Upgrading to fibre optic broadband

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Decided to bypass fibre and wait for 5G to come to my local area.

A friend recently showed me a demo of a Samsung 5G phone that he was testing in Canberra,

He obtained 5Gb/sec easily although he did point out that the test was limited to this speed by the test service provider and like all connections, when the kids get home from school the increased usage puts more demand on the available bandwidth. Latency was almost non-existent btw.

Here is a linky to 5G in Australia 5G in Oz 5G should be rolling out in the UK so might be worth checking it out.

The current connection (what I am using to send this message) is a 'Data Only' 4G SIM installed in a tablet and connected to a laptop by "USB Tethering' and a cable. I prefer the laptop for it's larger keyboard and screen plus it's storage capacity, but the tablet is handy in it's own right if required. USB is more secure and faster than using the WiFi option.

The beauty is that it is a portable laptop internet system (within range of a mobile phone tower) and the SIM only cost me $150 Au (about £70) for 12 months of data. Depending upon the time of day it tops out at 4Mb/sec but usually half of that. More than enough to browse the forums and download the occasional video.

* Danny M *

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Much depends on locality. My exchange is about 1.5km up the road with the Green Box 60m down the road. This provided a good copper only ADSL service, typically 8 to 10 Mb/s down and about 1.0 up.

Upgrading to fibre to the cabinet gives me 50Mb/s down and 10Mb/s up, which is a distinct improvement. Everything happens faster.

My sister, with two gaming boys, has a 300Mb/s cable service. In her house all video (Free TV and paid providers) are streamed, to three different computers and a media centre. There's no TV antenna or copper-landline telephone.  The boys sneer at my country bumpkin internet service.

The problem in the UK has always been the strong temptation of the powers-that-be to reuse existing infrastructure rather than invest in a national upgrade. The result is a patchwork service ranging from top-of-the-range to third-world.

Bottom line, upgrading to fibre will perform better than copper. If if can be done for similar cost, the decision is a no brainer. I wouldn't mess trying to reuse an old router; the one that comes with the service is guaranteed compatible and it will probably outperform any older box. Once you know what the spec of the new one is, always possible to upgrade to a different make later.

Dave

 

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 31/07/2019 11:12:01

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

There should be another side to this question and that is what speed of connection do you actually need? There seems little point in paying for a connection speed of umpty Mbs when something a little slower will work just as well. A bit like buying a superfast car capable of a speed you'll never use when something slower will still get the job done. The needs of couple with two teenagers are going to be different to the likes of me and the wife, with a wife that works from home connected to the London office for 8 hrs/day.

Bob

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Can recommend Virgins' 200 Mbps fibre, regularly getting over 200 Mbps DL and over 20 Mbps up

Ping ranges depending of time of day. but usually about 10 -12 in the evenings

Regards

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

I have my business broadband via BT. I have high speed broadband and the cab (FTTC – fibre to the cab) is about 150 metres from my home.

I am getting 71.38 Mb download and 17.57Mb upload. This is using http://www.ookla.com

I am using my own router (Mikrotic) rather than the BT device. Because I am changing the broadband from my business name to personal name BT have just sent me a nice new BT Hub 6. Will use this whilst BB set up and then revert to the Mikrotic.

Colin

[FatWelshBoyParticipant @fatwelshboy]

If you are happy with your current speed just switch to whoever will match, or beat your current speed, at a better price. I'm a technician for a major broadband provider and don't get too hung up on FTTP or FTTC etc. just pay for what meets your needs. Do an online check for what speeds and deals are available to you and once you settle on a provider try and get a family member or friend who are with that provider to refer you. Don't forget you have a cooling off period so if you don't get what's promised you have a window of opportunity to leave.

[RMAParticipant @rma]

Posted by FatWelshBoy on 31/07/2019 12:26:52:

If you are happy with your current speed just switch to whoever will match, or beat your current speed, at a better price. I'm a technician for a major broadband provider and don't get too hung up on FTTP or FTTC etc. just pay for what meets your needs. Do an online check for what speeds and deals are available to you and once you settle on a provider try and get a family member or friend who are with that provider to refer you. Don't forget you have a cooling off period so if you don't get what's promised you have a window of opportunity to leave.

Absolutely agree. As I said before I got great deal this year……just shop around. I have smart TV's and wireless laptops and I still get around 26mb at my laptop. Seems to be perfectly adequate, no doubt it would be higher if it was hard wired. No need to pay over the top.

[clogsParticipant @clogs]

isn't fibre the future, even if they improve the fibre itself, surely it's better to upgrade now……..

I live in the sticks and there are those with a "dongle" cos the phone system is crxp…….

there is fibre cable 3/4 klm away but as the mayor or the community has to pay to get connected, it aint gonna happen fast….

esp as the moron mayor is 82 and he don't use the net……

just go for the best u can afford…….

we pay £50 for satelite broadband not quite unlimited but better than anyting else.

we pay €30 odd euro's per month for the cxrappiest phone service and there has never been a mobile signal at my house in 15-16 years….if it had we wouldn't need a land line….

leaving soon for sunnier clime's and they have fibre all over the island……..

which if ur interested,the phone charge is around €35 per month for 2 sim cards for Iphone 7's (free local mob phones and unlimited texts), a land line….all local calls and a few dedicated international calls, all the Greek TV channels plus Animal planet, Discovery and National Geographic….

a def upgrade for us at 1/2 the money……

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

I am Talk Ralk and upgraded to fibre. The speeds have increases, a lot over ADSL.

On my present contract, I pay £35 per month.

Today, I have spent, or am still, 90 minutes, retrying, with their technical department to sort out the free F secure SuperSafe. So far the only results have been that I have no virus protection for at least 48 hours, and cannot log into my account.

The staff are being very co-operative, but solutions are not forthcoming as yet.

Hurrah for fibre, but not for the system at the moment!

Howard

[steveteeParticipant @stevetee]

Talk talk are hopeless, I could go on but I won't. We changed to EE and I have just renewed the contract. We get all calls free to uk and 30 odd countries and 1000 minutes of calls to mobile plus Fibre broadband giving ( I'll just test it) with Which Latency =21ms Down= 70mbps up =19.1mbps. We pay £35 a month I'm pleased.

[Cabinet EnforcerParticipant @cabinetenforcer]

Robin, I notice no-one has directly answered your questions and most have just started moaning, seems standard on here at the moment, must be the heat.

 

If you get 20Mb/s on ADSL, then assuming openreach can connect you to FTTC you should get more, either near 40 or near 80 depending on how much you pay.

You can find out directly what you will get from this bt page:**LINK**

If you are talktalk you may need to use the address check version linked to on that page.

It's not a guarantee, as sometimes you can be connected to a different box, but it gives a good idea.

 

ETA, I had to go to FTTC just to get up to 20, you lucky blighter.

Edited By Cabinet Enforcer on 31/07/2019 17:08:12

[Barnaby WildeParticipant @barnabywilde70941]

Posted by Cabinet Enforcer on 31/07/2019 17:06:24:

Robin, I notice no-one has directly answered your questions and most have just started moaning, seems standard on here at the moment, must be the heat.

Really . . . . ????

I thought that several folk have given the best answer possible, unlike yourself, who has just re-inforced my belief that most folk don't know what they don't know but are sure their limited view of technology is at the cutting edge.

[Barnaby WildeParticipant @barnabywilde70941]

There's one or two projects on the go that seem to be spending $billions of dollars on developing a reusable craft to get into space. Whenever I come across an article in your MSM this seems to all revolve around space tourism !

Perhaps most folk think that the $gazzillionaire megalomaniacs behind these projects are doing it for tax loss purposes or maybe just to part the handfull of people on this planet who could afford a ticket from their ill gotten gains.

Nope. They're funding these projects because they want to put 100's if not 1000's of satellites into low orbit.

Can anyone guess what these low orbit satellites will be doing to return the healthy investment in getting them up there ???

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Barnaby Wilde on 31/07/2019 18:32:01:

Can anyone guess what these low orbit satellites will be doing to return the healthy investment in getting them up there ???

Putting the final nails into the coffin of the astronomy, if the impact of climate change on cloudiness doesn't do for it first…

Neil

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

To give you an idea of what Mbps means: A typical standard definition TV channel uses about 3Mbps but rises to 4.5Mbps for fast action sport or reduces to 1.5 for a boring political speech. High definition runs at around 8Mbps with again some peaks and troughs depending on content. Then 4k comes in at about 15Mbps for the common streaming services currently on offer because they are really cutting it back to get to the audience but it really needs 20Mbps and can go up to 45Mbps for the top quality content when all the systems become capable of handling it.
Typically you need a path in the reverse direction of 5% of the downstream rate and if this return gets interrupted it will affect your stream.
This forum uses so little it is hard to measure. Moral: stick to the forum and forget TV.

The internet system is very similar to the road system and the traffic on them. Lots of individuals leave their little house, go down a quiet lane and join a B-road, then an A-road , then a motorway. Then it all works in reverse and they go down smaller and smaller roads to end up at work. There are peak times. There are road works. There are slow downs on the 4 lane motorway that seem to have no apparent reason. There are sudden diversions that add time to the journey and contraflow systems. Every thing that can go wrong with your journey to work can go wrong with your internet ie it is all the fault of BMW drivers.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

Robin -Just to give you an idea, here in our village we are on FTTC and get about 56Mb/s download speed when the wind is in the right direction. Viewing the odd YouTube vid is as much strain as we ever put on the system and the lack of buffering is lush. We have used different providers in the past but have found that when things go belly up they blame BT – and of course, BT blame them. So we KISS and stick with BT.

Rik

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Just as expenditure rises to meet income, so technology seems to expand to consume the available band width. I am now on my own and have a 2nd hand flat screen tv and several computers. Only one of these is on line at any give time and my current internet speed is perfectly adequate for my needs. Even on the few occasions one of my children stay for a few days, their use of my internet connection does not affect my use in anyway. I suppose larger households would probably need faster data speeds, but in my situation, I'm perfectly happy with what I've got.

 

 

 

edited for spelling typo.

Edited By Anthony Knights on 01/08/2019 09:59:53

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Some more background.
Initially when other providers were allowed to compete with BT they made them put in their own equipment at the exchange and rent the space which restricted the availability. To improve competition regulations were changed and now the other providers can rent a block of BT equipment. Some of the equipment is now miniaturised and distributed in to the roadside cabinets and the connection to the cabinet from the exchange is fibre optic. This used to be deceptively advertised as a fibre service. Still uses the same wires though which are managed by Openreach. You don't see them stringing a new bit of wire each time someone changes provider.

So when you change supplier the wire is the same damp rat nibbled one strung 20 years ago. The equipment is the same but probably less than 3 years old and probably still BT owned. All that happens is some software settings are changed so max rate and contention ratio applied to your line is changed and the billing software changes.

If you move from wired to fibre to the home the equipment and the 'wire' has to change so that is the big opportunity to really improve. Be aware that FTTP stands for Fibre to the Premises from some suppliers but used to be Fibre to the Pole from BT so you might still get wire for the last stretch.

Cable suppliers (VM) use a different system entirely and can already provide 500Mbps without fibre.

[Norfolk BoyParticipant @norfolkboy]

If I may without giving offence just give a slightly different viewpoint

"Initially when other providers were allowed to compete with BT they made them put in their own equipment at the exchange and rent the space which restricted the availability"

Not true Bt were forced to provide space in their own premises for equipment that the other service provider choose to install.

"To improve competition regulations were changed and now the other providers can rent a block of BT equipment" Other service providers were and have always been able to wholesale from BT and retail on ADSL and VDSL especially in smaller exchanges where it did/does not make economic sense for them to install their own equipment.

"Some of the equipment is now miniaturised and distributed in to the roadside cabinets and the connection to the cabinet from the exchange is fibre optic."

Not quite correct. Whilst there is some condensing of space depending on the type of line card fitted 24 or 32 port it would hardly be referred to as miniturised it is still a DSLAM shelf.

"This used to be deceptively advertised as a fibre service" I agree in part but I don't think it was deceptive more misguided. "Still uses the same wires though which are managed by Openreach. You don't see them stringing a new bit of wire each time someone changes provider." That's what made it economically viable in the short term to supply faster speeds.

"The equipment is the same" No it isn't, The original iteration of ADSL was up to 8mB and went through upgrades to ADSL 2+ to give up to 24mB the emphasis with all ADSL is UP TO but never quite achieving. The new VDSL dslam will give about 110mB at the dslam so the closest people will get 80mB which is the top cap.

"probably less than 3 years old" No the original DSLAMs installed were ECI and some have been in place for at least 6 years" and "probably still BT owned" No Mostly but not exclusively all DSLAMS are owned by Openreach All that happens is some software settings are changed so max rate and contention ratio applied to your line is changed and the billing software changes.

"If you move from wired to fibre to the home the equipment and the 'wire' has to change so that is the big opportunity to really improve. Be aware that FTTP stands for Fibre to the Premises from some suppliers but used to be Fibre to the Pole from BT so you might still get wire for the last stretch."

There seems to be confusion here. It is quite simple an FTTP product is a fibre in to the premises. Now on a new building site if the developer buys into it FTTP is all you will get. But regardless of that the final fibre connection will be into the home and connected internally to a fibre router. Where there is a copper network then aa hybrid arrangement may occour but if the fibre block is at the top of the pole then a fibre or fibre/copper dropwire will be run into the primises and the fibre will once again go into a fibre router but the telephony could be on the copper totally seperately.

Alan.

Edited By Norfolk Boy on 01/08/2019 16:22:08

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Norfolk Boy on 01/08/2019 16:19:52:

….

"The equipment is the same" No it isn't, The original iteration of ADSL was up to 8mB and went through upgrades to ADSL 2+ to give up to 24mB the emphasis with all ADSL is UP TO but never quite achieving. The new VDSL dslam will give about 110mB at the dslam so the closest people will get 80mB which is the top cap.

…..

Alan.

It potentially gets more confusing when ‘milli’ prefixes are used.

Should mB actually be MB? Or perhaps Mb? There are a few orders of 10 between milli and Mega as well as differences between bytes and bits.

Please clarify.

[Norfolk BoyParticipant @norfolkboy]

"It potentially gets more confusing when ‘milli’ prefixes are used.

Should mB actually be MB? Or perhaps Mb? There are a few orders of 10 between milli and Mega as well as differences between bytes and bits.

Please clarify.

A millibyte is one thousandth of a byte not really in general usage unless you into serious geek stuff.

Not sure what to clarify, other than I fell into mB for no other reason than the first letter is a quantative abbreviation and the sceond could be a proper noun, as in kM for kilometre. It could be more properly Mb or MB

I am no expert in this particular area but simplistically, bytes are usually in reference to storage eg a 2 gigabyte hard drive (usually abbr' to 2 gig)

Bits is the transmission of data or bandwidths, If you download 100mb of data in 16 seconds if you had twice the bandwidth you can download it in 8 secs.

A Byte is 8 "bits" as in one character letter "a"

A kilobyte is 1024 bytes as in the binary mathmatical progression 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024.

I realise the kilo and 1024 do not equate but in this context it is what it means.

A megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes or 1,024 kilobytes

Alan

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

The point was that as you used the inappropriate prefix for the number (wrong case) you might also have used the wrong case for the item, so the reader would not know whether you actually meant bytes or bits.

Lower case m is the SI unit of length, nothing else. kM does NOT mean kilometres. Usual convention would mean a Mm is actually 1000km – not a mm but a stupid example that you may not understand?

So, did you mean bytes or bits? Sloppy use of units is not a clever situation when ambiguity is wantonly introduced by a poster.

Edited By not done it yet on 01/08/2019 18:33:52

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

NDIY

I take your point, but

How many lathes, particularly hobby ones have a Cross Slide that will move 1000km, (other than when carried on a ship or aircraft? )

My assessment is very low risk, in the context of the linear measurements that we use in our hobby.

Or an I not being Mega pedantic?

Howard

[Norfolk BoyParticipant @norfolkboy]

I think most people probably understood, so that'll conclude my effort,s let someone more pedantic follow up, I have no further interest and the mods may delete my posts if that helps. Sorry Howard not for you.

Edited By Norfolk Boy on 01/08/2019 18:55:12

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Just to be pedantic:- It shouldn't have been mB or MB. In data bandwidth terms, a capitalized multiplier implies base 16 terms and lower case implies base 10 terms. Also, bandwidth is referred to as bits/S (small b) not bytes/S (large B).

So the abreviation, in this case is mb/S.

The current BT FTTC systems can provide >300mb/S up to about 300m from the cabinet. They have been quietly upgrading the cabinets and running fibre to the telegraph poles, so if you are on an upgraded cabinet (ours has another box bolted onto the side of it) and are further than 300m, you will get FTTP, which is actually connected to the already run fibre at the pole top.

I'm currently getting 288mb/S down and 47mb/S up on copper at 100m from the cabinet, which is three times faster than my previous BT infinity offering and slightly cheaper.

It does make a noticeable difference to many things. I wanted it because I run a web server that hosts a number of web sites and the users had been moaning from time to time about the speed of it.

[Author]

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