I'm looking for advice on what approach to take with getting a second FTTC line activated in my house. I'll try and give as much background to my broadband situation if it provides any relevance.
So when we moved in 8 years ago there were two phone lines installed, one for regular use and one for an alarm system. We deactivated the alarm system and second phone line, although the wiring for both lines still come into the house into the house via overhead poles.
The lines were connected to a cabinet a few miles away that meant broadband speeds were poor. A whopping 4Mbps on VDSL. I know both lines were connected to the same place as a few times BTOR engineers swapped the physical lines as they entered the house to see if it made any difference (which it didn't). At the time I also employed a 4G connection and managed dual WAN via my pfSense router. It gave me about 10Mbps which was useful then.
Fast forward three years and after much campaigning they installed a new cabinet on the village green outside my house about 100m away. On the day of the switch - boom - 70/19. Lovely. I think I lose a bit because the BTOR folks often complain of portions of underground cabling that goes from cabinet to the pole outside my house not being good quality (they made mention of aluminium in places and not copper and being routed in a funny way up and down the street before emerging at the base of the pole next to my house.)
A couple of years on and naturally I'm making full use of the connection. I'm after a bit more capacity. Not outright speed necessarily but the ability to route via policy on the pfSense box (in a way I used to with 4G) between two different WAN VDSL connections. So my downloads can get one and my work the other. Similarly I can make use of my Plex family members and upload to Gdrive for media to be balanced across the two connections. Now and again it snags a bit streaming out to a few clients if my RClone upload is also hammering it. I apply throttling where necessary but for £30 a month for a new connection I probably wouldn't need to. There appears to be no prospect of proper fibre coming here any time soon - we meet minimum thresholds for acceptable broadband now as far as the council and government are concerned.
So I thought about getting another VDSL line activated on the old disused phone line coming into the house. I'm quite prepared for it to be a new line install I pay for despite a line existing as I'll want the master socket put somewhere else and there is probably work to do.
I'm concerned that when they switched our one line over to the new cabinet that the unused disconnected one probably wasn't switched. Why would they if it wasn't in service? If this existing physical line is going to be connected up to the old cabinet it was on then I wouldn't bother. Another 4/1 connection isn't going to help now but another 70/19 will.
Thing is how can I know without placing an order? I'm also concerned having seen BT **** up our install years ago by disconnecting our neighbour, that an ISP might place an order on the phone number associated with our address rather than be clear it is a new line with partial infrastructure in place. I could do without any accidental down time on the existing working line. What if the new cabinet was only provisioned with enough lines for those houses that got switched over - can I get an idea of its capacity without spending money? The old cabinet was often over capacity as frequently I heard stories of people unable to have new lines installed. In fact I often wonder if the new cabinet wasn't just to provide faster speeds in the village but also to provide capacity that was sorely lacking in the location of the old cabinet miles away where they are building lots of housing.
So then I thought maybe choice of initial ISP might prove a better experience. I don't want to pay extra for A&A on a contract but maybe its necessary to make sure the order is handled well? Then I thought maybe Zen have a decent reputation and knowledgeable people to speak to on a phone as I don't think this will be achieved through filling out a web form for a 'regular' ISP. Or am I wrong in that assumption?
Any advice on how to proceed with minimal hassle gratefully appreciated as I see huge potential for **** ups.
So when we moved in 8 years ago there were two phone lines installed, one for regular use and one for an alarm system. We deactivated the alarm system and second phone line, although the wiring for both lines still come into the house into the house via overhead poles.
The lines were connected to a cabinet a few miles away that meant broadband speeds were poor. A whopping 4Mbps on VDSL. I know both lines were connected to the same place as a few times BTOR engineers swapped the physical lines as they entered the house to see if it made any difference (which it didn't). At the time I also employed a 4G connection and managed dual WAN via my pfSense router. It gave me about 10Mbps which was useful then.
Fast forward three years and after much campaigning they installed a new cabinet on the village green outside my house about 100m away. On the day of the switch - boom - 70/19. Lovely. I think I lose a bit because the BTOR folks often complain of portions of underground cabling that goes from cabinet to the pole outside my house not being good quality (they made mention of aluminium in places and not copper and being routed in a funny way up and down the street before emerging at the base of the pole next to my house.)
A couple of years on and naturally I'm making full use of the connection. I'm after a bit more capacity. Not outright speed necessarily but the ability to route via policy on the pfSense box (in a way I used to with 4G) between two different WAN VDSL connections. So my downloads can get one and my work the other. Similarly I can make use of my Plex family members and upload to Gdrive for media to be balanced across the two connections. Now and again it snags a bit streaming out to a few clients if my RClone upload is also hammering it. I apply throttling where necessary but for £30 a month for a new connection I probably wouldn't need to. There appears to be no prospect of proper fibre coming here any time soon - we meet minimum thresholds for acceptable broadband now as far as the council and government are concerned.
So I thought about getting another VDSL line activated on the old disused phone line coming into the house. I'm quite prepared for it to be a new line install I pay for despite a line existing as I'll want the master socket put somewhere else and there is probably work to do.
I'm concerned that when they switched our one line over to the new cabinet that the unused disconnected one probably wasn't switched. Why would they if it wasn't in service? If this existing physical line is going to be connected up to the old cabinet it was on then I wouldn't bother. Another 4/1 connection isn't going to help now but another 70/19 will.
Thing is how can I know without placing an order? I'm also concerned having seen BT **** up our install years ago by disconnecting our neighbour, that an ISP might place an order on the phone number associated with our address rather than be clear it is a new line with partial infrastructure in place. I could do without any accidental down time on the existing working line. What if the new cabinet was only provisioned with enough lines for those houses that got switched over - can I get an idea of its capacity without spending money? The old cabinet was often over capacity as frequently I heard stories of people unable to have new lines installed. In fact I often wonder if the new cabinet wasn't just to provide faster speeds in the village but also to provide capacity that was sorely lacking in the location of the old cabinet miles away where they are building lots of housing.
So then I thought maybe choice of initial ISP might prove a better experience. I don't want to pay extra for A&A on a contract but maybe its necessary to make sure the order is handled well? Then I thought maybe Zen have a decent reputation and knowledgeable people to speak to on a phone as I don't think this will be achieved through filling out a web form for a 'regular' ISP. Or am I wrong in that assumption?
Any advice on how to proceed with minimal hassle gratefully appreciated as I see huge potential for **** ups.
