I was just thinking the other day that I have been living in this house for eight years now and my PC's and network have significantly changed since I moved in, but the one thing that hasn't is my Broadband. It strikes me as terrible that there have been no improvements in eight years. What is the UK like compared to the rest of the world? It seems to me like good old BT is remarkably slow in updating things. Is that the case or just me whining? What is the situation in the UK? We are now talking about 2.5g becoming common in new hardware yet still no upgrades to broadband. I mean I know the next step is fiber to the premises, but when the heck is that going to be fully rolled out? BT just seem to make excuses all the time.
Broadband in the UK
- Thread starter pp111
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Basically if you live rurally then it's likely to be a very long time to get connected. If you don't live far from a major city/town, you should already be on 80/20 minimum, with 1gbps links starting to become much more widely available.
That's quite embarrassing really.
We're a rather small country in comparison to some of the countries above us, and some of those are probably only just on the verge of being a developed nation.
It is, isn't it? I just don't understand why BT are so slow.
Mind I have always been very critical of the government in the UK with their attitude towards anything "sciencey". We have some really good technical people in this country but they are consistently let down by poor management and the inept government. We could be a world leader but instead we trail behind all the time. Mind you I have always though BT is a really bad company. They are lazy and greedy. They really need some decent competition to liven them up a bit.
It's not strictly speaking BTs job to upgrade everybody to faster broadband, they just react to market conditions and if nobody else is threatening them, then there's nothing to react to. Any provider could at any point in the past decade have gone flat-out on putting their own network together, they just didn't.
There are legitimate complaints about BT/Openreach, they were far too slow to realise FTTP was how things had to be, but we also have house builders who put absolutely no thought into Internet provision in new properties when FTTP would have involved no additional cost to them, and planning laws that didn't mean they had to take notice. It was quite laughable when companies like Sky who had built no network of their own and weren't offering any services on Openreach FTTP were complaining about BT holding the country back, that's just politicking at that point.
A lot of the issues BT have now are due to their heavily regulated status - I'm sure they'd like to withdraw ADSL, FTTC and G.fast from sale where FTTP exists so that they get a return on their investment quicker, but they aren't allowed to do that yet. While I'm ranting - Virgin Media Gig1 has an upload speed of 52Mbps and new areas are converted from fibre to DOCSIS at the outside of people's houses so some poor quality cable modem can still function, which is frankly a joke.
I think the best approach to this would have been duct networks owned by local authorities that all providers can rent access to, but who was going to advocate for public spending a decade ago.
There are legitimate complaints about BT/Openreach, they were far too slow to realise FTTP was how things had to be, but we also have house builders who put absolutely no thought into Internet provision in new properties when FTTP would have involved no additional cost to them, and planning laws that didn't mean they had to take notice. It was quite laughable when companies like Sky who had built no network of their own and weren't offering any services on Openreach FTTP were complaining about BT holding the country back, that's just politicking at that point.
A lot of the issues BT have now are due to their heavily regulated status - I'm sure they'd like to withdraw ADSL, FTTC and G.fast from sale where FTTP exists so that they get a return on their investment quicker, but they aren't allowed to do that yet. While I'm ranting - Virgin Media Gig1 has an upload speed of 52Mbps and new areas are converted from fibre to DOCSIS at the outside of people's houses so some poor quality cable modem can still function, which is frankly a joke.
I think the best approach to this would have been duct networks owned by local authorities that all providers can rent access to, but who was going to advocate for public spending a decade ago.
Soldato
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I may be way off the mark here but didn't the GOVT prevent BT from rolling out fiber when the cable co's burst onto the scene in the 90's?
edit:- https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784
Thought i'd read it somewhere.
The reality is BT have done well to get 80Mbps using FTTC. Parts of their network dates back to the 50's, contains aluminium cabling and various grades of deteriorating copper.
Maggie should have given them the green light in the 90's.
edit:- https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784
Thought i'd read it somewhere.
The reality is BT have done well to get 80Mbps using FTTC. Parts of their network dates back to the 50's, contains aluminium cabling and various grades of deteriorating copper.
Maggie should have given them the green light in the 90's.
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I'm not sure how much you can trust those results
So those tiny countries could have 300 users testing their very speedy broadband connections and everyone else is on dial-up and never bothers to test their speed. And even if it was representative of all the users in the UK, how many people just on these forums could have 900/110Mbps from BT FTTP but are still on 40/10Mbps because actually, for the price difference, they don't actually see any need? My entire street (48 houses) can get 900/110mbps but according to the BT engineer that put ours in, we were the first and no-one else had ordered it. So I'm not convinced that the UK is as awful as the placing in these rankings would suggest.
Ookla Website said:
So those tiny countries could have 300 users testing their very speedy broadband connections and everyone else is on dial-up and never bothers to test their speed. And even if it was representative of all the users in the UK, how many people just on these forums could have 900/110Mbps from BT FTTP but are still on 40/10Mbps because actually, for the price difference, they don't actually see any need? My entire street (48 houses) can get 900/110mbps but according to the BT engineer that put ours in, we were the first and no-one else had ordered it. So I'm not convinced that the UK is as awful as the placing in these rankings would suggest.
It’s one of those once you have enough to meet your needs, going faster has very little benefit.
Most people don’t even bother to shop around, they just have internet from BT because that’s all they know exists. It also doesn’t help that they can market FTTC as ‘fibre’, now proper fibre is rolling out they have no idea what to call it that doesn’t rubbish FTTC.
Most people don’t even bother to shop around, they just have internet from BT because that’s all they know exists. It also doesn’t help that they can market FTTC as ‘fibre’, now proper fibre is rolling out they have no idea what to call it that doesn’t rubbish FTTC.
Soldato
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It came to my attention during lockdown how many people rely on tethering and hotspots these days - they don't have a fixed line connection.
We sent staff home who then complained their connection was painfully slow.
90% were on Three tethering.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/so-predictable.18897416/#post-33899193
This seems strangely familiar. A claimed 25% (yes, that sadly includes over build) of UK premises have gigabit availability, realistically unless you live in an areas that has actively leveraged the available grant schemes and ideally the local authority has partnered with the nominated supplier to roll them out, or an urban area/new build, you probably won’t notice.
This seems strangely familiar. A claimed 25% (yes, that sadly includes over build) of UK premises have gigabit availability, realistically unless you live in an areas that has actively leveraged the available grant schemes and ideally the local authority has partnered with the nominated supplier to roll them out, or an urban area/new build, you probably won’t notice.
That's a bit of a strange one lol, why was that?
When we all had to start WFH, of 150+ staff only 1 of my colleagues didn't have fixed internet at home.
Edit: Or is it a heavy exaggeration? Seems bizarre 90% of your work are even on Three, let alone all tether and have no fixed line lol.
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Soldato
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No No No, 90% of the staff tethering and having issues were on Three.
I think we had around 15 without a fixed line connection.
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Luckily, in Stoke-on-Trent, we're having a city wide fibre network installed; due for completion in May 2021. I should be able to order gigabit by the end of the year.
The issue here isn’t one of your personal proximity - though you may find you get a cheap deal of FTTPoD if you are that close. New builds get it because the developer is usually required to depending on the size of the development. Provisioning your average duct fed estate can be a ball ache as they are a natural void that gets filled by water and tree roots etc. and OR have a nasty habit of slapping no climb orders on old poles which requires a cherry picker to be used. What you think of as throwing a bit of fibre down where the copper currently is, often isn’t quite as easy as it should be.
It’s not a new problem, my old business used to share a site with a OR exchange and my line was direct to the exchange, FTTC came along and other properties nearby were able to get it no problem at all, but not us, as we lacked the ‘C’ in FTTC and at the time OR had no process to deal with migrating DTE lines or will to build a cab for our site or provision us from one further away.
Soldato
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I live on a modernish street, completed in 2015. 85 houses. The bottom half of the street closest the FTTC cab are on BT FTTP.
35 homes at the top of the street are on FTTC.
It's crazy. Luckily I get full sync on FTTC but 100 and 300 would be nice.
35 homes at the top of the street are on FTTC.
It's crazy. Luckily I get full sync on FTTC but 100 and 300 would be nice.
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We live very rural on a farm yet have BT FTTP. Many rural areas have got FTTP well before the towns and cities due to the BDUK programs; problem with the BDUK programs it was all dependent on how competent your county council was e.g. North Yorkshire probably are going to get to 100% FTTP faster than anywhere, while a few counties haven't even completed BDUK phase 1 yet.