He’s got to go up the telegraph pole.
Finally, we're getting FTTP, woo-hoo! (it was installed in June 2024)
- Thread starter Feek
- Start date
Soldato
I would rather go up the telegraph pole
Than up a ladder any day
Telegraph poles are pretty solid
But will depend on your engineer on the day
Than up a ladder any day
Telegraph poles are pretty solid
But will depend on your engineer on the day
Associate
Maybe he won't be affected if he has a cherry picker on the back of his truck. The guys that did mine said they weren't allowed to go up the poles with ladders but they can on your house.
Good luck, hope you get it done
Soldato
Welcome to the 21st century 
Soldato
Associate
You win
I know we all know how tiny fibre is but even looking at this makes it even more incredible. This is the actual fibre itself from the centre of the cable.
Associate
Was gonna say, isn't the fibre more like a hair's breadth or so
Aye, when this was stripped back for the splice, you can just barely see the whisker inside.
Soldato
Amazing how far we have progressed really
I remember back when 4 kilobytes was a good download speed
I remember back when 4 kilobytes was a good download speed
Amazing how far we have progressed really
I remember back when 4 kilobytes was a good download speed
ah the good old 48/56k
thankfully i don't remember much of it as my dad got t1 for his home office back in the day
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Soldato
After getting annoyed with the silly negotiations with Virgin Media every 18 months I decided to move to FTTP as I was out of contract in May and they couldn't offer a sensible price for 1Gb. Openreach did the install yesterday which took about 90 minutes. A nice speed bump and the ping halved.
The above is an Internet monitoring system I run on a Raspberry Pi which was put together by Jeff Geerling: https://github.com/geerlingguy/internet-pi - it does require some basic Linux / Docker knowledge to get running.
I would recommend doing a quick check on the square grey box (Customer Service Point) as the engineer left the lid unscrewed on mine and it looks like it has a waterproof seal on it. Just two Phillips screws in the bottom to tighten.
The above is an Internet monitoring system I run on a Raspberry Pi which was put together by Jeff Geerling: https://github.com/geerlingguy/internet-pi - it does require some basic Linux / Docker knowledge to get running.
I would recommend doing a quick check on the square grey box (Customer Service Point) as the engineer left the lid unscrewed on mine and it looks like it has a waterproof seal on it. Just two Phillips screws in the bottom to tighten.
Associate
- Joined
- 3 Oct 2014
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Symmetrical flex
Why don't BT offer this? The smaller altnets deliver.
Why don't BT offer this? The smaller altnets deliver.
Soldato
I think it's a capacity issue, Openreach FTTP rollout is using GPON which is asymmetric 2.5/1.25Gbps and shared between up to 30 customers. The other providers (including Virgin) are using XGS-PON which supports 10Gbps symmetric.
Soldato
Aside from the capacity issues, I'm willing to bet 90%+ of Openrach FTTP customers would never use that much upload bandwidth.
I'm seriously close to dropping my Openreach connection for symmetrical gigabit through Lightspeed, especially now that they offer static IP addresses. Plus they're cheaper than what I'm paying now.
I'm seriously close to dropping my Openreach connection for symmetrical gigabit through Lightspeed, especially now that they offer static IP addresses. Plus they're cheaper than what I'm paying now.
Another benefit of FTTP that I'd not really considered before is that my internet speed when I'm away from home is much faster as well. I run my own VPN on a Pi on my network and my phone and laptop are set up to automatically connect to it when I'm out and about.
This means that my home upload speed is effectively the maximum download speed I can ever get through the VPN.
Looking at the speedtest history on my phone, I used to average around 13-14Mbps download and anything between 5 and 10Mbps upload. Upload can always be a bit hit and miss as it also depends on the 4G/5G connection.
I've just been out this morning. I did a test while parked in the local BP car park with a 2 bar 4G signal, I got 67Mbps down and 2.4Mbps up. When I disconnected from the VPN, I got 112Mbps down and 4Mbps up.
In the car park at Morrisons with a decent 5G signal I got 83Mbps down and 15Mbps up. Disconnected from the VPN and it was 116Mbps down and 22Mbps up. My EE data speed is allegedly capped at 100Mbps.
I'm happy with that, it's a significant increase over FTTC.
This means that my home upload speed is effectively the maximum download speed I can ever get through the VPN.
Looking at the speedtest history on my phone, I used to average around 13-14Mbps download and anything between 5 and 10Mbps upload. Upload can always be a bit hit and miss as it also depends on the 4G/5G connection.
I've just been out this morning. I did a test while parked in the local BP car park with a 2 bar 4G signal, I got 67Mbps down and 2.4Mbps up. When I disconnected from the VPN, I got 112Mbps down and 4Mbps up.
In the car park at Morrisons with a decent 5G signal I got 83Mbps down and 15Mbps up. Disconnected from the VPN and it was 116Mbps down and 22Mbps up. My EE data speed is allegedly capped at 100Mbps.
I'm happy with that, it's a significant increase over FTTC.