not much use. Applied to bt as a group came back with £242 000 to do fttp but only if all 800 properties signed up so about 800 each so we will be @15m for ever🤯
Tallpaul – sounds like that could be the way things have happened. Question is, can we get the broadband changed over to the other line?
Just sign up for internet on the other line, wait for it to be connected, cancel the original internet (as you were planning on switching anyway, I assume you're out of contract).
Aidy - yeah, if its possible to stick it on any line then that makes sense
Applied to bt as a group came back with £242 000 to do fttp but only if all 800 properties signed up so about 800 each so we will be @15m for ever.
Cityfibre are installing up the other end of town offerinng 1Gbs. Downside is that the ISP is Vodafone who are not known for impressive service nor to they subscribe to the industry arbitration scheme.
+1 for Aidy, BB is heavily optimised for automation in processes/systems, with 99%+ being new installs or migrating on existing phone line to a new ISP, a shift to another line is going to end up in pain. So go with your chosen provider on the other phone line as Aidy suggests.
Don't ring up your existing ISP and ask for a MAC code as you are leaving, as all that will happen is that the BB will be migrated to the new ISP on your existing phone line.
Rule 1: Buy cheap pay twice - there's a reason some ISPs are cheap... do your research
Rule 2: Any new ISP's router look for WiFI6 aka 802.11ax in the specs
Russell - any suggestions for which ISP to go for?
Have a look at zen, they continually get good service awards but obviously are more expensive to provide that level of service.
First of all unless you are blessed, then most likely you at the mercy of having a service that is on top of a BT Openreach landline.
So sync speeds across ISP's will be the same on VDSL2. Note I said Sync speed, what your router syncs up speed wise to the modem in the BT Cab.
From the BT Cab back towards the ISP will be at the mercy of whatever the ISP pays for to connect to BT's network. sometimes they have their own connectivity direct into the local BT exchange, sometimes they'll pay BT to aggregate it and pass it over some interconnect.
Then on top of all of that, how the ISP then connects to the internet, what I mean by this is that they ALL connect differently, some peer (usually better) some use transit interconnects.
All of this then will affect you internet performance.
I expect out of a decent ISP, that no matter what time of day or night, if I run a speed test or do a download, I will see a speed on the upload or download within say 1Mbit/2Mbit's of my routers sync speed.
Next, the margins are thin on internet broadband (see buy cheap buy twice driving down what people will pay) meaning that any interaction with customer service probably blows the ISP's profit on you for that year. So there's always a drive to reduce costs by for example outsourcing service to some other country, meaning you will more likely end up talking to someone reading a script in not their native language with, multiple layers from anyone with proper skills.
Currently I'm with Vodafone. DISCLAIMER ex-employee of them, but I know the customer service for me is Glasgow based. Their core network is right out into the BT exchanges to interconnect to the VDSL, and finally they have their own massive international core network which means less hops across providers.
So roughly look for the big providers (apart from buy cheap pay twice) with customer service in UK or Europe. Stats on complaints, remember to look at numbers vs no of customers...
Or as CaptM says, you pay a bit more and go with one of the quality indie ISP's AAISP, Zen etc..
We went fibre to the cabinet this summer
Mainly for better upload. The down load was fine at 12 mbps but I think the upload was 1.5. Now the upload us 10
I think under lock down we managed 3 stable video calls at once. Although one evening i did a quiz camera off as my wife was struggling to follow a council meeting. But who knows where the problem was. Everything was creaking back then