BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

Soldato
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Hi Gent's. I'll be getting FTTP shortly and I've been using a Nighthawk R8000 as a WAP for a good year or so. Would I be able to use the router aspect of the Nighthawk on the BT FTTP?

Thanks!

To answer the original question you should be able to use it.

BT's ONT (equivalent of a modem) will present the broadband as a Standard copper Ethernet connection. You'll be able to connect your router to that with a normal network cable.
 
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Hopefully this means Fibre coming soon :) Saw a couple of Openreach employees shoving blue cables into a manhole nearby recently.

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The FTTP question,

You dont need a modem, as long as your router has a WAN interface you can use it, it plugs straight in to the box on the wall with Cat5.
 
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Any word on any speed increases? I'm on option 2 78Mbps. I get about 67Mbps, wouldn't mind some more but there seems to be no increase past option 2 unless going for FTTP. Is FTTC ever going to see any increases?
 

TJM

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Any word on any speed increases? I'm on option 2 78Mbps. I get about 67Mbps, wouldn't mind some more but there seems to be no increase past option 2 unless going for FTTP. Is FTTC ever going to see any increases?
G.fast, an improved form of VDSL using FTTC, is being tested now and will be rolled out commercially over the next few years. A modem within 100m of the green cabinet should get more than 300Mbps but the speed will drop rapidly over distance. If you are more than 250-300m away, you probably won't be able to order G.fast as there would be no benefit, but this might change as the technology develops.
 
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It's been a long wait but FTTP is finally on its way!
4.5km of cable strung up so we're now just waiting for some work at the exchange, some upgrades to the backhaul and the next department to come along and connect it to the houses. We should have a live date in the next week so the end is in sight!
 
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G.fast, an improved form of VDSL using FTTC, is being tested now and will be rolled out commercially over the next few years. A modem within 100m of the green cabinet should get more than 300Mbps but the speed will drop rapidly over distance. If you are more than 250-300m away, you probably won't be able to order G.fast as there would be no benefit, but this might change as the technology develops.

Thanks for that, looks like we all may seem some minor improvements in the short term then with target noise levels relaxing.

Source - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/...taking-lower-noise-margin-trail-national.html

A trial has been running looking into whether Openreach can squeeze more speed out of VDSL2 for some lines with no hardware changes in the cabinet or by the customers VDSL2 modem and it seems on Monday 20th March, this limited area trial is set to go national.

The trial involved the Openreach DLM system identifying lines that were stable at a 6dB target noise margin, and then lowering the target noise margin in 1dB steps over an extended period and monitoring the error rates and connection speeds. The monitoring is not new, the Openreach DLM (Dynamic Line Management) is constantly running, the change is that while 6dB is currently the lowest target noise margin modems are told to negotiate the connection at and now for lines that look like they can cope with lower margins without undue numbers of errors lower margins will be allowed. The bonus is thus more download speed without any cost.

It is thought the trial involved some 40,000 lines and we presume Openreach has seen positive results from the trial, we are monitoring what we believe is the trail area but to date have not seen an observable difference, but this may be that the 40,000 lines is swamped by those not in the trial but still in the area we've been monitoring. It may be once we run the Q1/2017 analysis in a couple of weeks we can see some indication of a difference, or it may take many more months once things go national.

The way the target noise margin's work mean that if your line is stable, then it does not matter if you connect at 21,232 Kbps or 44,536 Kbps its all about if the DLM thinks the line is stable and suitable for trying a lower margin, what will differ is the amount of benefit different people see and many people may see no change at all. Its important to emphasis that the drop is in 1dB steps down to a minimum of 3dB, and the margin may return back to the 6dB level if things do not look stable.

Sweating the assets to squeeze what might be just be a 2 Mbps average increase seems like a lot of work for little extra speed, but for individuals it might be worth much more speed, and given that across the UK if most users getting 24 Mbps were to see speeds jump to 30 Mbps this could mean that models on performance versus distance would have to change and a 6 Mbps jump for lines in the 1km long region would be worth 0.6 percentage points to the UK superfast total. CAUTION Don't take the 0.6 change as been what we expect from the roll-out, it is just an illustrative figure and we will only change our model if we see a significant change, in the past monitoring experience against our model was more difficult but since Autumn 2016 we have automated this so we can keep a better eye on how all the various changes are affecting the model we use.

Update 7pm While the trial is moving national, it is not happening overnight, but will be done in phases. The phasing is to allow Openreach and the broadband providers to assess how things are progressing. The phased roll-out should complete by September.
 
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I've just ordered BT infinity with the £200 reward card and £120 cash back. Hopefully will all come off.

First time with BT and should be interesting to see speeds over 5Mbs. Pretty sure I've only ever been with Talk Talk.
 
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I'm thinking of that exact same deal, sprite - do you happen to know if you are able to request an installation/activation date in the future? I would be signing up for my new house but I don't move until the middle of April.
 

APM

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I'm thinking of that exact same deal, sprite - do you happen to know if you are able to request an installation/activation date in the future? I would be signing up for my new house but I don't move until the middle of April.

I signed up with BT recently and one of the last pages they offer is for you to choose a convenient installation date,then after you've signed up they send you a few e-mails offering to change that date if it's not suitable so I'd say you were good to go.
 
Soldato
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Just wading my way through the BT site and the latest date they are offering for installation/activation is the 2nd of May, so you do get quite a decent window of opportunity.
 

APM

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I'm kicking myself for not waiting another week and I would have had the £200 card.
As it is I'm getting a £100 card but I'm also getting £120 from topcashback though that was supposed to have been £150.

They had to put a new cable in from the post across the road to the house and the guy was very capable,sorted it out quickly and with no fuss,was quite impressed by that.
He didn't dither in the house though put the master socket in and was gone which I wasn't so used to after Virgin,the Virgin people like to show you how to use the Tivo etc but the Openreach fella was down the road as soon as you could blink.
 
Soldato
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the Virgin people like to show you how to use the Tivo etc but the Openreach fella was down the road as soon as you could blink.

What did you expect him to demonstrate? He's there on behalf of your service provider to install/provide the connection. He not there (and is incidentally instructed not to) demonstrate how things work or setup routers etc..
 

APM

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I know,just saying how different it was from Virgin.

The Youview box and router had only arrived the day before and I was half expecting him to set them up too tbh.
 
Soldato
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I know,just saying how different it was from Virgin.

The Youview box and router had only arrived the day before and I was half expecting him to set them up too tbh.

There's the distinction though. Virgin engineers act on behalf of Virgin.

Openreach engineers act on behalf of hundreds of different CPs. Most of which, despite what they tell the end user, strictly forbid Openreach from touching their user equipment*

* - That's not to say some engineers won't help the little old lady plug in her router but it's not encouraged.
 
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