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...in a house you don't yet own
Is there an easy way to do this? It's a fairly remote location which I suspect is quite a distance from the nearest exchange/cabinet
It doesn't need to be ultra fast but don't want to be stuck with a house where video calls are a problem
I've looked on the BT/Virgin/Talktalk sites but I don't trust them and they all say a range from x to y anyway
Ask the current owners?
current owner is in her 90s and doesnt use internet
Why would you not trust the ISP? They will give a minimum guaranteed speed, and the range they give will give you an idea what you can get. There's also other tools like think broadband speed test maps, with actual speed tests done close by: https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/broadband-map#15/51.2802/0.5078/test/
thats great thanks
Are there any ISPs that guarantee upload speed?
I ask as my guaranteed download speed is terrible (7mbps) as predates Openreach doing some upgrades in our area.
My ISP Zen does not guarantee upload speed at all.
We have had huge line speed reductions recently (30 > 7 down and 6 > 1.5 up) but as guarantee met it was a struggle to get them to do more than a line test.
For worse case scenario I’d would be looking at how good your 4/5g is in that area.
That speed map linked above is interesting. We have a BT Openreach engineer who lives a few doors down the road from us, he said the Max we can get in our area is 15mbps, which one result shows on there. However on the same road someone has recorded 40mpbs....
If virgin say they can install then it will be a cable, look for CATV covers on the pavement outside. If there is cable then you can trust whatever virgin are offering at the property, its not as flakey as openreach network.
We have a BT Openreach engineer who lives a few doors down the road from us, he said the Max we can get in our area is 15mbps, which one result shows on there. However on the same road someone has recorded 40mpbs….
This can happen if the properties are serviced by different cabinets. We are in this position. We get at best 18-20mbps as we are linked to a cabinet that is at least 1/2 mile down the road. 250 meters up the road there is another cabinet and the houses there are getting 40-50mbps on the same contract as I have. I asked a BT engineer who was sorting out a faulty master socket what we could do about it and he said that we could request a change to the other cabinet but they would probably say no.
My ISP Zen does not guarantee upload speed at all.
We have had huge line speed reductions recently (30 > 7 down and 6 > 1.5 up) but as guarantee met it was a struggle to get them to do more than a line test.
I am with Zen and the same thing happened to me. Turned out the ASDL filter on the master socket had failed and simply plugging a new filter/splitter directly into the socket behind the front plate sorted the issue. Zen had to change a setting their side to reactivate normal speeds as it had gone into the internet equivalent of limp mode.
I would call them back and persevere - I generally find their tech support somewhat better than the average drone you'll talk to at Sky or Virgin
I generally find their tech support somewhat better than the average drone you’ll talk to at Sky or Virgin
+1 for this. Zen have always been excellent whenever I've dealt with them. They've certainly knocked spots off the big main ISPs.
How far is it from the nearest exchange/box? We are 6 miles out, all copper wire. Optimized internet here comes in at about 1.8 - 2.0 mbs. It is enough to watch Youtube reliably on 480 and Netflix or Iplayer work OK too. All provided no-one else in the house does anything on the network 🙂
So if the property is less than 6 miles out then I guess it will be better than you think. Further and you have problems.
You can check exchange locations here: https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search
Along with other stuff like what types of broadband are available:
https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
When I was moving house I called my current provider (sky) to give notice of moving and exit the contract, they were able to check the speeds available for me at the new place and let me know what they could offer.
Get the phone number and stick it into BT's (Openreach) broadband availability checker. You can use the postcode, but the phone number is likely to be more accurate.
Presumably you've visited the house so you know what the mobile signal is like - if FTTC is out then look at 4G broadband packages. Wouldn't be surprised if Starlink is commercially available in the next 24 months here too.
Edit: Oh yeah, don't trust Virgin unless the owner shows you the physical cable entering the house. They were adamant that they could install at my place despite me saying it was impossible, culminating in a visit from an engineer who looked at the grade-2-listed cobbles between the house and the road and concluded that they probably weren't going to get away with digging them up and laying a strip of tarmac on top.
It doesn’t need to be ultra fast but don’t want to be stuck with a house where video calls are a problem
The upload speed is the problem I get with video calls (Zoom). Most people focus on download but download speeds can easily handle it but with upload speed of 2mb Zoom definitely struggles where people see a delay of 2 seconds between visual and audio yet I see everyone else fine. That audio delay causes issues as it is difficult to break into the conversation as somebody else has already started talking. It is better if I turn off my video but that sort of defeats the point of video calls!
Upload is my issue - logging in via Citrix to a remote desktop along with Zoom on a mobile (as our VDI setup doesn't allow sound) takes up a chunk of upload. Even 5mps upload doesn't leave much/any headroom when my wife is working at the same time (google docs is her primary use, that seems to hammer upload).
I would call them back and persevere – I generally find their tech support somewhat better than the average drone you’ll talk to at Sky or Virgin
I did exactly that, albeit we went through the same thing 3 times over 6 months. They kept saying it was my router (i.e. the one that they supplied 14 months earlier). Eventually they sent me a loan router which got the performance back.
My mum had similar issues, BT sent out engineers 4 times, each time they found no issue and obviously problem persisted. Took a total of 14 months to get a replacement router, problem solved instantly.
Pity it wasn't possible to change the priority between upload and download as I could live with 10mb down and 10mb up rather than 2 up and 18 down
Upload is something to watch.
Virgin only seem to care about headline download speeds. They give you 10% up compared to down. In the old days when all anyone cared about was downloading then that didn't matter too much, but where we are now with working at home which might mean large file transfers that are equal in both directions and video calls requiring good bandwidth in both directions, the closer to symmetrical up/down the better.
Maybe it's a local thing but I's also comment that 90% of the "my broadband is down is yours" chatter on our local whats app and Facebook groups are from Virgin users.
Agree with @timmys - Virgin user here, and I dont think Ive had a more CGAF provider before. Its great when it works, but often goes down - or slows to a crawl. They also view a two week wait to repair a phone outage as "acceptable", and lack the technology to divert your incoming calls to mobile. I've just gone for a Huawei 4G+ router, and have 115 down 40 up pretty consistently. I bought it as a backup, but its so good I may make it my only BB connection.