BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

Rroff · 12 Dec 2012 at 00:18

MumboJumbo said:
Hey guys. Virgin is being such a joke at the moment so I think I might switch to BT infinity. I would like to know though what the speed throtterling is actually like. My internet is cutting out every couple minutes and so it's kind of hard to research atm. Also, is the latency in games low?

Ostensibly nothing is traffic managed or throttled these days except for P2P at peak times tho the P2P rate limiting is pretty harsh - but as its totally uncapped at all other times I have no time for anyone moaning about it (unless it goes back to the days of incorrectly tagging loads of traffic as P2P).

Latency for gaming is reasonable - usually a fairly stable sub 30ms to most UK game servers tho BT's routing is a bit hit and miss mine has an extra 10ms it shouldn't as they randomly route me via sheffield and back for no reason (extra 300 odd mile round trip) but if your lucky you should be able to ping sites like bbc.co.uk at 10-15ms.

MumboJumbo · 12 Dec 2012 at 00:26

Well I think it's fairly reasonable to moan about harsh thotterling because those "peak times" are 4pm-midnight on week days and 9am-midnight on weekends. That's an extremely large portion of the day. I don't mind paying for the 76meg and getting throttled to 40meg for example but if it's sub 20meg then I'm not sure if I'm interested.

As for the pings, I get sub 15ms to pretty much any EU server on virgin. I don't get what has gone wrong with virgin. Been with them for over 5 years and it's been perfect up until now. Ever since they released all those "free upgrades" it has cut out constantly but still gives low latancey and max download speeds when it's working.

parityboy · 12 Dec 2012 at 03:31

Like TalkTalk and a few others, Virgin have basically massively oversold their network, knowing full well that it can't cope with the bandwidth demands coming from the network edge. Add in the fact that they have script robots working in customer services, and you have a very poor package. They need to stop digging up roads and put that money towards upgrading their switches. They should start with some 100Gb fibre at the core.

A friend of mine has Virgin because for some reason BT cannot service his property. Talking with their customer service is an absolute nightmare, trying to explain to them in very simple terms that the SuperHub has a wireless range of about 10 feet. I ended up hooking up his old Netgear ADSL router as a wireless access point. Go figure...

Anyway, as much as I've been tempted, I personally will not be signing with them - way too much hassle.

TheBigCheese · 12 Dec 2012 at 07:52

Well today's the day! The engineer is coming this afternoon... Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

Can I ask him to setup the new Asus router I've got or is it best to let him do his thing with the BT HH3 and swap it later on?

philhoole · 12 Dec 2012 at 09:46

philhoole said:
My issue though is that their engineer replaced the old ADSL faceplate with a new Openreach one and in doing so stopped the extension ringing properly. It worked before his visit and not afterwards.

My internal wiring was fine before the visit. Now it seemingly is not.

All he seemed to do while I watched was change the faceplate.

I am struggling to see how this can be anything other than something the engineer has done - Like leaving a wire unconnected for example.

Fixed it myself - The ring wire was left off my extension wiring so I borrowed an insertion tool from work and it now rings properly.

It is a bit disappointing that the installer must have removed the wire when he changed the face plate and totally assumed my phone on the extension didn't need it when he put it back together again.

I know most modern phones don't need a ring wire but this BT/Siemens DECT model seemingly does.

Speedtest might be running slightly slower but not enough to worry about.

platypus · 12 Dec 2012 at 09:47

Not to tempt fate here, but since having BTI installed it has been excellent. It has simply just worked. We can stream HD content at peak hours, and I can play a game at the same time.

platypus · 12 Dec 2012 at 09:48

TheBigCheese said:
Well today's the day! The engineer is coming this afternoon... Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

Can I ask him to setup the new Asus router I've got or is it best to let him do his thing with the BT HH3 and swap it later on?

They won't do it for you. Their job is to test with the HH3 and only that.

boxst · 12 Dec 2012 at 09:49

TheBigCheese said:
Well today's the day! The engineer is coming this afternoon... Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.

Can I ask him to setup the new Asus router I've got or is it best to let him do his thing with the BT HH3 and swap it later on?

He will not set up the Asus for you. It should be easy though: Choose PPPoE and I believe the username is [email protected] (although I believe it can be [email protected] ) and some password that can also be anything but you must have one and it should just work ...

KIA · 12 Dec 2012 at 10:06

MumboJumbo said:
Well I think it's fairly reasonable to moan about harsh thotterling because those "peak times" are 4pm-midnight on week days and 9am-midnight on weekends. That's an extremely large portion of the day. I don't mind paying for the 76meg and getting throttled to 40meg for example but if it's sub 20meg then I'm not sure if I'm interested.

As for the pings, I get sub 15ms to pretty much any EU server on virgin. I don't get what has gone wrong with virgin. Been with them for over 5 years and it's been perfect up until now. Ever since they released all those "free upgrades" it has cut out constantly but still gives low latancey and max download speeds when it's working.

Sky FTTC if you don't want throttling.

TheBigCheese · 12 Dec 2012 at 10:26

platypus said:
Not to tempt fate here, but since having BTI installed it has been excellent. It has simply just worked. We can stream HD content at peak hours, and I can play a game at the same time.

Nice, what speeds do you get? I'm not hopeful for anything about the estimated 25mbps but we'll see!

platypus said:
They won't do it for you. Their job is to test with the HH3 and only that.

Fair enough!

boxst said:
He will not set up the Asus for you. It should be easy though: Choose PPPoE and I believe the username is [email protected] (although I believe it can be [email protected] ) and some password that can also be anything but you must have one and it should just work ...

Excellent, thanks for letting me know!

Porceliamone · 12 Dec 2012 at 10:28

MilanoChris said:
Apparently there's a major fault on FTTC in the Basingstoke area.

That explains things. My Infinity2 connection has been terrible for days now. Infuriating.

StarmanUK · 12 Dec 2012 at 10:35

Baplad said:
How close have peoples speeds been to the estimated speeds?

When I originally had infinitely installed 2 yrs ago I was estimated approx 30/15Mb but when installed I had the full 40/15Mb. BT then offered free upgrade to 80/20Mb for new min term I now receive approx 67/20Mb given my line is approx 700m from the cab. Stability wise I'm very happy my connection runs a sync speed and I've not had any loss of service. Only slight annoyance is the traffic limiting of torrents in general but don't use them.

Porceliamone · 12 Dec 2012 at 11:03

When mine is working properly and hooked up via cable I hit 78/20 on test.

Wirelessly I'm getting around 50/15 so I'm happy enough - when it's working correctly (about 90% of the time).

TheBigCheese · 12 Dec 2012 at 11:31

OK this is probably a symptom of gross impatience...but are the engineers supposed to contact you on the day of install?

I'm sure I read somewhere that they contact you but I haven't heard anything as yet.

My install time is between 1-6PM, just wondering if it's normal not to hear anything yet.

KIA · 12 Dec 2012 at 11:40

TheBigCheese said:
OK this is probably a symptom of gross impatience...but are the engineers supposed to contact you on the day of install?

I'm sure I read somewhere that they contact you but I haven't heard anything as yet.

My install time is between 1-6PM, just wondering if it's normal not to hear anything yet.

The engineer will probably ring 10-15 mins before he arrives.

StarmanUK · 12 Dec 2012 at 11:40

On my install I had a phone call from the engineer stating he was at the cab and I'd lose my line for a few minutes while the patch pair was installed into the FTTC cab. He then arrived shortly after to install the modem. I already had an adsl nation filtered faceplate which was left.

TheBigCheese · 12 Dec 2012 at 11:51

Excellent, thanks!

parityboy · 12 Dec 2012 at 13:49

Found something interesting: BT to rent cheaper FTTP lines to ISPs - if they stump up £1k a go

For me, the interesting parts are:

The national telco said it was up to those companies to decide whether to pass on the costs, which are expected to start at about £500 and could climb to well above £1,000 in some cases depending on the distance of a property from BT's fibre network.

and:

BT described its expensive FTTP on-demand product - which it is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized companies - as a way of "future proofing" its network because it can be deployed from its street cabinets.

I was under the impression that FTTP couldn't be (or simply wasn't) deployed from street cabinets. Is this a different product, or can we read "street cabinet" to mean "aggregation node"?

Rroff · 12 Dec 2012 at 15:38

Yeah mine phoned about 20 minutes before he arrived to tell me he was at the cab and we'd lose the connection in a few minutes and he'd be at the house in about 15 minutes.

KIA · 12 Dec 2012 at 16:22

parityboy said:
or can we read "street cabinet" to mean "aggregation node"?

No. They're separate.