Broadband that delivers what's promised.

[flecc]

For many years with an average of around 3 mb/sec of ADSL I've had trouble every year or so when the speed collapses due to a copper wired line fault. On each occasion I get fobbed off by BT engineers and online staff trying to avoid work by insisting my line is fundamentally only good for 1mb, 500kb or whatever, ignoring the fact that I've had 3 mb almost all of the time previously. Each time it takes a month or so of arguments and engineer visits before they finally find the fault in the system and all is well again for a year or so. I've also twice suffered long periods of no phone and internet connection at all due to copper cable theft, highly inconvenient in an area with no mobile phone signal either.

A line fault occurred again recently for the umpteenth time with the usual BT response, so I decided to forget it and switch to fibre optic. A 76 mb/sec system, both BT and the ISP indicated I'd get a maximum of 73 mb and a minimum of 12 mb/sec, either plenty for my purposes. Being cynical about broadband speed promises, I assumed that like the ADSL I'd probably get around 30 to 40% of the advertised speed so would have been happy with a maximum of about 25 to 30 mb.

In fact it has consistently delivered far more than promised with momentary minimums around 50 to 60 mb and periods of much higher speeds, the average being a little over 73 mb/sec, just over the promised maximum. A pleasant surprise after years getting far less than the 8 mb possible on wired ADSL. Just how fast it can be is seen below, click to enlarge:


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[Ettica]

I presume you went for BT Infinity?

I would love that but there is no FO cable anywhere near my house, street or village.

The only way I could get speeds like that would be line of sight to a FO point of presence.

With BT I currently get 6mb so it's okay for Netflix, Iplayer and the like.

 

[flecc]

No, I wouldn't risk BT's care, I continued with my excellent ISP Zen with a Netgear router, but of course the FO network is BT's and the modem for that is installed by a BT engineer.

I'm not in line of sight of the street box, it's about 400 metres away with that covered by the old copper wired connection to my home, this via a couple of outdoor junction boxes. An annoying aspect is that the BT engineers who installed the FO modem kept up the faulty line mantra, warning me that I was unlikely to get near the promised speeds since my local connections were sub standard. Clearly they were totally wrong as always about the copper wired line.

If I could have had consistent 6 mb ADSL like you I would never have converted to FO of course.
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[Croxden]

So in use, can you tell the massive speed difference? I had TalkTalk trying to get me to upgrade to FO but what I am now getting (9 mb) for free, can't see why and extra £10.00 per month would please me.

 

[flecc]

I can certainly tell in two ways, instaneous responses once into a site and the much shorter download times. For example, I often download the BBC radio 4 podcasts (MP3) to listen at more convenient times. Previously I had to wait a while for each one's 13 megaBytes to download, but now immediately I click the Save button, the "download complete" notice appears, effectively instantaneous. Also very rapid when uploading pages to my website.

However, I definitely wouldn't have bothered going to fibre if I had Ettica's 6 mb and even less with your 9 mb, both more than adequate for all normal purposes. I was even happy with 3 mb, but all too often dropping to 1 mb or much less was intolerable. For example, the BBC's i-player has a buffering threshold on TV at about 1.7 mb, so effectively 2 mb is about the minimum for satisfactory general internet use.

 

[johnc461165]

We use BT and it has been faultless but it obviously does not satisfy everyone

 

[flecc]

We use BT and it has been faultless but it obviously does not satisfy everyone

It seems from those I know that BT's Infinity FO is performing as well, just as one would expect. However, in my case I've been so disgusted with BT's numerous failures on phone and wired ADSL performance over the last 46 years that I'm not inclined to give them any business that I'm not forced to. Their overseas call centres are also far from ideal when attempting to get satisfactory service.

With my phone switched over as of the 1st August I will be as far removed from them as is possible.

 

[jazper53]

I expect all these packages state up to ??mb I am with Virgin on a 30 mb @£17.00 per month, I have done several broadband speed tests, which show between 10mb -20mb max,which can give me up to a 2.5mb download speed, peak hours they tend to throttle down which can be quite annoying and remind me of my first 2mb set up.

 

[flecc]

That's why I'm so pleased with what I've been delivered Jazper. even more then the "up to" promised. I don't need it, but it's nice to have what's indicated. Obviously as there is more takeup of the fibre optic service, contention will reduce the speed as it does for you at busy times when you share the bandwidth. However, being in a largely residential area where people are out at work and kids in school, I will still be relatively unaffected since my online time is almost all during weekdays. In any case, the indicated minimum of 12 mb will still be plenty.

 

[bigroy]

We use BT and it has been faultless but it obviously does not satisfy everyone

same here I use BT Infinity and it is very fast even faster downloads if used with greedytorrent, so I hear

 

[Croxden]

For those who wish to know their speed try the BBC BBC iPlayer - Check your connection speed
It does not give an upload speed though.

 

[flecc]

For those who wish to know their speed try the BBC BBC iPlayer - Check your connection speed
It does not give an upload speed though.

That's very useful for getting the streaming speed which is much lower than the download speed, and gives the degree of usefulness for TV and radio.

For both download and upload speed instantly without aggravations or unnecessary steps, this one is ideal:

Broadband Speed Checker - THE UK's No.1 Broadband Speed Test

 

[jazper53]

I don't know if it just my set up, or is it a common formula, my upload speed seem to operate at 10% of my download speed ie: dl speed = 2.5mb/ps max and ul speed 250kb/ps max is that what other user get or do they have a better ratio?

 

[funkylyn]

According to that test, my download speed was 21.17 and upload was .893.....

I have absolutely no idea what that means........is it good/bad/indifferent ??

Lynda

 

[flecc]

I don't know if it just my set up, or is it a common formula, my upload speed seem to operate at 10% of my download speed ie: dl speed = 2.5mb/ps max and ul speed 250kb/ps max is that what other user get or do they have a better ratio?

That's normal, and the difference is due to the way that the ADSL system operates. ADSL stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, that first word telling the story. If you repeat the test a few times you'll see the ratio vary at times and when the download speed drops a bit, the upload speed can have a corresponding gain.

 

[jazper53]

According to that test, my download speed was 21.17 and upload was .893.....

I have absolutely no idea what that means........is it good/bad/indifferent ??

Lynda

I think those tests check connection speed by pinging selected location which does not seem to reflect a actual download speed or upload speed such as p2p connections, but ur upload speed seem very good
ps; correction, upload; maybe not if that 893 is kbs it should be over 2mb

 

[flecc]

According to that test, my download speed was 21.17 and upload was .893.....

I have absolutely no idea what that means........is it good/bad/indifferent ??

Lynda

Are you on fibre optic, aka cable broadband Lynda? i.e. BT Infinity or Virgin for example.

 

[Croxden]

That's very useful for getting the streaming speed which is much lower than the download speed, and gives the degree of usefulness for TV and radio.

For both download and upload speed instantly without aggravations or unnecessary steps, this one is ideal:

Broadband Speed Checker - THE UK's No.1 Broadband Speed Test

Much better with that one flecc, I now get 38 mb/s download, upload still a bit slow.

 

[funkylyn]

Are you on fibre optic, aka cable broadband Lynda? i.e. BT Infinity or Virgin for example.

Just ordinary BT broadband flecc.......does it sound reasonable ?

It seems quite adequate to me, no problem watching iPlayer or youtube or anything and the internet seems quite fast ...but then maybe I dont know what Im missing lol

Lynda

 

[flecc]

Are you sure the test showed 21.1 download speed Lynda? Also it should show Mb/s after the speed to show what it is.

The maximum possible speed on ordinary wired BT broadband is 8 mb/sec, so if you have 21.1 mb/s, you must have fibre optic of some kind.