Never been on ADSL, how does this work?

[Pulseammo]

I'm due to move house soon, the area is a small town.

When looking at the house I took a cursory glance at broadband speed and saw that 63mb was available... super I thought, as long as it's 50+ that's fine.

Now that I go to do actual comparisons with providers (I've checked, now, plusnet, bt, sky) they all estimate between 20 - 26mb with an 18mb minimum.

How accurate are these estimates? Can I expect 26mb or is that just a honeypot and 18mb will be it?

I've been on VM since they were NTL around 2000, and I've always received the headline speed, and not had to deal with any of this ADSL 63mb "fibre" false advertising...

Side question, if 18mb is the whack, does anyone here have 2 DSL lines either load balanced, bonded, or bonded via some kind of VPN?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Armageus]

It will likely be 22Mb or thereabouts, but will vary up and down over time.

My line is very similar to that, in my case due to line length and poor quality lines that seem to be affected by the weather.


Load balancing or bonding another line is a bit counter intuitive, as adding an additional line may reduce your speed further due to contention and additional crosstalk.

You might be better looking at 4g/5g and load balancing that for download speed, leaving the vdsl for latency sensitive or to minimise data usage on the mobile SIM.


Depending on the age of the master socket, replacing that with the latest faceplate and ensuring the wiring is correctly terminated may make a small difference, as can using a shorter/higher quality DSL lead than isps normally provide.

 

[ChrisD.]

Bank on 18 Mbps and anything more is a bonus. Have you looked at alt-net providers? Check https://bidb.uk although I haven't worked out yet just how accurate it is, but for the few houses I have tried it is.

 

[Caged]

Do you mean ADSL or do you mean FTTC (VDSL)?

 

[Pulseammo]

Thank you all for the help!

Load balancing or bonding another line is a bit counter intuitive, as adding an additional line may reduce your speed further due to contention and additional crosstalk.

That's something I hadn't even considered, thanks for bringing that up. I had hoped to use something like this: https://www.openmptcprouter.com if the speed wasn't sufficient, but if having more than one line degrades the others then that one is out the window!

Bank on 18 Mbps and anything more is a bonus. Have you looked at alt-net providers? Check https://bidb.uk although I haven't worked out yet just how accurate it is, but for the few houses I have tried it is.

I've checked that map and there's no other providers sadly. If it really did turn out to be insufficient then I would consider starlink if it was vital but the cost of that is pretty steep. It seems like the DSL services are around £20p/m hence I thought I may bond/balance 2.

Openreach seems to say that the exchange or town or something is to be upgraded to full fibre between 2022 - 2026? Not sure if that means every house connected to the exchange will receive it, or if I could still end up in a deadspot?

Do you mean ADSL or do you mean FTTC (VDSL)?

This just goes to show how little I know about DSL! The exchange says:

ADSL:            Yes
SDSL:            No
LLU services:    Yes
Cable:           No
Wireless:        No

ADSL status:        Enabled as of 08/12/2004
ADSL Max status:    Enabled as of 31/03/2006
SDSL status:        Not available
21CN WBC status:    Enabled
FTTC status:        Available in some areas
FTTP status:        Available in some areas

There's very few LLU providers (sky and talk talk)... is LLU still relevant?
(Also the FTTP availability is a tiny cluster of houses at the opposite end of the town).

 

[ChrisD.]

I've checked that map and there's no other providers sadly. If it really did turn out to be insufficient then I would consider starlink if it was vital but the cost of that is pretty steep. It seems like the DSL services are around £20p/m hence I thought I may bond/balance 2.

Openreach seems to say that the exchange or town or something is to be upgraded to full fibre between 2022 - 2026? Not sure if that means every house connected to the exchange will receive it, or if I could still end up in a deadspot?

Check the property on https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL.

Unless the house is in the sticks, then it should end up with FTTP.

 

[Pulseammo]

Check the property on https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL.

Unless the house is in the sticks, then it should end up with FTTP.

That's useful, it shows the line speeds similar to what the providers quote pages have been saying - between 28.5mb and 18.5mb if the line is "impacted" otherwise, 29mb - 22mb.

Don't see a date on there for FTTP, but it does have "FTTP on Demand" available... saw that mentioned in another thread and also that it was expensive... think I saw about £300pm?? Edit: (Oh that might be yearly actually...) I'm guessing if it can have FTTPoD then perhaps it will get it when it finally rolls out en masse?

Also says the exchange is not a priority exchange for FTTP though.

 

[ChrisD.]

FTTPoD is where you pay Openreach to put in fibre, costs are typically in the thousands and then you are stuck on the higher price per month for the first part of the contract term with the chosen ISP. After that is up, you can go with any provider. You can get a free 'desktop' quote which from experience is usually no where near what the official Openreach survey is, but that would cost you £250 + VAT to get done. The install cost can be shared with any neighbours who would also be upgraded to FTTP but they have obligation to pay anything.

Openreach have a site where you can check post codes for 'native' FTTP.

 

[arknor]

I'm due to move house soon, the area is a small town.

When looking at the house I took a cursory glance at broadband speed and saw that 63mb was available... super I thought, as long as it's 50+ that's fine.

Now that I go to do actual comparisons with providers (I've checked, now, plusnet, bt, sky) they all estimate between 20 - 26mb with an 18mb minimum.

How accurate are these estimates? Can I expect 26mb or is that just a honeypot and 18mb will be it?

I've been on VM since they were NTL around 2000, and I've always received the headline speed, and not had to deal with any of this ADSL 63mb "fibre" false advertising...

Side question, if 18mb is the whack, does anyone here have 2 DSL lines either load balanced, bonded, or bonded via some kind of VPN?

Thanks for any help!

I switched from Virgin 200mb recently to BT fibre2.

on the address checks it said I would only be able to get 7-14mb or whatever it was and that's all I could book myself on the BT website.
I talked to bt web chat and the guy said I could get 63mb... address checkers aren't worth poop.

Here's what I actually get

BT website says I should be getting

Normal available speeds
Your normal available download speed will be between 57-73 Mbps
Your normal available upload speed will be between 17-18 Mbps

Your minimum guaranteed download speed will be 52 Mbps

I've never connected at below 71mb and my ping to bbc and google is 13ms, it was 25ms when I first got it installed but they adjust the line over a week and it slowly kept getting lower and lower until it settled at 13ms


there's a 14day cooling off period anyway with broadband so just cancel if it's crap

 

[Rroff]

Something I posted in another thread recently but if moving into a new place, especially in a rural area with a big estimate range, check the internal wiring - it was an absolute mess when we first moved in where I'm living now bringing the downstream speed to half what it should be and upstream 1/5th.

 

[Caged]

This just goes to show how little I know about DSL! The exchange says:

ADSL:            Yes
SDSL:            No
LLU services:    Yes
Cable:           No
Wireless:        No

ADSL status:        Enabled as of 08/12/2004
ADSL Max status:    Enabled as of 31/03/2006
SDSL status:        Not available
21CN WBC status:    Enabled
FTTC status:        Available in some areas
FTTP status:        Available in some areas

There's very few LLU providers (sky and talk talk)... is LLU still relevant?
(Also the FTTP availability is a tiny cluster of houses at the opposite end of the town).

Don't use the SamKnows checker, it's years out of date. I wish they'd just delete it at this point as it does more harm than good.

 

[Pulseammo]

on the address checks it said I would only be able to get 7-14mb or whatever it was and that's all I could book myself on the BT website.
I talked to bt web chat and the guy said I could get 63mb... address checkers aren't worth poop.

I think I'll give that a go to see if it turns up any better news.

I have noticed one company called "onestream" are estimating 55mb, but again with 18mb minimum. I've never heard of them, and after cashback their service is impossibly cheap, but their reviews on trustpilot (botfarm reviews? ) seem good enough, and claim to have uk support. Anyone had experience with them?

 

[Pulseammo]

Something I posted in another thread recently but if moving into a new place, especially in a rural area with a big estimate range, check the internal wiring - it was an absolute mess when we first moved in where I'm living now bringing the downstream speed to half what it should be and upstream 1/5th.

It's an 80s built house so I'm not expecting the wiring to be entirely terrible, but it's something I'll definitely check out.