BT FTTC

leigh_boy

leigh_boy

leigh_boy

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Joined
12 Sep 2012
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East Sussex
Iv had enough of waiting for O2 to get there act together on the FTTC side so i came out of contract early and before i know it i with BT i called sky but they cant give me the same speeds BT can and it worked out £4 more.
So my questions are how good really is their broadband?

stability?
throttling?
blocking website / actively ceasing accounts for torrents



i was going to go with sky but they were rude im i know they dont let you use your own routers
 
All speeds are estimated,& stability, speed are all depends on quality of your line, & distance to your green cabinet, usually speeds are rather conservative.

And I definitively prefer Sky to BT based on my personnel experience.

You can use your own router with Sky,but you won't get any help from support if you're not using the Sky supplied router.
Isn't too difficult finding out your Sky user name & password to use in your preferred kit..
 
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Nightglow said:
All speeds are estimated,& stability, speed are all depends on quality of your line, & distance to your green cabinet, usually speeds are rather conservative.

And I definitively prefer Sky to BT based on my personnel experience.

You can use your own router with Sky,but you won't get any help from support if you're not using the Sky supplied router.
Isn't too difficult finding out your Sky user name & password to use in your preferred kit..
Click to expand...
Used sky before and got the username from the old netegear routers from downloading the config and loking for the username and password in a txt file. that account actually got closed because of using a different router,, becuase the policy is you must use their kit.


i have never been with bt but looks like there offering the best atm i dont mind the trottling of p2p as i dont use it that much and when i do its only at night when im a sleep
 
PlusNet if you can get it, with their new unlimited package now being released today, cheaper than both Sky and BT and first 6 months half price for the fibre. 18 month contract though.
 
what are plusnet like? i have an order in with bt for their fttc infinity 2 package which is like £36 a month on 18 month contract and a quick look plusnet is £10 cheaper and estimates the same speeds.....

good? bad? also what's up with their router options o.O ?


You’ll need a modem or router to access the internet through your phone line. If you’ve got one but you’re not sure if it’s compatible, contact the manufacturer for settings and troubleshooting.


Easy setup wireless router
FREE
(exc £5.99 p&p)
Get the latest wireless-N technology router, worth £40
Don't have wireless? It also has 4 Ethernet ports for wired connections

Fibre Extension Kit
With fibre broadband your router needs to plug directly into your telephone master socket, not a telephone extension socket.
The Data Extension Kit provides a wired connection between your master socket and your router.
Our engineer will fit the cable during your fibre installation, allowing your hardware to be located up to 30 metres away from your master socket.
Click to expand...

this has confused me a bit? is the fiber extension kit just a phone cable extension to the modem? and what will they supply? as it sounds like a modem/router combo rather than two separate devices??? i already have a router i want to use. all the ones on the "compatible" list are adsl modem/routers...... is that just not updated yet or what? think i'll give them a call tomorrow..... as if it's going to be £100 less for the 18 month contract for exactly the same from BT then i'd rather that to be fair....

also any idea what their installation times are like cos with bt i have to wait till the 22nd on jan :p
 
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When it comes to throttling, traffic shaping, and "unlimited" not actually being unlimited... Who's the best out of BT Home / BT Business / Plusnet / Sky / EE / Zen / Eclipse / Aquiss / etc ?



Sasso said:
also any idea what their installation times are like cos with bt i have to wait till the 22nd on jan :p
Click to expand...
Assuming they all equally get their act together with sending you a router in the post, the install date for all of them should be the same. They'd all need to book you an appointment with an OpenReach "engineer', who would do the wiring and stuff in the cabinet, and BT Retail/Plusnet/Sky etc are all treated equally by OpenReach as customers in the queue for installation dates.
 
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@Sasso

The FTTC kit is curently a) a VDSL2 modem supplied and installed by the BT engineer and b) a router supplied by your ISP. You can get VDSL2 modem/router devices, but they are limited in number and rather pricey.

The Fibre Extension Kit enables your VDSL2 modem to be installed some distance away from the NTE5 master socket - it's basically 30 metres of Cat 5. Depending on circumstances (including your distance from the FTTC cabinet) it might be better to mount the VDSL2 modem near to the master socket, then run Ethernet from the modem to the router.

As for the prices, PlusNet aren't £10 cheaper. 80Mbit fibre broadband is £19.99, and if you want a phone line it's an additional £13.99/month (I think).
 
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BT is pretty much free of arbitary bandwidth limitations these days other than rate limiting P2P traffic at peak times. So far I've not seen any false positives recently either - back in the day it would tag some P2P "like" traffic that wasn't actually P2P which was annoying.

The overall network does use some degree of traffic prioritisation these days but it depends on the traffic levels across the core of the network rather than individual users but heavy users may see some slight speed degredation and latency increases if the core network is extremely busy but in practise so far it rarely happens.
 
parityboy said:
@Sasso

The FTTC kit is curently a) a VDSL2 modem supplied and installed by the BT engineer and b) a router supplied by your ISP. You can get VDSL2 modem/router devices, but they are limited in number and rather pricey.

The Fibre Extension Kit enables your VDSL2 modem to be installed some distance away from the NTE5 master socket - it's basically 30 metres of Cat 5. Depending on circumstances (including your distance from the FTTC cabinet) it might be better to mount the VDSL2 modem near to the master socket, then run Ethernet from the modem to the router.

As for the prices, PlusNet aren't £10 cheaper. 80Mbit fibre broadband is £19.99, and if you want a phone line it's an additional £13.99/month (I think).
Click to expand...

ah cheers for that, yea i don't mind putting my own cat5 cable down and having the router right next to the box. that extra 30m of cat5 could be the different of 0.5MB connection ;) or something :p only thinking I have all my tech stuff on my AV rack so it's all pretty and blinking. could always measure it out and buy a more appropriate sized cable to move it at a later date? :)

as for pricing, yea i thought 10£ cheaper a month initially (not sure where i got that from lol), but then did a spread sheet and with all the costs totaled up (discounts included) BT came to £575 and Plusnet to £475 for the total of the 18 month contract.

so plusnet would be better to go for over BT then? essentially all the same equipment (same modem just different router?), just different provider? what about traffic policies? and customer service?

think if i changed my order to plusnet think i could keep the same appointment with the bt openreach engineer dude?
 
Nope. BT Retail and Plus Net are two different clients, as far as OpenReach are concerned. You'll need to cancel your BT order and then reorder with Plus Net. It might be worth waiting a few days between actions to make sure the bookings do not cross each other.

As far as the equipment is concerned, the VDSL2 modem - which is actually a router in its own right, but operating in bridge mode - is always installed by the OpenReach engineer. The router is either your own, or supplied (and perhaps insisted upon) by your new ISP.

Cable-wise, I think the Data Extension Kit is essentially Cat 5 phone cable; it has a couple wires missing so you can't use it as Ethernet cable. For me personally, I would keep the modem as close to the Master socket as possible and then site the router where ever I feel is appropriate. Ethernet is much less affected by distance than VDSL. :)
 
leigh_boy said:
Used sky before and got the username from the old netegear routers from downloading the config and loking for the username and password in a txt file. that account actually got closed because of using a different router,, becuase the policy is you must use their kit.


i have never been with bt but looks like there offering the best atm i dont mind the trottling of p2p as i dont use it that much and when i do its only at night when im a sleep
Click to expand...

you cant use that method on sky fibre as it uses some other system so you have to use their router, but i have my bridged to an apple airport for 5GZ N and it works fine
 
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