BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

[Vertigo]

Check if you can order it - I'm in Solihull and at the end of October I still had no FTTP option.

Yesterday I saw a BT guy working on the manhole cover on the road so I checked again - and saw all the FTTP options were available. Ordered the 900Mb and its being installed 4th December.

Don't wait for an email telling you its now available - I've not had one.

I do check regularly but not available for me, nor my parents' address down the road.

It is available at our office address in Cranmore so yes, at least they're rolling it out gradually rather than waiting until the whole of Solihull/Shirley is done but there's just no way of knowing when they'll get to me.

 

[Destination]

We have just been offered the upgrade to the 300 on bt.
I am wondering if they will expect to have a new hub soon. Its been 2 years since their last one launched and I know they are doing some form of new equipment trial, but that might be 4g5g in case your main goes down.

Anyone have info?
Worth waiting 6 months to see?

 

[spoffle]

I know it's completely anecdotal but amongst our user base of 500+ who are WFH currently, there is definitely a correlation of packet loss and high latency to people using VM connections.

Cough Puma 6 cough.

It's not anecdotal. The software mitigations were not complete fixes for the issues. It seems to be worse for some than others though. For me, my Virgin connection and Hub 3 were horrible. Moving to BT FTTP fixed it entirely.

 

[spoffle]

I can throw myself into that mix as well, currenly having an absolute nightmare with VM and latency. It was seemingly fixed for a day, then fell flat on its face almost immediately after, and has been since I moved into my new house in mid September.

Can also confirm their CS is trash. The only time I got to speak to someone with any sense of intelligence was when I went down the "thinking of leaving" route

I wanted to switch up and go with Zen but they can only offer me ~80mbps due to capacity in the box. BT on the other hand are offering 250mbps, but not sure if it's worth the risk to go with BT, only to have them basically give me the same issues that I had with Virgin, and no way out of the contract because it'll be issues with latency and not speed.

I'm with BT. If their offering is real full fibre (FTTP) I'd go for it. I was with Virgin, I had the same issues as you. I'm with BT now and I've had no issues and 100% uptime over about 15 months or so.

 

[dav3evans]

I'm with BT. If their offering is real full fibre (FTTP) I'd go for it. I was with Virgin, I had the same issues as you. I'm with BT now and I've had no issues and 100% uptime over about 15 months or so.

They aren't offering FTTP for my house yet, just to the cabinet. I checked and the install cost of FTTP from a different provider was £5700+VAT, which is too rich for my blood at the moment. In the mean time I am moving over to BT's Fibre 250 as of November 23rd so I can see how that goes. This past week has been an absolute mess, video calls failing for work during the day and gaming is impossible at night. Fingers crossed it improves with BT, especially seeing as Virgin are setting the bar so low at the moment!

 

[Caged]

So that's G.fast you're moving to then.

What was the provider offering FTTP for £5700?

 

[dav3evans]

It came through via Cerberus Networks, although in the quote it states that it's based on charges from BT, so unsure if there's a premium or something on top as well. I'll be honest I didn't realise it was something that would cost so much money, but at the same time, if they're digging the road up etc... I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Edit: I should note this is only estimated. They'd need me to pay £250+ vat to come out and actually check whether it's even possible, and that is non refundable.

 

[Caged]

Ah so an FTTPoD estimate then, that sounds quite cheap (for FTTPoD) but you have the higher monthly charges on top.

 

[dav3evans]

Yeah, I think I just misunderstood what I was asking for when I initially put the quote request in, in a desperate attempt to find something that didn't suck so bad Hopefully full fibre will be offered via BT soon and the costs will be more on the level that I'm willing to pay

 

[Caged]

Interesting that Virgin is awful in Loughborough still. Which bit of the town are you in (vaguely)?

 

[dav3evans]

Interesting that Virgin is awful in Loughborough still. Which bit of the town are you in (vaguely)?

Just off Forest Road, about a 15 minute walk from the town centre. Sounds like you've had first hand experience of what I'm currently whining about, or perhaps someone you know did?

 

[Caged]

I know someone on Holt Drive on VM and it's bad there, but the FTTC at that location is ~20Mbps and there's nothing else available. I do some work for a business with a couple of units on the estate where B&Q is and they ended up going with leased lines because the broadband provision is so poor.

It's alright Virgin boosting speeds to a headline figure of 1Gbps but if the network is as poorly managed as theirs seems to be, it doesn't mean anything.

 

[Ayahuasca]

I've noticed a company called Netomnia are laying fibre in another town close to me now. So that's Openreach FTTP in one of the three towns that surround mine, YouFibre in another and then Netomnia in the third. Why did I have to get stuck with plain old Virgin this year

 

[dav3evans]

I know someone on Holt Drive on VM and it's bad there, but the FTTC at that location is ~20Mbps and there's nothing else available. I do some work for a business with a couple of units on the estate where B&Q is and they ended up going with leased lines because the broadband provision is so poor.

It's alright Virgin boosting speeds to a headline figure of 1Gbps but if the network is as poorly managed as theirs seems to be, it doesn't mean anything.

Ah yeah I know where that is, about another 10 mins on from me. Hopefully the FTTC availability in my area isn't hammered too badly and I can get back to my regularly scheduled entertainment! *prays to the internet gods*

 

[Terrier_Jimlad]

Super happy with my G.Fast install, Openreach engineer was a legend and moved my master socket around the other side of the house for me free of charge too - just kept him topped up with tea and biccies

Went for the Fibre 150 package in the end for £29.99 (BLC discount) and getting a solid 140-150Mbps - using an MT992 modem hooked up to my UniFi USG as I didn't want to use the new BT Smarthub 2.

I've lost raw download speed leaving Virgin Media, but I've gone from a rare day like this (good day)



and a regular day in my area due to congestion since Gig1 landed



To this lovely quality connection (3 days in)



Happy household again

 

[dav3evans]

That middle one is basically a mirror image of my situation right now, hopefully I have a similar experience on the 23rd. Biccies are well stocked and ready to go!

 

[Terrier_Jimlad]

It's been on-going for 8 weeks now, VM promise a fix, nothing materialises, had been solid for 3 years and then suddenly after 5pm is unusable - didnt take them to the new house as it was close to the cab so went with G.Fast, no regrets so far

 

[SupraWez]

I would have a Zen 40-60mb connection over a VM 100+mb connection every-time.

As mentioned above, WFH users with VM are constantly having connectivity / reliability issues.

 

[ChrisD.]

It's been on-going for 8 weeks now, VM promise a fix, nothing materialises

That's their usual game. They'll give you a discount in the hope you don't take it further and see out your contract.

 

[bcjames]

We have recently moved house, moving our BT FTTC package with us, but having passed the activation date we still have no broadband, and the only real info I've been given is someone will phone me at the end of this month. They've sent a 4g mini hub, but the 4g signal isn't great so it looks like we are without broadband for a while yet.

BT said it's an issue with the supplier (I assume that's Open Reach they are referring to) and their ability to connect us to the cabinet.