BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

OR FTTP was recently made available in my area in April so I've had that installed (900/100 via Aquiss) and kept the previous VM 1.1Gbps and split devices between them using PBR and failover to the other if needed.

The FTTP service is 6 to 14ms less latency than VM as expected with FTTP being 6ms most of the time with little variation which is great, however I am surprised that the FTTP has more dropouts than VM. In the 6 weeks since install I've had three short FTTP dropouts (less than 5mins) after midnight and a fault that dropped the connection for 7 hours. In contrast over the last few years the VM service drops out around once every 2 - 3 months for a few minutes usually in the early hours.

The longer fault could be a one off, but are shorter dropouts common as I was expecting similar if not better uptime than VM? I do some online backups overnight and am keeping them via VM as oddly its the more reliable service at the moment!
 
Have you asked Aquiss about it? Small overnight drops are likely to be maintenance and you're not going to get advance notice of that stuff on a broadband service. The fault is a fault and can happen at any time, sounds like you're just unlucky.

If an outage under 5 mins knocks backup jobs off and they don't retry then I would look to address that in the backup service rather than trying to make the connection rock-solid.
 
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Caged said:
If an outage under 5 mins knocks backup jobs off and they don't retry then I would look to address that in the backup service rather than trying to make the connection rock-solid.
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Agreed, and some of the software I use does cope well even when switching WANs but sadly not all. I'll write my own replacement for the troublesome application which is a task that's been on the list for a while as the vendor isn't too helpful and not updating much now but with VM it was never really an issue.

Aquiss were great with updates on the case for the longer fault which apparently a hardware failure in a piece of OR equipment. I'll keep monitoring and being lucky enough to finally have two speedy WANs it's hardly a show stopper.
 
I enabled IPv6 last night around the same time I had some dropped packets on Aquiss. Wasn't noticebale at all, I was geting in to bed... Also had a slight baseline latency increse after dropout at midnight then back to normal.

 
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bulldog147 said:
You can ask BT to block the switch over if someone else try to false order your line transfer to them. Ofcom should sort this mess out as it easy to lose broadband and line if someone mistaken order on the owner's address! VERY BAD IDEA! I wish we go back to old BTw checker as there used to say bottom screen there is an open or multi order on your line which it due to be completed by date. The new BTw checker won't show this anymore! Only viewed by the ISP only.
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I did ask but apparently they can't automatically reject it, even if I tell them not to for a period of time.

I had to chase them but they did at least send me a message saying they had put a stop to the 1st switch attempt.
 
jonnymc4 said:
I enabled IPv6 last night around the same time I had some dropped packets on Aquiss. Wasn't noticebale at all, I was geting in to bed... Also had a slight baseline latency increse after dropout at midnight then back to normal.
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It does appear the odd short dropout isn't uncommon, just surprising VM does a better job on this although in my area VM have had many planned service downtimes during the day which are a pain.

I was thinking of enabling IPv6 on Aquiss when I joined but as I now now keeping the VM service to replace my previous 4G backup, failing over to another WAN without IPv6 has challenges. It wouldn't be an issue if VM had IPv6 but they're in no rush on that front so I need to do some more research/testing as I've used failover for a long time.

I am also waiting for the next area power cut to see if the OR FTTP keeps working for a while (ONT is on a UPS) unlike VM which cuts instantly as do some of the local cell towers.
 
Looking into broadband for a new house and want to go full fibre as it is available and isn't generally that much more expensive then the other options, only annoying caveat is I have to have a phoneline/voip still so that limits my options significantly as it seems hardly anyone includes a landline/Voip with full fibre and paying a standalone Voip company seems to pretty much double the costs. Any recommendations for an ISP who include a landline/voip with full fibre?
 
a1ex2001 said:
Looking into broadband for a new house and want to go full fibre as it is available and isn't generally that much more expensive then the other options, only annoying caveat is I have to have a phoneline/voip still so that limits my options significantly as it seems hardly anyone includes a landline/Voip with full fibre and paying a standalone Voip company seems to pretty much double the costs. Any recommendations for an ISP who include a landline/voip with full fibre?
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Alternatively, go for someone else who can provide VoIP regardless of who you go with for internet. AA seems to be recommended based on this thread: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/voip-landline-providers.18971017/
 
I would say it depends on what the landline is for - if you're going to use it a lot then a call bundle from somebody like BT is actually quite competitive and I wouldn't rule them out - £8 for 700 mins is better than Vonage and Voipfone for example. I have an A&A SIP service but that's because I am maintaining the line for a year in case people still need to call it, if I was planning to actually make calls then I would have picked someone else as A&A don't do minutes bundles.

One thing to be aware of with getting your voice from the ISP is that it may limit you to using their router.
 
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Do you actually need a landline?

You can get unlimited calls to any U.K. number on a mobile for about £6/month. You probably already have it if you have a pay monthly SIM card.
 
Asking for someone else.

Just signed up to full fibre with TV, they got all the gear sent out the other day and but the actual install date is in a few weeks time.

In the meantime they have this EE hub, anyway I set it all up, including the bt hub and bt tv pro box.

They don’t seem to have any of the subscription tv services like sky, bt sport.
Is this because they have not been fully activated yet, all I could get was all the apps like Netflix, bbc iplayer.

Will the subscription channels be activated on install date when the guy brings the modem?
 
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Pretty safe to say they won't start working until the contract starts.

But with BT, who knows if/when that'll happen....I'm still waiting for them to fix the colossal botch job they did of cancelling my service when I switched to Aquiss.
 
Anyone know if the complete WiFi discs can be wired together (wired backhaul) ?

and how many ports on each disc?

I use eero mesh at present but may move to BT eventually and just use BT mesh instead.
 
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