BT (and Sky for that matter) tend to have less flexibility on the likes of Ultrafast 2, general advice is to use Quidco/TCB to get the best deal, even on an existing customer upgrade, unless it’s part of a retention deal.
BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion
- Thread starter michellez
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BT (and Sky for that matter) tend to have less flexibility on the likes of Ultrafast 2, general advice is to use Quidco/TCB to get the best deal, even on an existing customer upgrade, unless it’s part of a retention deal.
I almost always use cashback sites for contract renewals like this (have had £2645 paid off TCB in the last 7 years), however all they currently have is new customer options at the moment which is no good for me. The T&C on both are quite specific that if you have existing broadband with BT, then it's no cashback
Soldato
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As I look out of my study window I see an Openreach chap connecting a fibre into the CBT that's at the end of my driveway. Hopefully that means I'll be getting FTTP in the next few weeks.
I’ve got the BT complete Wi-Fi thing (Smart Hub 2 and a disc) which I’ve had for a while now since I was given it as part of the trial.
The performance has always been good enough to keep up with my modest FTTC service (60Mbps sync) but lately I’ve been getting annoyed with the performance to my NAS. Anyway, today I needed to pull a new coaxial cable in to replace the one with hardly any shielding that was done in the 80s, and I managed to get really lucky and get a Cat6 down the same capping from the loft. The disc is now wired to the Hub, the performance difference is night and day.
I’m sure there are situations where wireless mesh performs really well but AFAIK the BT product doesn’t have a dedicated backhaul radio which must limit it quite a lot.
The performance has always been good enough to keep up with my modest FTTC service (60Mbps sync) but lately I’ve been getting annoyed with the performance to my NAS. Anyway, today I needed to pull a new coaxial cable in to replace the one with hardly any shielding that was done in the 80s, and I managed to get really lucky and get a Cat6 down the same capping from the loft. The disc is now wired to the Hub, the performance difference is night and day.
I’m sure there are situations where wireless mesh performs really well but AFAIK the BT product doesn’t have a dedicated backhaul radio which must limit it quite a lot.
Associate
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BT's new FTTP pricing has been revealed and its shocking.
500 Mbps for £49.99 (what used to be the 330 tier)
1Gbps for £59.99
https://www.bt.com/broadband/deals
They have undercut Virgin
500 Mbps for £49.99 (what used to be the 330 tier)
1Gbps for £59.99
https://www.bt.com/broadband/deals
They have undercut Virgin
Soldato
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Why?
Associate
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Why have they undercut them, because means a great selling point.
If you mean why is it shocking, its due to the BT Wholesale price was indicating the 1Gbps was going to be £100+, instead its the cheapest 1Gbps service that is widely available.
Soldato
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I misread your post. For some reason, I read it as 'they have to undercut Virgin'.
Soldato
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Prices seem fairly reasonable, they have changed the names of the products so will need to wait for the cashback sites to update with any available deals.
EDIT Ordered 1Gbps I didn't want to delay ordering incase BT/Openreach stop doing installs.
Last edited:
Soldato
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I am curious how easy this install is going to be, current line is underground but comes up inside the house so no chance of blowing the fibre through it as the end is inaccessible in the middle of a partition.
I live in a culdesac of houses that were built individually through the 90s without a pavement and the BT manhole is at the bottom of my neighbours front garden. Already spoke to my neighbour who is happy for his garden to be dug up I hope this doesn't delay things.
I live in a culdesac of houses that were built individually through the 90s without a pavement and the BT manhole is at the bottom of my neighbours front garden. Already spoke to my neighbour who is happy for his garden to be dug up I hope this doesn't delay things.
I had to have new duct installed, my original duct which is shared with my neighbour the Openreach tech could not pull the blue rope through or even the old bit of fibre cable he used without risk of damaging the phone line or new Fibre cable if they did try and pull through.
Edit: The might use a ‘Mole’ to pull the cable and duct through.
BT gave my standard broadband whilst waiting for digging team as my Virgin contract had finished.
Soldato
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Thanks for the info. Luckily it's an easy run as the drive is on the other side of my house so it's just soil with stones on top right up the side of the fence and across to the house. My neighbour just ordered it aswell so they might ask to run both up the side of my garden as he has flower beds etc in the way.
That’s handy, hopefully they will send the Openrech Tech to check both at the same time!
Managed to upgrade to the 1Gbps product (Full Fibre 900) over the phone as I couldn't do it online, originally on the 300/50 product and so got the 1Gbps option cheaper per month than what I was paying, so will be paying £54.99.
I was just coming to the end of my current contract so this was good timing, I know it's silly speeds and I probably don't need 1Gbps but to be able to get it cheaper than what I was currently paying it was a no brainer!
Still disappointed that the upload is only 115Mbps but should help greatly now that I'm working from home till the foreseeable future because of the unprecedented situation we are all in
I was just coming to the end of my current contract so this was good timing, I know it's silly speeds and I probably don't need 1Gbps but to be able to get it cheaper than what I was currently paying it was a no brainer!
Still disappointed that the upload is only 115Mbps but should help greatly now that I'm working from home till the foreseeable future because of the unprecedented situation we are all in
'Only' 115Mbps - come on guys, get some perspective here
Definitely a first world problem. I'm stuck with 30/6 FTTC and that's still a lot better than a good percentage of people can get.
Yeah I'm getting a maximum of 60/20 for the foreseeable future and it's already at the point where playing a new game involves 4+ hours of downloading. It's still better than a lot of people can get though, and I don't find it *too* limiting.
'Only' 115Mbps - come on guys, get some perspective here
Haha I know, I probably should have worded in a way that with it being FTTP you'd expect that technology to be more symmetric than have a forced 10:1 (roughly) ratio. Altnets like Vodafone, Cityfibre, Gigaclear have no problem providing better speed ratios, sure their customer base is a lot smaller but it shows the technology is there to do it.
Openreach have a leased line business to protect which CityFibre don't need to worry about. At this point BT consider Virgin Media to be their competitor as far as broadband services are concerned, it's more or less irrelevant what Vodafone and Hyperoptic are doing because the size of those markets is comparatively tiny. Gigaclear is also towards the top end in terms of pricing for residential services, and again serves a tiny market.
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All the ones you mentioned use the same technology underlying as BT. Just they decide to risk the contention, while BT guarantees that you can get the speed advertised; its probably a risk worth paying for a consumer focused network.
Its going to be fun when they upgrade to 10G-PON. That doesn't have the limitations and can deliver 10G synchronously to every connection on the network and can run parallel with the existing GPON as it uses different light frequencies so it should be easy to roll-out. Will be 5 years+ though before that's even talked about