Has anyone else been frustrated that we live so close to London (as you may remember, I showed we are closer to the City than Stratford, which is zone 2) yet have no option but to have BT as our broadband cable provider or Three as our 5G provider?
Should we not expect better?
It may be a hyper local issue, we use BT and 3 in honor oak, although BT fibre took some wrangling to get set up as their post code checker showed we weren’t eligible even though our neighbours were. If you are willing to invest some time and stress then contacting openreach may work for you too, they may just need to set up fibre to the premises, wiring your house to the nearest cabinet.
Hi Paul
Not sur what you mean, there are other providers other than BT (mostly on the Open Reach network though Virgin are seperate).
Is this FTTP or FTTC - we have the latter, with 2 different providers, and the speed is the same pretty much (as expected), but at present I guess so many people using it feeling the strain. Did oyu have to go to Open Reach or BT to get it done?
Thanks
Ours is FTTP, when we got here most of the street (including downstairs flat to us) could get FTTC just by signing up, but we could only get broadband over copper with a 14mb maximum. Openreach checker said fibre was ‘coming to your area soon’ or something like that. So we called Openreach and explained and they advised they could book in an installation for FTTP, no extra cost to us. We don’t pay for a super super fast package but have all the bandwidth we need and I don’t think it has dropped out once. You do need an extra box alongside your router and a small port installed in the wall but it’s not a big deal, probably a 1hr job for the engineer.
I don’t know if you could opt in for this if you already have FTTC mind, I think it might be a happy upside of not having fibre broadband at all that you might then end up with FTTP.
We have 1 Gig cable with Virgin. For mobile, I believe the only provider around my house with 5G at the moment is EE. I’m with O2. They do have 5G on Forest Hill Road as I was pleasantly surprised to see the 5G symbol appear on my phone whilst walking near Camberwell Old Cemetery in November.
I have fttp with bt and it’s fast, enough. I’m not complaining about that.
I’m just surprised that there are no other companies to choose from. You can, as others have said change to another provider over copper, but that’s not fibre broadband (or 5G) speeds.
I went to visit a friend in Harrogate a few years ago who had Virgin and it was incredibly fast. Much faster than I have now, and much much faster than I had at the time. He had a choice of BT fibre or Virgin. We don’t. Also, despite prominent masts, EE, O2 and Vodafone have left us in a 5G blackspot. I think Three has some sort of 5G coverage. But it’s a surprisingly poor offer is my observation.
I would like to switch from BT on a point of principle but the free market hasn’t made it down here yet!
Ha sorry I totally misread your post! Yes we basically have the same setup.
EE claim 5G coverage across most of London and certainly I’m getting it around Forest Hill. You need a compatible phone and suitable SIM, though their flex SIMs seem to offer 5G without having to sign up to a long contact.
Honor Oak Park is where it’s a 5g deadspot. “You’ll get weak coverage outdoors on 5G-enabled devices” is what it says here https://coverage.ee.co.uk/coverage/ee
Maybe unrelated but lately I’ve noticed my EE reception has gone down the toilet at home in HOP.
Calls constantly cutting out
On the mobile front, there are pockets of SE
London that still don’t have a decent 3 or 4G signal, let alone 5G. They’ve always responded to complaints by saying the neighbourhood topography doesn’t help propagate the signal.
I recently moved from Three to Virgin and my 4G download speeds (same device, same location,same time of day) went from 8 to 80Mbps. Still only shows 2 bars though and there’s a few spots in the Horniman Gardens where calls just don’t connect.
Virgin don’t seem to have a very comprehensive offering in SE23 for cable, sadly. Definitely not in the area close to HOP station.
I don’t understand why 5g is so poor in the area, especially along the major train tour between Croydon and London. Brockley and Forest Hill are red on this Vodafone coverage map, in stark contrast to the white of Honor Oak Park.
They might be finding it hard to put up new cell sites. This planning application recently got 77 comments, 76 objections, and was refused: 5G masts on corner of Blythe Vale & Perry Hill. It would have been 1.5km from Honor Oak Park, so within range of the mid-band spectrum typically being used for 5G here, depending on the exact contours of the land and transmit power.
With EE I get a 5G signal at Forest Hill Station, but it is very poor quality so that I often have to switch manually to 4G. That said, it isn’t appear that bad on the line to LBG… and the signal is fairly good and strong on Sunderland Road.
Would really appreciate your advice on this. I’ve been emailing openreach and trying to get FTTP. Could i ask what number you called? Our neighbour upstairs has fibre and i’m struggling to be able to work at the moment with our terrible internet!
That sounds like a similar situation to us. It was mostly arranged via email, via the address sifibreenquiriesmop@openreach.co.uk
If that doesn’t work, then tweeting them may also help!
Has anyone in HOP been using 5G regularly and has it been ok, and if so who are you with?
EE say you will get good coverage outdoors (not sure what that means for indoors though…) EE Coverage & Network Status Checker | Check your signal
Vodafone say limited coverage (below good outside and good in and out) https://www.vodafone.co.uk/network/status-checker
Virgin say the same as vodafone (map looks the same) https://www.virginmedia.com/mobile/coverage-checker
O2 say they don’t offer coverage https://www.o2.co.uk/coveragechecker
On the broadband front no FTTP via any OpenReach providers, and no Hyperoptic or Virgin etc to our house so stuck on today 14Mb download and less than 1Mb upload (it is normally slightly better than that but between 15-20 mb download).
I can report on Three, which also claims good outdoors and bad indoors.
Three (outdoors) 5g speed near Honor Oak Park station, is not reliable and when it does click on, on my dual SIM phone, the speed is less than O2 4G signal on the same phone. Three was from memory around 4Mbs compared to 100Mbs for 4G.
Given the 4G speed is faster than what you’re getting anyway, maybe you should look into that and keep fingers crossed that 5G gets here. I have checked O2 5G in Lordship Lane and got 350Mbs.
I’ve not had any issues outside with EE 5G around HOP, only issue is my house is a dead zone for any mobile signal.
We’ve got Sky fibre internet and 5G with EE. I live on Lowther Hill and whilst the signal indoors is poor, that’s probably because the house is very old with thick walls. Fine 5G signal in the garden. However, if I leave our house and go to the corner of Brockley View - 200 yards if that - I get no signal at all - not 5G, not 4G, not 3G, nothing.
Interesting - Vodafone currently showing “No Coverage” for 5G in Perry Vale but the “Planned Coverage” view says that will change and in 3 months we will be covered inside and out.
I can actually see, despite my advanced age, the mobile mast outside Honor Oak Park station from the bottom of my garden. Despite this, Three’s 5G signal which is allegedly ‘good outdoors’ is actually nothing at all. Literally NADA. No 5G. It not only has ceased to be but it is an ex-signal.
It’s a shame, because their 5G broadband offering for the houses that get it indoors well, is pretty good.
Thanks for this - I’d assumed (based on Vodafone’s own coverage map…) that they didn’t have any 5G locally. Having seen that you’ve had it working locally, I called 191 and spoken to someone they’re now fixing an account provisioning issue which was blocking any 5G access for me.
That’s great, glad you’re able to get it sorted. I’ve been surprised how good it is, and my husband has moved over to them now as well. I used to get so frustrated in the Brockley area with Three, as there was always a data blackspot between Forest Hill and London Bridge when I used to get the train to work.
I should add that I’m actually with VOXI (owned by Vodafone) and pay £10 a month for 15GB of 5G data (social media does not use data), unlimited minutes/texts and EU Roaming (which is no longer a given). They have bigger plans if you want more or unlimited data - worth comparing to Vodafone plans directly.
I don’t know whether this has any bearing on what you checked earlier but I’m with Vodafone and received a text from them about an hour ago advising there’s a problem with their mobile network in SE23 2QA, and they’re working to get things back up and running as quickly as they can! That post code covers part of Sunderland Rd so quite close to Perry Vale but I can’t verify what the problem is as I’m out of London at the moment but it might explain why they weren’t showing 5g coverage for your area earlier.
Interesting, I’m at the bottom of Lowther Hill, strange the signal gets worse the higher you go? Or maybe I don’t understnad these things enough.
Will have a think or maybe wait a bit before biting the bullet.
There is a blind spot right at the top - between no 68 and the grey developer’s house - but we’re a few doors down and the signal is good enough to stream outside. Inside is a different story!
I now have a 5G service in Devonslhire Road on O2
I also noticed yesterday that I have O2 5G signal on Sunderland Road. I only noticed it yesterday so it could have come online a day or so before. Very pleasantly surprised as it’s full signal indoors as well.
Hi everyone, im moving into Grierson Rd, Honor Oak soon. I have been working from home comfortably with fibre FTTP in my old place in central London. Whats my best option for a reliable and fast connection? Any advise would be much appreciated.
Depends what your property can get. You might be able to get FTTP. You might be able to get FTTC. If you’re really unlucky like me you’re stuck with ADSL or trying 5G.
Even if your street has full fibre your building might not get it (like my situation). Only way you can really find out is by putting your new address into websites of various ISPs and seeing what they offer you.
It might be worth querying individual address in a street. On my road it showed it wouldn’t provide it between 35 & 51. On the scroll address bar bit. However it did provide fibre before & after those numbers.
I queried with BT and hey presto they realised I could actually get it & it would of been available for quite awhile. Which was really annoying as the amounts of complaints I had made about service/speed etc, for years was a joke. Might be worth checking just incase.
Nah I’ve been through it plenty of times with Openreach. They’re refusing to run the fibre to our building because it’s a big house converted into 8 flats and apparently they just don’t want to know about running the fibre into the building. The fibre is in the street, runs right past my front door but they’d rather just leave us out.
Oh wow. Luck of the draw. The standard options don’t seem too great. I will see if I can find any alternatives.
It’s probably fine just flagging that what’s available varies from street to street. Just put your new postcode into the openreach website and it should tell you if full fibre is available. It probably will be, I think those of us with no fibre are probably the minority
I posted a link to the BT Wholesale broadband checker in the post via this link some time ago. It’ll tell you what cabinet your place is connected to and what BT infrastructure is available on that cabinet. Doesn’t show non BT infrastructure though (so no Virgin etc).
It might be worth skimming through the thread as well as there’s some other useful info. But it may be out of date by now.
I have FTTP with Virgin Media (1G). It really is great when there are two of us working from home using data heavy tools via VPN. But it’s not available everywhere in the area, unfortunately.
Vodafone and O2 arent great in Forest Hill. EE is your best option. Also has the best coverage UK wide (except Northern Ireland).
We have found O2 consistently reliable in Forest Hill, and is now 5G.
OH has recently noted that O2 now has 5G availability at the house on Sunderland Road. EE is also very good.
Le sigh.
I’ve lost 5G a few hours ago.
