Community Fibre

[Meddling-Monk]

900 down on a "gigabit" residential broadband is about right. If you can tweak your own settings to get a bit more then go for it, but it's not anything I'd bother hassling the ISP over.

Oh, definitely. Might take a look at the local settings a bit more when I have more time (don't at the moment), but really I'm OK with the speeds that's hitting the Linksys Router (930/930) and what I can get at the PC normally. Not going to bother Community Fibre over that. But definitely wouldn't mind seeing how far I can up the local side via tinkering.

 

[jonneymendoza]

I called them up to see if they could give me the same offer half price for 1gbit and unfortunately no joy

Gutted I missed out because I literally just got the keys to my new house yesterday!

I'm still renting where I am as I have to do some renovation work on the new place and I only entertain the Idea of getting a new fibre connection now if it was half price as I still got bills to pay in my rental!

 

[kakarott]

Just made available in my area but as I'm renting, I'll stick with my voxi unlimited data for £10 a month. Having said that I need a better router now.

 

[R3X]

Yeah bit weird, CF got black friday 50% off deal and the 1gig is still £50 per month. Was £25 last month....

Did CF staff go on strike lol

 

[Meddling-Monk]

Yeah bit weird, CF got black friday 50% off deal and the 1gig is still £50 per month. Was £25 last month....

Did CF staff go on strike lol

If I remember right, the 50% off entire 24 Month contract was originally only a Summer thing, and was due to have finished back at end of August/September or something like that. For some reason it got extended (I think when the economy was seen to be tanking/cost of living crisis confirmed and with QEII passing). So with its extension ending so close to Black Friday Deals has certainly made the BFD a lot more unappealing given how long ago (just the other day basically) that their gigabit connection was at £25. Had the normal promotion periods taken place then the BFD probably would have looked in a more favorable light.

 

[Meddling-Monk]

I called them up to see if they could give me the same offer half price for 1gbit and unfortunately no joy

Gutted I missed out because I literally just got the keys to my new house yesterday!

I'm still renting where I am as I have to do some renovation work on the new place and I only entertain the Idea of getting a new fibre connection now if it was half price as I still got bills to pay in my rental!

Just a heads up, it's by no means a guarantee, but when I just looked at the old adverts (before I junked them) from CF, there's one from them last year, arrived around Christmas and just before New Years and lasted around 2 months (till Feb this year) that was the same deal I snagged at the last moment £25 for all 24 months (although back then the price jumped back to £49/£50 at the end of the 24 month contract). So there's hope for a possibility of an offer for the same deal before the 2022 Year rolls out if their promotion patterns remain the same. With Winter and Summer looking like the major promotion periods.

It's a shame with not having everything done yet in a purchase (keys in hand), making the order first for utilities like broadband is seen as such a big no-no. Otherwise I'd have taken a punt and ordered it, then pushed the installation date as far back as possible, and if inside the 14 day cool off period (they count it from the day you made the order) then you could cancel without cost (had the purchase fallen through at last moment for whatever reason).

 

[R3X]

Maybe they will pull in the new customers then when 12 months or 24 month contracts are coming up they might throw in the £25 1gig fibre deal to force them to stay.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Just a heads up, it's by no means a guarantee, but when I just looked at the old adverts (before I junked them) from CF, there's one from them last year, arrived around Christmas and just before New Years and lasted around 2 months (till Feb this year) that was the same deal I snagged at the last moment £25 for all 24 months (although back then the price jumped back to £49/£50 at the end of the 24 month contract). So there's hope for a possibility of an offer for the same deal before the 2022 Year rolls out if their promotion patterns remain the same. With Winter and Summer looking like the major promotion periods.

It's a shame with not having everything done yet in a purchase (keys in hand), making the order first for utilities like broadband is seen as such a big no-no. Otherwise I'd have taken a punt and ordered it, then pushed the installation date as far back as possible, and if inside the 14 day cool off period (they count it from the day you made the order) then you could cancel without cost (had the purchase fallen through at last moment for whatever reason).

Yea defo but Diddnt wanna risk getting the broadband and the house falling through

 

[The Chemist]

Just had community fibre installed this afternoon. I need to switch out the supplied velop to my Asus rtax86u. From what I gather it's a fairly simple switch?

 

[Armadillo]

I have a question about the fibre cable.

So the cable that's plugged into the community fibre faceplate to the ont is too long, even coiled up it's getting in the way and I fear it's only a matter of time till it gets snagged and damanged

The cable is just plugged into the faceplate and ont. It's a white cable with green tips.

Quick check on the internet says green tip is an SC APC plug. So can I just buy a 0.5m (really all it needs where it and the router are) SC APC to SC APC Simplex OS2 Singlemode cable, unplug the current one and swap it out? I don't see why not, but just want to check as I don't want to end up needing a special tool or breaking the internet and needing community fibre to come and fix

​

Thanks.

 

[Meddling-Monk]

@Armadillo

You can shoot a message to Community Fibre as well and ask them that way, or call up your installation engineer for a quick ask (I was offered that in case I needed help with the installation after the actual installation itself).

With regards to your extra coiled optical cable, are you able to grab a small cardboard box of some kind (cut two slats into them) and tuck the excess cable into that and then attach the box nearby possibly? That should help prevent it getting snagged and damaged as easily as whatever might cause an issue would need to get through the actual cardboard box itself first. And if attached to the wall at a moderate height above the ground, not as easy to accidentally make contact with it and potentially cause a break and needing an engineer call out (although if you got the 1gb package, apparently the call out is free ever after; until policy change apparently if engineers are needed to be involved).

 

[Orcvader]

Do Community Fibre engineers have access to telephone poles? Noticed engineers are now working in my area and they left some coiled cables dangling from the poles, one thick black cable and a thinner yellow looking cable. They were also working at the manholes and it looks like they were pulling cables through from one hole to the other. At first I thought it was Openreach but we're not on their FTTP plan, and Virgin doesn't have any plans either.

 

[Caged]

Yes, most of Community Fibre's deployment is using Openreach ducts and poles

 

[Orcvader]

Yes, most of Community Fibre's deployment is using Openreach ducts and poles

Great to know. Been keeping an bidb.uk and nothing ever came up for my road, but makes sense seeing they can use OR's existing infrastructure without the need to dig their own. Here's hoping it'll be live next year when my contract ends.

 

[Meddling-Monk]

@jonneymendoza

It's not 1gb, only 500mb, but it's at £18.75 per month right now (for all 24 months) and raises to £20.75 at the end of the 24 months.

 

[The Chemist]

On the 1gb package and have swapped out the velop as it was quite terrible back to my asus ax88u. Speeds havent been great though. Speed tests on the router shows fluctuating speeds between 400-600mb. Through my gaming laptop (Wireless-AC 9560 card) speeds are around 150-300 and sitting next to the router with a short ethernet cable to the laptop isnt any better... Is this something where I have to give the line a few more days to sync up?

 

[Meddling-Monk]

@The Chemist

I would suggest to replug in your Velop, power cycle everything and see what speeds you get using the Velops in built speed test first.

That'll tell you what you can potentially get up to using the default equipment and if the problem regarding the speed is your replacement router or the Community Fibre connection you have. As when I powered down my network entirely to swap plug locations on a surge protector after installation and just after installation, there was no training or sync period. It was your full speed and go once all powered and booted up.

Once you have the speed that can be obtained with the default equipment (the Velop), try the ethernet connection to it (Velop) with your laptop. This should tell us if the cable is bad or not (getting near everything of your speed on the ethernet means the cable should be fine, if not and only getting 100mbps, it's either your network port or the cable then that's the issue).

After this point, if all the above is fine, switch back to your replacement router and repeat the test with the ethernet cable to your laptop. If it's fluctuating, then the issue is on your replacement router.

If however, the Velop had fluctuating speeds as well, then there's a chance the issue is on your connection itself to Community Fibre. Contact Community Fibre about it.

Finally Your minimum speed should be 500mbps on a 1gb connection, so if it hovers in that region that'll unfortunately be your speed. Any less and contact Community Fibre about it.

 

[The Chemist]

@The Chemist

I would suggest to replug in your Velop, power cycle everything and see what speeds you get using the Velops in built speed test first.

That'll tell you what you can potentially get up to using the default equipment and if the problem regarding the speed is your replacement router or the Community Fibre connection you have. As when I powered down my network entirely to swap plug locations on a surge protector after installation and just after installation, there was no training or sync period. It was your full speed and go once all powered and booted up.

Once you have the speed that can be obtained with the default equipment (the Velop), try the ethernet connection to it (Velop) with your laptop. This should tell us if the cable is bad or not (getting near everything of your speed on the ethernet means the cable should be fine, if not and only getting 100mbps, it's either your network port or the cable then that's the issue).

After this point, if all the above is fine, switch back to your replacement router and repeat the test with the ethernet cable to your laptop. If it's fluctuating, then the issue is on your replacement router.

If however, the Velop had fluctuating speeds as well, then there's a chance the issue is on your connection itself to Community Fibre. Contact Community Fibre about it.

Finally Your minimum speed should be 500mbps on a 1gb connection, so if it hovers in that region that'll unfortunately be your speed. Any less and contact Community Fibre about it.

Cheers for that, I'll give that a go this evening

 

[pc-guy]

anyone able to flash the velop MX4000 supplied by CF with retail linksys firmware?

 

[The Chemist]

@The Chemist

I would suggest to replug in your Velop, power cycle everything and see what speeds you get using the Velops in built speed test first.

That'll tell you what you can potentially get up to using the default equipment and if the problem regarding the speed is your replacement router or the Community Fibre connection you have. As when I powered down my network entirely to swap plug locations on a surge protector after installation and just after installation, there was no training or sync period. It was your full speed and go once all powered and booted up.

Once you have the speed that can be obtained with the default equipment (the Velop), try the ethernet connection to it (Velop) with your laptop. This should tell us if the cable is bad or not (getting near everything of your speed on the ethernet means the cable should be fine, if not and only getting 100mbps, it's either your network port or the cable then that's the issue).

After this point, if all the above is fine, switch back to your replacement router and repeat the test with the ethernet cable to your laptop. If it's fluctuating, then the issue is on your replacement router.

If however, the Velop had fluctuating speeds as well, then there's a chance the issue is on your connection itself to Community Fibre. Contact Community Fibre about it.

Finally Your minimum speed should be 500mbps on a 1gb connection, so if it hovers in that region that'll unfortunately be your speed. Any less and contact Community Fibre about it.

So testing was delayed as during the CF install, the lads didnt leave enough slack in the drop cable coming from the pole to the outside of the house. As they tied the cable to the outside gutter, it moved on a windy day and the tension caused the fibre optic cable to tear. Long story short was without internet for about a week before getting CF to come and put a new drop cable run to the property.

With the velop, it seems that speed at the router and via ethernet cable to a laptop is about 930/930. Wifi speeds are pretty terrible though even if I split the bands.

With the asus router, for some reason it drops the download to around 600 whilst the upload holds steady at around 930ish. I wonder if its a ethernet cable issue or whether I'm doing something wrong with the router settings?