Superfast Broadband, but wait...

[Just_a_bloke]

Fibre optic broadband has just come to my village with a limited number of suppliers, the Co-Op being one (My present BB supplier is not one of them). They obviously do standard broadband, but also what they call 'Superfast' broadband.

I’ve just done a speedtest.net test on my existing service/line with the following results

Ping 29ms
Download speed 6.14Mbps
Upload Speed 0.37Mbps.​

From the Co-Op site - sign up page after inserting my postcode and telephone number, I got this...

We estimate you will receive a broadband line speed of around 7.8Mbps.
With Superfast Broadband, your broadband speed will be around 6Mbps.​

It looks to me that I'm not going to see any speed benefits, unless their speed stays high when other users come on line.

I'm assuming any other supplier would be the same figures?

I'm interested to hear what others think of the above?

 

[zigojacko]

Those speeds are far from "fast" or "superfast". The average broadband speeds in the UK are about 30Mbps (download). I can only assume you live in a really remote village otherwise I'd be expecting much faster broadband than that quoted (which surely cannot be fibre optic broadband at 7.8Mbps)...

These is our current fibre optic broadband speeds... (and we're in the process of leaving VM too).

 

[TPTele]

Hi,

If you can Private Message me with your broadband phone number and address I will run a check to see what speeds you should be able to get and if superfast broadband (Fibre to the Cabinet) is available.

Stuart.

 

[Just_a_bloke]

Just tried the BT site to see what they offer....
"9Mb - 15MbEstimated download is an estimate, but it should be accurate to within 1 or 2Mb "

No where near 30MB

 

[TPTele]

The speed you will get is dependant on a number of geographic factors, mainly how far away from your local exchange / cabinet you are.

Please note that based on data taken last year the UK average speed is around 10Mbps. This will increase as Openreach upgrade more Exchanges and Cabinets to fibre over the next few years.

 

[adamo]

If you're fairly close to your Exchange (<1 mile), you might not see much of a boost in speeds with 'fibre'. This is mainly down to the fact that the last section of the connection to your home will be via the traditional copper phone line (in most cases), meaning you'll still be limited by that.

If you want true fibre speeds, you need to look at FTTP/H, which is much more expensive, but can offer speeds of 100Mb+.

 

[Arshad07]

If you want true fibre speeds, you need to look at FTTP/H, which is much more expensive, but can offer speeds of 100Mb+.

Is this even available in the UK?

 

[zigojacko]

Just tried the BT site to see what they offer....
"9Mb - 15MbEstimated download is an estimate, but it should be accurate to within 1 or 2Mb "

No where near 30MB

What village do you live in?

 

[zigojacko]

Please note that based on data taken last year the UK average speed is around 10Mbps.

Are you sure? Surely that was the average about 3 years ago?

I did just pull out this from October 2014 though which quotes the average UK broadband speed as 18.7Mbps. Maybe slightly ambitious with my 30Mbps.

 

[adamo]

Is this even available in the UK?

Yes, it's available for businesses and home users. It's also becoming more popular for home users (though more expensive than FTTC).

See http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/...is-bt-infinity-'fibre-to-the-home'-installed?

There's also more of an explanation here - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.html

 

[Faevilangel]

Unfortunately those in the more rural places won't get the same speeds as Geoff does, we get around 65mb through BT but we are right in the middle of the town (but rural location, only 30k live here). We have fibre as we were one of the test sites for the fibre installation.

BT are slowly pushing it out but those in villages etc will never see the speeds of the towns as the distance from the local network box is key.

Use the samknows broadband checker to see what's available to you

 

[TPTele]

Thanks for the Private Message. Based on the information you provided you are presently on an old ADSL Max service with a maximum speed of 8Mbps down so your 6.14Mbps is not bad.

You can now get Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) with a maximum speed of 9.2Mbps down and 0.8Mbps up. Once you put a modem/router on the line I would expect you to actually see something like 8Mbps down.

This is not a great speed but it will depend on what you are actually hoping to achieve an use it for.

 

[AllUpHere]

I'm quite chuffed with my result based on the figures being talked about on this thread.

 

[Kixo]

i don't know anyone with those averages i was in the middle of Birmingham on ADSL max and we were lucky to get 5mb down and 0.8 up, the exchange was over the road from us. All the super numbers just don't add up to me, we have so many customers quoting 50mb+ on fibre with their downloads but STILL have terrible slow internet. its all about contention ratio, same line but less people using it. Thats why a lease line of 10mb is so much faster than a fibre at 50mb. I'm in the same boat as you, BT are terrible and sadly own most of the infrastructure that holds back the UK's internet speeds.

You will see a statistically number difference between providers but real world prob no difference, so i would suggest waiting for a few months sadly. What TPTele says sounds correct as well.

 

[EasyWebLtd]

Hopefully broadband speed will improve soon.

For me personally is very funny how business grants for broadband (up to £3k) are given away only in cities, while business in villages can't get it (60-70Mbps costs £30-£40, while in village you have to pay at least £290-£350 per month)...

Very unfair, especially when business relies on fast broadband connection (our business has couple own brands based on our web application, in order to run those applications we using few racking servers (rent cost of servers with 4 x 8 cores Xeons, over 200GB RAM and raid array from SSD's would cost fortune, also we are running backup into LTO on daily basis) if we could install few fiber optic connections we wouldn't need to spread computing from web access server (right now all calculations are made in house and sent over to the web access server))

So now we just using 1x web access dedicated server and few very powerful servers in house.

At this moment it is working, but this solution will limit us as those brands will grow. So in future we will need to spend a lot of cash to move around to place where we can install several fiber optic lines. Sad as we're based in Scotland we would need to move to Edinburgh where traffic is a nightmare. We also providing online presence services (web design/marketing/business analysis), so I do believe that current location close to the city is much more convenient that city center office.


Our street exchange cabinet is around 300 yards from us, main BT building for whole region is less than 1 mile from our cabinet... Fiber optic is available 2 streets away from us, but as there is no space (water/electricity/gas pipes) under our cabinet so fiber optic won't be available.

 

[paulears]

Speed is illusional. My BT fibre cabinet can be seen out of my window, and the main exchange is only half a mile away, and my expensive BT business fibre connection rarely breaks the 30 barrier, and was around 8 on the old ADSL line. The fact they are allowed to insert "up to" against any speed claim makes the system laughable. To be honest, it's about time people were protected against the crazy claims - and speed testers that give wild different results.

 

[Lentinus]

Rural dweller here, 3.5Mb/s and 0.5 up - if we are lucky! mind you can still watch iplayer and my emails seem pretty speedy.

 

[vhjay]

For me personally is very funny how business grants for broadband (up to £3k) are given away only in cities

Unless that city is Stoke on Trent...in which case you're on your own. Not that I'm bitter

 

[Bob]

Is this good then

Download speed 99.42 Mb
Upload speed 6.08Mb
Ping 7ms

Don't actually know what a ping is !!

Regrettably on Virgin Media

 

[vhjay]

Bob, that's very good, and beats my awful 8mb Sky broadband out of the water.

Put very simply, a 'ping' is a tiny amount of data that is sent to a web server to test connectivity - if successful, the server will respond, and the time taken is measured in milliseconds. The shorter the better - so 7ms is pretty damn good.

Jay

 

[Bob]

Maybe you all need to move to Kent then. £23.50 per month

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

The OpenReach checker has recently been updated (out of Beta) to give a much clearer indication on install schedules. Worth keeping an eye on if you are a 'coming soon' cabinet (or contacting an ISP such as ourselves and asking to be kept informed on when your cabinet is upgraded).

 

[jamesosix]

Why any home/residential user would need FTTP is beyond me. FTTC is MORE than enough speed.

 

[Cromulent]

I'm quite chuffed with my result based on the figures being talked about on this thread.

It's OK I guess. This is what we get on Virgin Media.

There isn't much out there at the moment that can compete with the speed Virgin Media offers for residential broadband unfortunately.

If I were to move ISPs I'd move to a business one with a few more customer friendly features.

 

[ryedale]

We're moving to our own premises at the start of April.. can't wait to have fibre. Download hasn't been that bad for us where we are now (15mb) but upload never gets over 0.4mb.

The fibre upload speed is going to make such a difference to us.

 

[paulears]

My 'superfast' BT fibre is 39!

 

[AllUpHere]

It's OK I guess. This is what we get on Virgin Media.

There isn't much out there at the moment that can compete with the speed Virgin Media offers for residential broadband unfortunately.

If I were to move ISPs I'd move to a business one with a few more customer friendly features.

Now you're just showing off.

 

[Cromulent]

Now you're just showing off.

Not really. I was just pointing out that Virgin Media is the fastest consumer ISP that I know of and made the point that if I were to change ISPs I'd move to a business class ISP.

I wish I could afford a fast business leased line but alas I don't have hundreds or thousands of pounds to spend on my internet connection a month.

 

[Bill1954]

We are tearing our hair out as we have 7 PC;s sharing a 4 mb connection. The local exchange has been fibre enabled for at least 2 years and all the housing estates around us have Infinity or Virgin fibre. BT just don't seem interested in bringing fibre onto the trading estate though. Not fair !! we pay more for business broadband than residental but we can't get the service

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Bill1954,

have you looked at satellite - it is not the waste it used to be! Better and cheaper!

 

[Bill1954]

Thanks for that, it doesn't look too bad although I have no idea how to work out how much bandwidth we would need and the price varies considerably depending on how much BW you use

 

[Just_a_bloke]

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

I've still not done anything about upgrading yet, though I've now been looking at a couple of satellite systems, bit expensive for my needs, but hopefully prices will come down over time.

I came across a map the other day (lost the link at the moment) which published users speeds and a couple of people the other end the village are getting well over double figures for their speeds, just a shame the site gave no way of contacting said people to find out what system they are using.

 

[Just_a_bloke]

Found the map...
http://maps.thinkbroadband.com/?utm...0602019932&zoom=13&type=terrain&speed-cluster
or
http://tinyurl.com/o3w5v2l

 

[TPTele]

After reading the threads hopefully the following will help readers:

Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC)
This can give speeds up to 80Mbps down and 20Mbps up. The speed you get will depend on factors such as how far you are from your local exchange.
Please note that this is classed as a Residential Grade product, which means it has no real service level agreement and the rollout strategy is for homes rather than businesses so if you are in a business district or trading estate don’t hold your breath. The good news is you will get upgraded eventually but it could be years!
If you would like to know when you can get FTTC broadband register here (http://tptele.com/broadband/fibre-broadband.html) and you will be emailed when it becomes available.

Fibre to the Premises (FTTP)
This can achieve speeds up to 330Mbps down and 30Mbps up but the few suppliers who can provide it typically offer 80Mbps down and 20Mbps up.
Please note that this is classed as a Residential Grade product, which means it has no real service level agreement.
If you are in a Virgin broadband area they may provide a similar product with speeds up to 156Mbps. However get them to confirm that it is a Virgin cable connection rather than a re-sold Openreach one.

Leased Lines
These are premium grade connections with a 1:1 contention ratio. They are more expensive than FTTC/FTTP at around 10 times the price but they come with real Service Level Agreements and are perfect for businesses that need an excellent, reliable Internet connection.

Satellite
All providers are selling access to the TooWay satellite. This is an Italian Satellite that covers all of Europe. It is not my area of expertise but feedback from users varies. Due to the number of users speeds can be affected and ensure you read the small print.

Mobile
Speeds can be fast: 50Mbps down and 30Mbps up. However speeds very depending on location and network provider. Data can also be expensive.

Contention Ratio
This relates to the number of users who share a broadband connection. Traditionally residential packages would be 50:1 while businesses are 20:1. This animation will help explain http://www.tptele.com/videos/contended-vs-uncontended-broadband.html

Connection Vouchers
Available in a number of cities and offer up to £3000 to cover connection costs. They sound great but they are designed to improve local premium grade infrastructure rather than help roll out FTTC. In short this is for Leased Lines or equivalent products.
Saying that a smaller grant maybe available toward FTTC install costs.

 

[Bill1954]

Just sent off for a couple of quotes under the super connected cities voucher scheme although I don't see what can be done if BT don't have a FTTC service in the area, after all it is BT lines that are used.

 

[TPTele]

Hi Bill, if you registered for the Connection Voucher scheme you may get inundated with sales calls. If you want to private message me with the address and phone number for the location you want the superfast connection I can do a quick check on the options to see if it is then worth going down the connection voucher route.