BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

Unseen · 24 Mar 2021 at 21:48

I cancelled my request to leave BT in the end. I will instead do what was suggested here and migrate from one service to another. If we take price, customer service and features like IPV6, static IP's, no filtered content out of the equation are there any differences between BT and any other ISP in terms of latencies and speeds? I will be taking some of these things into consideration but it looks like the best alternatives to BT are from the much smaller ISP's. Any ideas who to choose if I want the best latencies and consistency.

Oops had to edit this in. FTTC is the only service currently available here.

Dg834man · 25 Mar 2021 at 01:49

antijoke said:
I am so annoyed that BT only offer a maximum of around 50Mbps in this area

Thats a pretty good speed for fttc, i just left fttc with 15Mb/0.7mb for virgin m100 if i got 50Mb fttc i wouldn't have made the switch

mikehhhhhhh · 25 Mar 2021 at 07:52

Dg834man said:
Thats a pretty good speed for fttc, i just left fttc with 15Mb/0.7mb for virgin m100 if i got 50Mb fttc i wouldn't have made the switch

It's amazing how all of our grievances with our internet connections are for the most part, totally relative.

antijoke · 25 Mar 2021 at 08:33

Dg834man said:
Thats a pretty good speed for fttc, i just left fttc with 15Mb/0.7mb for virgin m100 if i got 50Mb fttc i wouldn't have made the switch

yes it’s not a bad speed, but on virgin I get 350Mbps, don’t think I could ever go lower, I download way too much.

TheVoice · 25 Mar 2021 at 15:46

antijoke said:
I'm such a moron, I posted this in the BT thread when my rant was about Virgin.

I am so annoyed that BT only offer a maximum of around 50Mbps in this area, why is there no planned rollout for their super fast fibre in this area? It's a joke, I do believe it's available in some areas around here, but not my street.

I get about 32Mbps where I am in the southside of Glasgow, I believe some properties/flats around here can get Virgin but my building isn't one of them Hyperoptic have expressed some interest in installing fibre here but that doesn't seem to be moving ahead at any great speed.

As far as BT/OR are concerned, it's frustrating that an area like mine (and probably yours) isn't on any future upgrade plans at all, yet they'll be bragging about faster and faster services for other areas that already have sufficiently fast services as it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's easier to upgrade a full fibre area than it is one that requires a substantial amount of work, but it feels like many areas are just getting left behind. My parents live out in the sticks in Aberdeenshire and have had 70Mbps for 6 years!

b0rn2sk8 · 25 Mar 2021 at 16:42

The issue is 70mb and 32mb use the same technology. Your parents are just lucky they live very close to the green cabinet and have a decent quality line. You just don’t, is that simple really. Your neighbours might have a better line and get more speed, that’s the phone line lottery that is FTTC.

TheVoice · 25 Mar 2021 at 17:03

b0rn2sk8 said:
The issue is 70mb and 32mb use the same technology. Your parents are just lucky they live very close to the green cabinet and have a decent quality line. You just don’t, is that simple really. Your neighbours might have a better line and get more speed, that’s the phone line lottery that is FTTC.

I know, like I said I appreciate the reality of the situation isn't simple when it comes to upgrading infrastructure but nevertheless it's galling that they're upgrading areas already with FTTP whilst leaving others considerably behind. I've lived here for three and a half years and if anything, my sync speeds have slightly decreased.

b0rn2sk8 · 25 Mar 2021 at 17:05

I don’t understand, there not upgrading FTTP areas, there upgrading people to FTTP.

Sync speeds going down is pretty normal on FTTC as the cabinet fills up.

Unseen · 25 Mar 2021 at 18:39

b0rn2sk8 said:
The issue is 70mb and 32mb use the same technology. Your parents are just lucky they live very close to the green cabinet and have a decent quality line. You just don’t, is that simple really. Your neighbours might have a better line and get more speed, that’s the phone line lottery that is FTTC.

That's what I find the most frustrating about FTTC. You're getting charged the exact same rate as somebody who is able to achieve 80/20. I know in more recent times BT have the decent middle ground package of 55/10 but the same thing applies regardless of package. Some of us are paying more for less yet others get a good quality longterm package with little to no line problems, closer to the cabinet and no crosstalk impacting their line. The cabinet I was put on was already full when I signed up but crosstalk has chalked 15-20Mbps off my max attainable and my data rate is almost 20Mbps lower than my max attainable which signals a fault somewhere but the engineers come out and simply say this is the best you're going to get and refuse a dlm reset.

Caged · 25 Mar 2021 at 19:37

How many different tiers do you want, though? Vodafone, for example, will offer me 63Mbps for £24, and 35Mbps for £22. Should there be a £23 49Mbps tier? How about a £21 21Mbps tier?

The cost difference in providing an 80Mbps profiled FTTC service instead of a 40Mbps one is miniscule compared to actually providing the service.

madman045 · 25 Mar 2021 at 20:16

So is it still a thing with FTTC cabinets and getting a VDSL modem that has the right chipset?

looking up my cabinet its a Huawei one

my Netgear DM200 showed a sync of 72 down and 20 up, with a speedtest of 68 down and 18 up

now i’ve got a HG612 3B, line status shows 76 down and 33 up, line stats show 76.5 down and 20 up, speedtest shows 65 down and 16.5 up

do i leave it a few days to see if throughput improves?

Caged · 25 Mar 2021 at 20:56

It's not really a thing with matching chipsets, it's more the case that most VDSL modems are so terrible that the one Openreach decided on almost a decade ago is still one of the best options. Nothing Asus make with a VDSL modem in is worth using, for example.

ash_scotland88 · 26 Mar 2021 at 15:04

Not sure if this is the right thread but had to get BT for our new house, it's a homehub.
Only went live wednesday so may need time to settle, but it appears to keep disconnecting when using the PC plugged directly to the router, when it's wifi only devices it appears solid.
Also got a home wifi in the house.

Any reason why it may keep disconnecting with the PC use? And to clarify it's not just the PC it's the whole hub goes down.

I miss VM days, only getting 42-46 down, sometimes even less.

robj20 · 26 Mar 2021 at 16:20

Love how rock solid FTTP is. Always get the same sort of speeds.

denigor777 · 27 Mar 2021 at 08:48

ash_scotland88 said:
Not sure if this is the right thread but had to get BT for our new house, it's a homehub.
Only went live wednesday so may need time to settle, but it appears to keep disconnecting when using the PC plugged directly to the router, when it's wifi only devices it appears solid.
Also got a home wifi in the house.

Any reason why it may keep disconnecting with the PC use? And to clarify it's not just the PC it's the whole hub goes down.

I miss VM days, only getting 42-46 down, sometimes even less.

Yoir PC connected directly to the router port should not present any problem.

When it gies diwn, fo uou mssn the router resets completely? Or the broadbsnd goes fown (wan side of router) or the Lan side goes down?

If wifi internet access is working whilst your pc starts failing then it's not a wan or whole-router issue. Do you have another ethernet device you can connect to the router (eg laptop) to contrast/compare? Try plugging into a different lsn port on the router? Just things to isolate the problem. You have to becomeva detective to start proving where the problem must be.

denigor777 · 27 Mar 2021 at 08:53

robj20 said:
Love how rock solid FTTP is. Always get the same sort of speeds.

For gsmers it's the ping figure that matters most. The bandwidth will help prevent that latency from increasing.

Im on BT FTTC and my Speedtest chooses to run with servers at Hyperoptic in London giving 8ms ping with 2ms latency.

ash_scotland88 · 27 Mar 2021 at 11:27

denigor777 said:
Yoir PC connected directly to the router port should not present any problem.

When it gies diwn, fo uou mssn the router resets completely? Or the broadbsnd goes fown (wan side of router) or the Lan side goes down?

If wifi internet access is working whilst your pc starts failing then it's not a wan or whole-router issue. Do you have another ethernet device you can connect to the router (eg laptop) to contrast/compare? Try plugging into a different lsn port on the router? Just things to isolate the problem. You have to becomeva detective to start proving where the problem must be.

Some reading up online suggests noise on the line could be throwing. I'd imagine BT will currently argue we're still in our settling in period.
Last night in a period of an hour or two it was going down every 10mins.
I would say it's the internet itself. The main router flashes purple, then orange before resettling on blue. Last night we were using WiFi only (apart from the BT home mesh system).

Dg834man · 27 Mar 2021 at 14:04

access the gui on the router check the log should tell you if the line has multiple resyncs

ash_scotland88 · 28 Mar 2021 at 13:39

Dg834man said:
access the gui on the router check the log should tell you if the line has multiple resyncs

What am I looking for in the logs? Key words or phrases?

Dg834man · 28 Mar 2021 at 22:31

something along the lines of lost synchronisation ect