BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

Jez

Jez

Caporegime
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Here's a random question. The first time I encountered a microfilter was when ADSL came along, and I can't find any reference to them before this time. If there was never a larger version of a filter, why are microfilters called 'micro'?
Before micro filters, the filter was located inside an engineer only install master socket adapter. This persisted for some time after ADSL was launched. Micro filter was just a buzz word as the new plug in filters were small and easy to install. I guess they actually are smaller than the original faceplate filters.
 
Soldato
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So there is a bunch of us noticing this starting from about xmas time last year. BT Infinity FTTC. Loading any kind of streaming service is spiking pings. So say the other half is using Netflix. Online gaming becomes impossible. In the past I could run multiple twitch streams on in the background without issue. Now when doing a simple ping test to say multiplay.co.uk, I can see large ping spikes every 2nd or 3rd ping.

Now i've been able to work around this by purchasing 3rd party router/modem and limiting the bandwidth on the other devices that would be streaming Netflix and limiting the amount of tcp and udp connections they can have. Just wondering if in the know from maybe a BT Engineer or w/e knows why this problem has started in the last few months?
 
Man of Honour
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Not seen that yet myself but the older modems I believe had upstream QoS live which actually helped to keep stuff from impacting online gaming too much I wonder if they've pushed a firmware update that changes something. Lots of connections cycling can be killer on latency even with traffic management but doing some quick tests I'm not seeing stuff like Netflix use any more than around 8 connections and no high frequency cycling.

Here's a random question. The first time I encountered a microfilter was when ADSL came along, and I can't find any reference to them before this time. If there was never a larger version of a filter, why are microfilters called 'micro'?

I have no idea where the name comes from but it is possible it is because most of the filtered faceplates and the original dongles that I believe is where the microfilter name first started being used are a fairly simplified version of the filter needed being often a single capacitor LC filter with some basic impedance matching versus a more complex circuit with better tolerance/smarter impedance design and maybe band pass filters to not only remove voice frequencies from the digital side but also better attenuate frequencies outside the normal range used for DSL.
 
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Soldato
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anyone know anything about BT whole home wifi? might get it with my FTTP - does it cause any delays or latency? thanks

Wi-fi is subject to greater latency than wired, adding an extra hop of Wi-fi will add more latency again, depending on what you are doing, that may or may not be an issue for you.
 
Soldato
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Realistically assuming your WIFI is stable and not congested it adds at most a few ms over hardwired these days. What's most important is having a decent access point putting out a strong signal on a channel not occupied by someone else.

So unless your actually a 'pro gamer' playing CS:GO or some other twitch shooter at the highest level it's really not that relevant. In fact you will likely be able to improve your latency more by using a high refresh rate display. You also can't really do 'competitive gaming' occasionally, by the nature of it being only occasionally you aren't 'competitive'... If you are using a console then don't worry about it, your TV likely has horrendous input lag anyway.

Adding a few ms latency to pretty much all other use cases has next to no measurable impact on the experience so I'm not really sure what you mean by the second part.
 
Soldato
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Having been on VM cable for 15+ years we're moving and i'm going to have to give up my beloved 350Mbps VM internet connection. The place we're moving to has FTTC although as we'll be some distance away online speed estimators reckon we'll get "Typical download speed of 57Mbps, typical upload speed of 18.7Mbps". It's along time since I was on non cable so my memory is somehwat vague but assuming all providers go over Openreach LLU infrastructure I assume speed/contention/congestion etc locally is the same across all suppliers. That given is there any recommendation currently on who is best for gaming/work etc where low contention, good back end connections and bandwidth will help assuming within reason cost isn't a primary concern? Am I right in thinking once you get beyond the FTTC they all share, peering arrangements and ISP infrastructure can vary somewhat still and effect perfomance/ping/packet loss etc? Any thoughts?
 
Soldato
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If you are on FTTC then all of the mainstream providers are all much of a muchness. They are all fine until something goes wrong at which point they are all diabolical to deal with as they are the middle person between you and openreach.

Just buy based on price, cash back (Quidco) and added value (included equipment, bt sport, cheaper phone sims, etc).

On the upside the 57mbps should be pretty consistent and you shouldn’t really be experiencing slowdowns at peek times like you can on virgin.
 
Soldato
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For the most part
Having been on VM cable for 15+ years we're moving and i'm going to have to give up my beloved 350Mbps VM internet connection. The place we're moving to has FTTC although as we'll be some distance away online speed estimators reckon we'll get "Typical download speed of 57Mbps, typical upload speed of 18.7Mbps". It's along time since I was on non cable so my memory is somehwat vague but assuming all providers go over Openreach LLU infrastructure I assume speed/contention/congestion etc locally is the same across all suppliers. That given is there any recommendation currently on who is best for gaming/work etc where low contention, good back end connections and bandwidth will help assuming within reason cost isn't a primary concern? Am I right in thinking once you get beyond the FTTC they all share, peering arrangements and ISP infrastructure can vary somewhat still and effect perfomance/ping/packet loss etc? Any thoughts?

For the most part, BT/Plusnet/Sky and alternate between them combining incentives and cash back against retention offers. Sky tend to resist handing over your data more than most and UK based CS/faults, same with PN (owned by BT), BT only if you pay for VIP (the web chat people refuse to deal with me).
 
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Soldato
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BT aren’t particularly fond of discounting significantly from my personal experience, you usually get a better deal with moving to PN/Sky using the new customer offers combined with the Quidco/TCB offers.
 
Soldato
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BT are killing me on prices, so going to switch to sky.

Just to check, it's all the same right? I get max sync and stable line on bt, I'll get the same on sky as it's all openreach anyway? Will it still use the openreach 3db profile that I'm on now?
 
Soldato
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BT are killing me on prices, so going to switch to sky.

Just to check, it's all the same right? I get max sync and stable line on bt, I'll get the same on sky as it's all openreach anyway? Will it still use the openreach 3db profile that I'm on now?

You’ll see a minor difference based on hardware at your end, but to all intents it will be the same if you have the same profile with two ISP’s. The 3db I wouldn’t like to comment on, the last report that I read suggested everything gets reset DLM wise.
 
Soldato
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Why sky if price is the main motivator? They are likely more than other ISPs like plus.net or talk talk?

I wouldn’t expect any better service from sky compared to any of the others.
 
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