Getting better internet in a slow area?

[Angilion]

Virgin media is an option. Mobile Internet is another option.

It would help to know the name of the area you're in.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com type your details in to there and that will tell you all the stats for your current openreach line.

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband type your post code in there to see if your area is in the scope of Openreach full fibre planning.

Also check on other sites to see if there any alt nets coming to your area, like CityFibre, or even Hyperoptic.

One minor caveat to that - people shouldn't get too optimistic about results from their postcode. I fed my postcode to a checker (that one, I think) and it said yes, everything available up to gigabit at least. Nice! But in reality that's only true for up to part way along the road I live in. Postcode checking gives you the best case scenario in that postcode, which might not be true for all premises in that postcode.

I get 10Mbps down, maybe 500Kbps up. For £37 a month. And the service is unreliable and drops out frequently. I live in a city, near the city centre. But that city is Stoke on Trent.

I could get 50Mbps for £45 a month from Virgin and that would include free weekend landline calls (which is slightly more useful than a chocolate fireguard, but only slightly). But I'd have to rearrange my emails (I make some use of my current ISP's email and that would end if I switched to Virgin) and I'd have to arrange things and inertia has stopped me doing it yet. Also, I'm not fond of Virgin. They spammed me a great deal with junk mail and that means they must be crap. Maybe one day Openreach will mount an expedition into the interior of this wretched hive of scum and villainy and bring 21st century telecoms to all of it.

I'm feeling very Monty Python about the OP's post...40Mbps? You lucky, lucky *******! I dream about having 40Mbps. When I were a lad I had to run to the ISP, 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow, whistle the upload, remember the download and whistle it to my computer when I got home.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

The best thing you could do is move your emails away from something ISP hosted to something else and then switch providers. £37/month for what I am assuming is basic (up to 40mb) FTTC is day light robbery.

Before switching to FTTP I was paying nearly half that and I’m not even paying that on FTTP for a considerably better service.

 

[JasonM]

There are things you can do to help improve your internet. One of them is using a twisted & shielded DSL modem cable, Tandy on-line sell them. For example myself using a 1 meter twisted and shielded DSL cable gave around 2 mbps over the standard / cheap DSL cable.

I did a post about various things on here, but unfortunately most people just gave me a hard time about it.

 

[GIBURROWS]

40 meg?
Stop whining!Before i got a 4G router my home internet was 4 meg down if i was lucky
40 meg?You are spoiled

It's 4MB download, coming from my parents place(3 miles away) I was on 350mb 5(FIVE) years ago!

 

[Angilion]

The best thing you could do is move your emails away from something ISP hosted to something else and then switch providers. £37/month for what I am assuming is basic (up to 40mb) FTTC is day light robbery.

Before switching to FTTP I was paying nearly half that and I’m not even paying that on FTTP for a considerably better service.

Your assumption is optimistic. Other than Virgin, the only service available here is copper all the way ADSL. Theoretical maximum 16Mbps, but that never happens. It's actually ~10Mbps. And the wiring has been there since about WW2 and is held together with tape. And no, that isn't hyperbole. The tape is clearly visible outside, with a couple of bits that have become unstuck over the years flapping jauntily in the wind.

Virgin's real price for 50Mbps is £45 a month. That's the cheapest available. Of course there are offers that are a lure to acquire new customers, but that's the real price. Which is better value than I have now, but inertia. First I'd have to get Thunderbird working with Proton mail (it doesn't) or find a new email client. Then I'd have to find everything I use my current ISP's email for and change it to one of my Proton email address. Then I'd have to arrange a visit from a Virgin installer. Then I'd have to cancel my current ISP (you can't simply switch from non-Virgin to Virgin). I'll probably get around to all that some day. Probably.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I was referring to getting another FTTC provider, FTTC is unbundled so you can go with any provider unless you are in a KCOM area. You can switch with no real downtime and no visit with about 20 mins of effort. That said I’d wait until January as most seem to have jacked their prices ready for the January ‘sale’.

Like I said £37/month for the lower tier FTTC is daylight robbery.

That doesn’t get you past the whole ISP email trauma. But at the end of the day, being tied to an ISP for something as essential as email in the U.K. where you can basically switch to a range of providers at a whim isn’t a great place to be. Unless it was business critical then I would migrate it to a 3rd party provider regardless.

 

[Angilion]

I was referring to getting another FTTC provider, FTTC is unbundled so you can go with any provider unless you are in a KCOM area. You can switch with no real downtime and no visit with about 20 mins of effort. That said I’d wait until January as most seem to have jacked their prices ready for the January ‘sale’.

Like I said £37/month for the lower tier FTTC is daylight robbery.

Yes, I could lock myself into an equally slow and crap service (that's a result of the telecoms infrastructure here, nothing to do with any ISP) from another ISP for 12-18 months and get a lower price for those 12-18 months and then it would go up a lot. But I could do the same with my current provider too. Either way, I might save myself maybe as much as £15 a month in exchange for giving up my option of choosing to move to another ISP (and faffing about with my email if I took your suggestion and locked myself to an equally slow and crap service from a different ISP). Not a no-brainer. Not a bad idea, but not a no-brainer. If I change ISPs, it would make more sense for me to go to Virgin and get much faster speeds for not much more money.

That doesn’t get you past the whole ISP email trauma. But at the end of the day, being tied to an ISP for something as essential as email in the U.K. where you can basically switch to a range of providers at a whim isn’t a great place to be. Unless it was business critical then I would migrate it to a 3rd party provider regardless.

I should. I hardly use my ISP's email addresses. A couple of things, maybe. Nothing important. Anything important is using my Proton email addresses. Some stuff is still using an AOL address from way back when, but that's not tied to an ISP either.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Let me get this straight, you make a long 'woe me my interment is worse than the OP's and I have to pay through the nose for it' post and then not be willing to do the two basic things to at least deal with one of the two issues that is wrong with the service (the price).

I think I'll bow out there as you clearly know what you are doing but just want to have a whinge.

 

[Caged]

I'd have to rearrange my emails (I make some use of my current ISP's email and that would end if I switched to Virgin) and I'd have to arrange things and inertia has stopped me doing it yet.

I hardly use my ISP's email addresses. A couple of things, maybe. Nothing important.

I'm struggling with this a bit. Either the email stuff is a barrier or it isn't, and the sooner you start the process of moving away from an ISP-provided account the quicker you can get it over with. In the meantime you can recontract with your current provider to reduce the ongoing costs, since you need to keep them around for the email anyway.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Oof. Strange thread!

 

[GIBURROWS]

Oof. Strange thread!

I'm trying to get faster Internet to help keep my electricity bills at a normal level, my area is quite built up so 40mb seems like 2012 not 2021 is that so strange?

 

[gpuerrilla]

Yes, chiefly because it has tangented off about ISP emails.. and personally back in 2000-2005 used to be on a T1, then virgin 10Mb and now I have gone back in time to a rural location that delivers a whopping 5Mb over twisted copper pair so resorted to 4G for a chance of something better. If your complaining about 40Mb down being slow think about some of us out there with worse.

I feel your pain considering your location it should be avoidable.

Where I am the fibre has been rolled out very recent, however its battling now to get it setup as apparently my dwelling 'missed the funding' which is ironic as my BIL further up the lane some 200m has it installed. The pursuit continues..

 

[Yaayuh!]

I'm on 30mb here and unlikely to get anything faster for some years yet.

However, we can now get 5G! The mast is about 200m away with clear sight and I can get 250mb+ (highest i've seen it is just over 400mb) on my phone. So I will be looking at a way to utilise 5G for mass bandwidth requirement and my normal connection for gaming/streaming.

 

[WJA96]

That assumes the OP is ‘rural’, commercially unviable and BT are not just going to build it anyway in due course.

Business park, 1000 houses and a university doesn’t sound particularly rural or somewhere that is commercially unviable for a fibre roll out.

The Uni will have one or more leased lines. Potentially the business park will too. 1000 houses isn't a huge number in the overall scheme of things.

 

[WJA96]

I'm trying to get faster Internet to help keep my electricity bills at a normal level, my area is quite built up so 40mb seems like 2012 not 2021 is that so strange?

How will faster internet help your electricity bill? Genuinely interested.

 

[john_smith]

lol. I laughed at that too.

I guess, turn on computers - download stuff. At the momet it takes an hour. Faster internet means it might take 15 mins. So you're saving 45mins of electric per session?

 

[gpuerrilla]

How will faster internet help your electricity bill? Genuinely interested.

Like I said this thread was strange, he seemed to think it was not!


ed - before I forget
@WJA96 I tinkered with the queuing in RouterOS, from your experience any advice on setting up that from your perspective?

Currently have simple queues.

 

[Scottland]

Stick your post code in here:
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when-building-ultrafast-full-fibre-broadband

You probably are already in the fibre rollout plans, but just not yet or it's being worked on near you and hasn't got to you yet. We're pretty rural and have just got FTTP, I doubt we'd be considered 'commercially viable' but that isn't the key driving force. Openreach have committed to 95% coverage or something, it's just a question of when not if. Low hanging fruit is being dealt with first, then the tricker less dense areas are being done after as it takes longer and costs more.

 

[edscdk]

I'm trying to get faster Internet to help keep my electricity bills at a normal level, my area is quite built up so 40mb seems like 2012 not 2021 is that so strange?

That's got to be the worst reason to want faster Internet I have ever seen..

There are many other ways to save a few pence a year..

Better off start a thread asking about money saving ideas..

Reduced to clear is my thing I got 15 large chickens from aldi for £2 each, and 4x quarter price lamb joints last week

 

[edscdk]

lol. I laughed at that too.

I guess, turn on computers - download stuff. At the momet it takes an hour. Faster internet means it might take 15 mins. So you're saving 45mins of electric per session?

If he saves 16 hours a year that's about a £0.60p saving

Driving a little more carefully would save many times that on fuel