Broadband Recommendations [2016-2019]

I’m getting a bit miffed with the performance of BT Infinity. I sometimes clock a consistent 70Mbps in speed tests but at other times (especially in the evenings when everyone’s watching Netflix) this can get patchy and there’s often high latency.

Has anyone tried Relish? I get pretty good 4G coverage in Ebsworth Street and I wonder if Relish could match the speeds and save me a bit of cash (avoiding paying BT line rental for a landline I don’t use).

@anon5422159 Count yourself lucky. Just spent over an hour on the phone to Sky and I now get a whopping 16 mbps

Wireless affected by lots of stuff like rain, sunspots, and underlying capacity is limited, as it gets overloaded it’s never going to get any better.

Have to say had a bad experience with Virgin, so switched to BT who never upgraded our bit of the road, so switched back and now Virgin are not bad and I get pretty consistent 60Mb (though < 3mb upload)

Unfortunately, Relish only cover central London. Before I moved to Forest Hill (previously in Herne Hill) I was with BT Infinity and had no complaints about the service. We are now with Virgin here in FH and, I must say, I am incredibly pleased with their internet (TV not so much)… I get very close to the 200 mbps promised, even wirelessly. The reach of the signal is fantastic… the router is on the ground floor… bedroom two floors up and we get 60 - 70 mbps up there without any extenders etc. Have only ever had to reboot the router once in 3 months…

@Bolgerp are you using fiber? B

I am indeed…

@Bo Thanks, may have to look into that.

They had a really good bundle deal when we were looking for services in advance of moving in. Plus, the previous owners had Virgin as well so we didn’t need to get anything installed or book and engineer visit… they just sent us the kit and we self installed. Basically we got their highest TV package and max fibre internet for half price for 6 months… even with the phone line rental added on and after the 6 months half price is up, it is still cheaper than what I was paying Sky just for their tv service previously.

So, I would advise to have a look at Virgin. They don’t cover the entire region for superfast broadband, however. And, as I mentioned, I am not too keen on their TV offering… their TiVo box and software is extremely clunky and slow. So, I suspect I will move back to Sky once my 12 months contract is up for TV but will keep Virgin’s internet…

We moved from Whatman Road (BT Infinity) to Colfe Road (both BT and Virgin available) last year. BT were rubbish in handling the house move - which they blamed on the Infinity fibre service being “new”. So we switched to Virgin - who didn’t need to send an engineer out and were going to be able to set us up in 3 days rather than minimum 3 weeks. Generally the service has been fine. We’ve had a couple of outages which they’ve admitted and fixed with good clear updates along the way.

I suspect that for @anon5422159 the choice is limited to using BT Openreach lines or something like Relish. Would it be worth looking at another provider using the Openreach lines for better service?

Middle of the day, on laptop, using wifi, 1 floor below the router

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Whether or not you get good speeds from Virgin is a bit pot luck, and if you are unlucky enough to be in an oversubscribed area, you can whistle for any sort of fix. We had speed under 5mbps (yes, 5) in the evenings for months. They wouldn’t even contemplate looking into it until overage in my area was 10% over capacity. It was standing at 4%. If an infrastructure upgrade WAS approved, it would take up to a year. I had to bombard their Twitter account for weeks to get them to let me out of my contract.

The TV service is exorable. Interface ugly, laggy and unintuitive. Catch up services accessed through opaque layers of menues and fiddly search boxes, then ten minutes to just load something like iPlayer, even when broadband speed was solid.

We’ve gone to Sky. Their new Q TV boxes are a delight. I can’t tell you how nice it is. Just a pleasure to use.

We have their broadband too. Solid speeds of 32-36mbps. After years on BT superfast Infinity we thought it would be too slow, but even in a house with 5 heavy users it is more than enough.

One of the risks of using BT is that they use their own BT Wholesale product which is shared with other ISP’s.

TalkTalk and Sky have their own service, only using the last bit of the Openzone connection to your house from the exchange, so you are less likely to get a reduction in speed and latency.

I’ve been with TalkTalk for two years and always had the same speed, even during the busy evenings.

I was with BT for a couple of years, and was very happy with them. I got the 60 Mbps that my connection allows, consistently and without problem. I switched to Zen only because I intensely dislike BT as a company, and wanted to give my business to another company. I’ve been very happy with Zen, and pay exactly the same as I did to BT, but it’s also no better or worse (I still get the same speeds).

I agree with the Zen observation. What is very frustrating is that the Forest Hill exchange is enabled for FTTP and though I have neighbours who have it, it seems that it is impossible to get now as they have run out of space in the cabinets. Grr.

I would love to get FTTP!

So we don’t have fibre as an option and it doesn’t look like there will be for quite some time. Has anyone tried the 4G broadband from the likes of three mobile (homefi) or vodafone? They look pretty decent and was wondering if it’s better download/upload speeds. 100gb with vodafone looks a good deal at 19quid…no more landline costs. The 4G reception looks pretty good too in the HOP area.

FYI - we just have standard BT Broadband, clocking max 17mb DL and measley 1mb UP

Hi @Hikoki. I have moved your question into the existing topic we had for this.

HI. It’s not really a fibre question though. It’s standard ADSL vs 4G

This existing topic does discuss cell network broadband (e.g. Relish), but I’ll alter the title to broaden it to ADSL

@Hikoki 100gb of data for 19 quid is a good deal although I am struggling to find that anywhere. Of course that is total data over the specified period not speed and 4g can be highly variable in terms of speed and latency. We had one for working out of office on mobile devices but were amazed at how quickly you burn through data. Speed was fine for browsing, youtube and email but in the end it went the way of all things as we kept on having to stump up for data,

I have FTTP in FH - BT are fecking useless but the internet rattles along at a good pace. Really surprised you can’t get FTTC or FTTP in HO

This is the vodafone deal:
https://airtel-vodafone.com/homebroadband

And 3 4G home-fi
http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Devices/Huawei/HomeFi?memory=0&colour=Black

Yea, unfortunately no fibre on this side of the station…

hmmmph…looks like I came across something in Jersey…So i guess the only option really is from three mobile or possibly EE do one as well.

Not sure if 20gb is enough for amazon fire streaming - every once in a while.

It depends which side of the tracks you are on. On the East side, I don’t think there is a problem (but happy to stand corrected on this point). West, some people have it, but you can’t order any more as the old style cabinet on Tyson Road is full.

Edit - Ah jersey - would have been a nice deal

That’s a pretty decent deal. Personally I wouldn’t without doing a 4g speed test first but I that is a good deal and you can at least see how much you are using.
You can still burn through data surprisingly quickly - is it just you?

nothing on wyleu…least what everyone tells me…

Ok stand corrected then. I was basing my post on a conversation with a BT engineer. He indicated that it was technically possible now (due to spare slots on Grierson IIRC) but, actually, when it comes to OpenReach it is not the technical capability that is the problem…

yea, just for ourselves - non business use. the upload speed on BT is bad…50gb/month on 3 mobile does sound like a lot of data…i wonder how long on 4G it would take to download that much anyway…

We stream Amazon Fire with 10 to 12 gig whilst using two lap tops and an iPad.

that’s useful to know. Probably less than that then, as it’s every now and then. The most is probably google photo uploads and amazon photo uploads…i suppose the video uploads can take up a lot of bandwidth.

Uploads was pretty dire. Upload speed of around 2 meg.

EE 4G vs Virgin Media Fibre.

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The upload speed is what made me switch ti fiber - I spent ages trying to upload about 70gb of photos to Amazon so I caved in and got fiber - wooosh!
50gb a month is fine for web/email etc. If you use Netflix or video streaming services a lot or you or if you torrent then you can reach that quite quickly.

That’s great feedback, thanks. BT ADSL uploads tend to be around 1mb, so seeing the EE 4G at a higher rate is nice to see. Just can’t find anything regarding the Three HomeFi 4G…not even a single review…

LOCAL BROADBAND OPTIONS & SERVICE - we’re in Honor Oak and are unable to get fibre broadband because the cabinet serving our street is only able to service approx 65% of the properties on it.
Openreach tells me they have no plans to upgrade the service as to do so would not be ‘commercially viable’. My next door neighbour has,potentially, services of up to 300mb/s download available yet just meters away we struggle to reach 10mb/s (from a service from Sky we pay for that advertises up to 17mb/s).

Is anyone else in a similar situation?

What other alternatives have you found?

The distribution of Openreach’s services seems unfair and haphazard and as someone who is self employed and dependent on high connection speeds for my business, I’m appalled that this lack of infrastructure is turning into a such handicap.

**I notice Virgin is encouraging those interested in receiving or upgrading fibre broadband to register their interest at the following page. Seems like one of the only options for those of us 2nd class citizens abandoned by Openreach … If you can’t get fibre at the moment or you’re unhappy with BT, register your interest and let’s see if they take any notice!!! **

http://www.virginmedia.com/cablemystreet/

Interested to hear thoughts - but not so bothered about customer service woes - I just want to be able to have the option to CHOOSE between faster services in the first place !!

Hi Mark,
We have fibre broadband via BT. We were offered it as we were getting useless speeds/buffering etc, then our phone had to be changed as well!
Our next door neighbour has been told he can’t have it, but they did change his wiring on the mast outside, so I wonder if that is an option otherwise.

Not to depress you further but I registered my interest with Virgin over a year ago - good to get people trying but no change. I do have BT Infinity.

Good luck but I wouldn’t hold your breath…

I have BT FTTP on the other side of the South Circ. Speed is great and very reliable.
BT delivery are terrible though - took months to get it sorted…

We are in a very similar situation. We do not have a much better connection speed, c. 12Mb/s download, but it is very stable, which is most important for me as I also use it for work. We use Zen.

The advertised rate is a massive bone of contention with ADSL. It is the ‘up to’ part that is operative. I do not buy the ‘commercially viable’ part as there is plenty of demand. If you check my comments upthread, you will see that it is more likely that there are other places where they can site new equipment that would be more profitable than replacing new for old. The cabinet you refer to, which I suspect may be on Tyson Road, is known locally to the engineers as a ‘nightmare’.

The root issue here IMO is that OpenReach have no competition.

I agree about Openreach needing more competition. After our recent home move we were left without internet for almost 2 months and the ones before that it was one month each time because of the incompetence + arrogance of Openreach. Having moved here from the states where over five home moves we were left without a single outage this was a massive shock and inconvenience. And we weren’t the only ones, we had to share our internet with our neighbors for almost 2 months when they first moved in.

Had a wander down Gabriel St earlier and noticed the overhead fibre cables on a few telephone poles. Has anyone around there got fibre yet?

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Openreach? All the houses on Holmesley Road, Courtrai Road, etc are available for fibre now but the flats inside those properties aren’t.

Fairly frustrating finding BT say they can’t do anything and not being able to talk to anyone in Openreach.

This seems to be a common issue. We have the same on Sunderland Road - those in houses can get fibre but those of us in flats can’t even though we’re connected to the same cabinet. I’ve raised this with Open Reach via a Contact link on their website and got an initial response advising my query requires further investigation by their specialist team to resolve! That was 2 weeks ago.

I’ve got an investigation in with BT and I’ve pointed out to them that this is true for many properties in the area. They are meant to get back to me today, hopefully they can fix this for everyone.

I got an update from OpenReach at last. It seems that when they fitted the area for fibre they only ran 1 fibre strand for each building, despite that the flats have been separate lines for over 30 years!

This means that new fibre needs laid for the area before any flat will get fibre.

OpenReach are not being entirely open or fully accurate with that answer.

I for example have fibre to the home ( sometimes FTTH or FTTP). That in practice means I have five fibre strands to the distribution box. Why this is, has never been explained.

I tested the system with BT as part of the pilot scheme and had monitoring kit installed in my home. The tests included using some of the other fibre routes to deliver data.

The problem lies somewhere between the fact that the pilot for Forest Hill had architecture that was originally to be Fibre to The Cabinet (FTTC) with last metres to your premises being in the traditional copper or aluminium cable.

Typically BT/Openreach altered this to FTTP part way through the pilot scheme. So we have a mixture of both.

Without knowing for certain, my best guess would be that OpenReach do not have the capability or kit to deliver the five strand equivalent to flats.

And then you have one of the main spines running along Perry Vale, yet very few if any properties there can get any fibre connection, be they single properties or flats.

Going back to Mark’s question about getting Virgin. if they ever install the cables to your street, expect very slow speeds and traffic management as VM simply don’t have the capacity for all their customers in London to use the service properly.

I’m one of the fortunate it seems who has full speed fibre on TalkTalk via the Openreach network which works well, even if it’s not up to the speeds Virgin advertise.

I think Virgins performance is very much dictated by the box at the end of your street - after several previous issues we had an engineer correct the gain from our local box to our property - and have enjoyed a pretty consistent 76mb download ever since.

Am pleased to report that we now have FTTP in Honor Oak, west of the tracks. It took an age to deliver - OpenReach are truly Kafkaesque with their bureaucracy. Now very happy with stable and fast connection. Stuck with Zen and am very glad we did so. Very good quality router supplied and easy to contact tech support.

Can now ditch the phone line we never wanted and this makes it almost cost neutral.

Congrats - welcome to the super-fast web. Just watch you don’t meet yourself coming back at high speed.

Interesting data published today. It focuses on measured speeds delivered by UK Internet Service Providers in the crucial 20:00 to 22:00 evening time frame.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7958-broadband-speeds-experienced-in-critical-8pm-to-10pm-window-revealed

So for example I am circa 1.5 km (fibre optic cable route) from Forest Hill Exchange with an up to 76 Mbps FTTP connection from BT.

For me the table shows download Mbps averages of [Bottom] 32.5 [Median] 55.9 and [Top] 74.0 - all values which are comparable with my own measurements.

The whole table shows Broadband Speeds for a number of UK Internet Service Providers and will serve as a “pointer” for those who like to know.

Thanks! One interesting feature is that the DNS servers you assign become significant I have noticed.

Re the ThinkBroadband link, shame it doesn’t have our connection type on there (Zen FTTP 76Mb/s), will do some tests between those times if anyone is interested.

i did notice on the thinkbroadband site that a user there also asked if the Zen FTTP data could be added.

Given that this was 2017 data - is the Zen FTTP service a comparatively new product ?

Yes it is I think. Certainly only just available where we are anyway.

Are you in a new build? Do you know what triggered you getting it? Every 2-3 months I check the broadband checker to see if there’s any change for my house, but no FTTP and no G.Fast (which is probably a good enough replacement for FTTP).

Not in a new build,

Couldn’t say exactly. I mean, they ran fibre in from the street as there is already fibre there, but there has presumably been fibre there for a few years at least as we had a previous opportunity to order it. This is all within the gift of the enigmatic OpenReach.

I had put our name down on various waiting lists, including with our current ISP, hoping to be notified when it was available but nothing came of that. It was only because I did an occasional check, like you do, that I noticed it.

As the weak link in our ADSL has been the copper phone lines, I would prefer FTTP if you can get it. That is my thinking at least - early days yet!

Ah, so lucky. I agree that fibre is vastly preferable to copper, but it seems that OpenReach have little intention of widely deploying fibre (why would they, if they aren’t being made to?)

I used to live in Crofton Park and I had FTTP there (which was glorious – it was the early days so I was getting 300 down for about what I’m paying now for 60ish VDSL). I was renting so it was never going to last long. That was a newish (in the last 15 years) development, so I guess they had ducts or something that made it easy to deploy.

Sorry - I came late to this as I had not fully realised Honor Oak was still quite so far behind with fibre activation.
In circumstances where the fibre has been laid, Openreach can be influenced about when it will go active.
I have supported neighbours and friends over the years with all forms of broadband networking.
So when fibre was rolled out from Forest Hill exchange in one of the early pilot schemes, it was obvious that Openreach would alter their plans in the context of perceived demand.
And that could influenced by persuading friends, neighbours and all and sundry to sign up as expressions of interest on BT’s website . This action did not mean you were signing up for a deal but it could lead to your streets/postcode being elevated in the general scheme of things.
We did use another SE23 dot site to spread the word.
And whilst it did not work universally- it did work most of the time.
So spread the word, vote early vote often and promote your locality in the expressions of interest game.
Multi-flatted buildings are still a mystery as to why they do not get FTTP installations.

Where does one go to express interest?

I think visiting here may provide the most effective method of getting fibre broadband in SE23.

Haha – took me a good ten seconds to realise what was happening. I think you’re right, though.

Apologies for the delay.

BT says “then you can register your interest, and we’ll be in touch as soon as it’s available.”.at this link: “I’ve seen that BT Infinity will be available in my area soon. Can I pre-order now?” On this page:

https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/broadband/fibre/

I must comment that it was much easier back in the day.

Once upon a time, you could contact OpenReach directly. No chance now so a completely opaque process IMO.

Just got this through the post today:

image2612×2638 1.44 MB

Wonder if it’s worth a shot? I’m on BT Infinity and used to get 70Mbps but generally clock lower speeds. Currently:

image1125×399 125 KB

£55 per month for BT superfast…

Sadly at that price I’ll have to stick to my temperamental slow Sky broadband which is frustrating but only about £15 a month.

I also have received this offer - albeit a few weeks ago.

I was a tester on the original FTTP rollout.

I get the full 76mbs delivery with an occasional; wobble. and the new offer at guaranteed 100mbps makes insufficient difference to me. Particularly at £55pm.

After my trial I was offered 300mbps for less than a tenner a month extra - thought about that at the time - but once more it delivered no measurable benefits so I declined.

Do not understand why BT has reduced the maximum offer speed to 100mbps.and has inflated the differential price.

One might guess that wait a year and BT will make the 100mbps offer part of the core Infinity deal.

Hi all, I’ve created a post on a similar topic:

https://se23.life/t/fibre-broadband

Note this is only relevant to residents in Ebsworth Street, Bovill Road, Herschell Road, Garthorne Road Whatman Road and Brockley Rise. But I wanted to flag it here as there’s some overlap.

Thanks!

It looks like FTTP could be in your area so, just curious, why would you want to fund roll out of FTTC?

Hi Brett,

The BT website gives the impression that FTTP is in our area. However, the coverage checker looks at the exchange (which is enabled for FTTP) not the cabinet (which is not enabled). When you go to actually buy a fibre package, you get denied. I’d love FTTP, but right now I’d settle for FTTC!

Rob

Get that, and until recently was in the same position. Thing is, I believe that @anon5422159 is in your area and he has posted a letter which seems to indicate FTTP (see up-thread). That could be a false lead also but at least you could claim £20 off each if so!

True - have responded here

I live in a small block of flats on Dacres Road, just off Perry Vale. Will I ever get fibre or would it be quicker to build my own exchange and lay my own cables?

For those who live on the Southwark side of SE23, Southwark Council have signed a deal with Hyperoptic to install their 1GB connections on residential estates, which include the Sydenham Hill Estate.

And this is after several years now since the rollout and commissioning of FTTP in Forest Hill.

There are still reports of Openreach stating that FTTP is available in an area and then declining to connect people in multi-flatted properties - and without explanation.

If it is a technical issue - they have had long enough to work it out.

Does anyone have views on the differences between Zen, BT Infinity and any other providers we can choose from in FH, in terms of costs, customer services etc? I see we can now get FTTP in Devonshire Road, and am thinking about upgrading so that we can actually upload photo albums to the cloud etc. Doesn’t work very swiftly with our current 1Mbps upload from EE…

We are on Devonshire and have stuck with Zen for reliability and customer service. Used to have ADSL, now FTTP. Conversion cost included Fritz router which is actually a decent bit of kit. Download/upload speeds are as per the line rating but there is a marginal slow down during peak times. PM me if you want a demo.

Have used BT in the past but would never do so again.

BT Iinfinity with FTTP is usually very reliable on our side of the railway (Perry Hill). Devonshire is v close to FOH exchange and the performance degradation should be minimal.

However if you live in a flatted building Openreach may tell you it can’t be done - even though they do say it’s available.

This was my reason for updating to FTTP and boy it makes a difference.

Thanks all. @Brett, what happened to deter you from BT out of interest?

Dire customer service when things go wrong. Actual technical support (beyond the basics) is hard to source. YMMV.

With FTTP there is no performance degradation based on distance. Because fibre is digital, it either works or it doesn’t (i.e. it doesn’t get slower). VDSL/FTTC is analogue from the cabinet to the house, where greater distance significantly diminishes the quality of the signal and the protocol is designed to handle this diminished quality by slowing down the data rate. With FTTP you have pulses of light representing 1s and 0s, and while there is an element of error correction in the protocols, the 1s and 0s either get to the other end, or they don’t.

Same reason why expensive HDMI cables are a waste of money. Either the 1s and 0s get to the other side, or they don’t, there’s no grey area.

However you do get more noise on the line with greater distance (we have to measure this on all our installs) - so technically this could mean more lost packets which are therefore sent again which does slow down transmission. However you do need a lot of distance to make much difference…

I can always stand to be corrected.

But as I have said before I was a member a testing team for the FOH rollout when the architecture changed from FTTC to FTTP mid-way through the pilot scheme.

BT installed monitoring kit in my home and connected two of the five fibres that are available for data use. (the norm for a retail customer is to have one data link). Throughput, noise levels and many other things were logged and reported on about which I have little expertise.

Monitoring and testing would be done across both lines and there could be significant variation on the throughput. The supervision team spoke of “degradation” and inferred that on occasion there were issues about noise measurement and tuning of the settings on what they called their retail servers and the insitu huawei box located at my end of the fibre. Whilst in the main I now get a fairly consistent 76 mbps - there still is an occasional wobble and even more rarely a drop out.

From time to time I would be instructed to change data ports as (I assume) different configurations were tested.

In your model, is it the case then that a constant 76mbps would be maintained over a finite distance or and until it could reach a maximum distance and drop off entirely with no ramp-down in throughput.?

Although orders of magnitude better than copper, the fact that the light propagates though an optical cable means that attenuation (absorption/scattering) and dispersion (pulse broadening) cause the max data transfer rates to slow down over distance.

Mind you, you would need to be pushing a few Gigs over 50km or so to notice the difference for normal home use - but soon becomes a limiting factor on major backbones.

Yeah. Fibre is also immune to a lot of common sources of interference like cross-talk from nearby lines, ground loops, water, etc. Basically a copper phone line is like a radio antenna, and picks up any/all radio interference which comes from many sources. Another benefit of fiber is that because of its “all or nothing” nature, when you get connected there is a much better chance you will get a “good” reliable connection, whereas VDSL is a lot more forgiving and will tolerate poor quality connections (albeit giving you lower speeds). My VDSL was having some issues a while back and the OpenReach tech discovered another unused phone line he could give me instead, and I instantly gained around 20% both up and down.

Any speed wobbles you see are almost certainly coming from upstream (i.e. from the cabinet upwards).

It is hard to beat a good engineer who knows his own patch - I do a little network maintenance with copper and fibre connections.

On more than one occasion with copper I have had the same experience when an engineer has patched through a “cleaner” line to improve data throughput.

Keeping on their good side is the art-form - you never know when you will need their help.

I’ve just done a bit of reading, and FTTP is delivered via something called GPON, which shares one master fibre with up to 64 end users (I’ve no idea if BT splits it all the way to 64). It’s difficult to find exact info, but I get the impression that everyone on that shared connection is connected at the maximum speed, which is 2500 Mbps down and 1200 Mbps up. So in theory, if all 64 people maxed out their 80 Mbps connections simultaneously, then they would all get roughly half (40 Mbps x 64 = 2560 Mbps). So it’s still very much a shared resource (but then, everything about the Internet is shared, so it’s a moot point).

What I find interesting is that because this is shared, every single ONT (the “modem” that OpenReach gives you) has to be well behaved, or it can cause problems for the other users on the shared line. It also means that everyone is connected at the max speed, or again, nothing would work.

Here’s a very nerdy but useful PDF:

Oh, I gave him a very generous tip. I was over the moon!

How does this compare for a speed test?

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The download speed is comparable with my 76mbps - but that upload speed is phenomenal.compared with my circa 20mbps.

What is it running over and who is your ISP

I should confess that this is at work…I have no idea what it’s running over, but I work for the national broadcaster, and have just hooked my new iPhone X up to the staff wi-fi…!

Does your work extend that service to your home ? I had wondered if it was a dedicated link with non-contention installed at your home.

Ah - so the BBC logo was not an casual advert !

Sadly not!

It will be running over some sort of synchronous leased line - I get that speed here at work with ours and we are minnows compared to your employer who are likely limiting your speed somewhat. Sadly they don’t come cheap but they are much cheaper than they used to be.

Yes, I would imagine that we have a very fat pipe for broadcast critical purposes…they’re not likely to offer much of the available bandwidth to the worker bees.

We moved to Eastern edge of Forest Hill SE23 / south side South Circular in early 2016, we could only just get 16Mb broadband, but there was clearly fibre access (FTTC I think) to neighbouring properties. All the online checkers and the BT call centres denied it, I think due to capacity, even though I accosted various BT engineers in the street looking at poles to ask them, and they said it should be OK (they pointed me to the boxes on neighbouring houses proving it was there). I got the leaflet posted above a few months ago as well. Even then, BT denied availability (“Computer says no”). Happily, something changed a week or two ago and suddenly my postcode was enabled for ultrafast (FTTP I think). I’ve ordered the 200Mb allegedly going in on Monday, we shall see what happens. If you have been waiting for a while, I recommend you go check again. Lead time was about 2 weeks to get it installed if that makes a difference to you. I elected to go straight to BT for this contract - possibly paying a bit more - simply to get it in.

I have just bought a house on Boveney Rd and am really battling to find a fibre or cable provider with fast access, let alone superfast… any ideas

Hello Lisa99, have you tried the comparison sites?

Hi Lisa. You may struggle to find a provider with fibre broadband in FH. Some areas seem to have access to fibre and others seemingly not.

My only choice was to go with Virgin. I believe they use a separate line to BT.

All the best.

Yes i would like Fibre but Plusnet who i am with dont have it in our area , the only provider is Virgin, who have a bad name from Neighbours for bad service ?

So i suppose its a case of stick with the devil you know,but not fibre ??

I was with Virgin for the past year, and while I have heard plenty of horror stories, I actually had no major issues myself with them. If they’re your only option for superfast, then you may as well go with them.

I have since switched to Hyperoptic, as I had always planned to, but they were not immediately available when I moved in, so Virgin was a stopgap. It was either Virgin or standard DSL, Virgin won out!

I’ve posted these in another thread somewhere before, but in terms of reliablity here is an average week of hourly speedtests whilst I was on Virgin (I was paying for the 200Mbps package)

image1867×886 214 KB

Just for fun, because it’s not overly readable, but here is ~a year’s worth of hourly speedtest results:

image1867×884 466 KB

So the speed can be a bit uppy downy, but it averages out to be more acceptable than DSL, and I had not major outages.

That said, Hyperoptic has been much more consistent in the provided service, paying for a 150Mbps up/down service, and on average getting slightly higher. Here are the last three weeks of hourly speedtests:

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Blimey, Would love to have those sorts of speeds

I lived in a flat with only DSL for 6 years before I moved, I used to get an average of 6Mbps down, and about 900k up.

So even “unreliable” fast internet was better than that! Hyperoptic also do a 1000Mbps up/down package… But I figured that would be getting into the realms of overkill.

I might yet upgrade though… Just because!

Had tried the fist two but not the third THANKS - this is clearly the way to go!

I need to upgrade my home broadband for two people working from home on video conferences with a couple of kids using tablets for home learning and other entertainment. I think our choices are basically BT Fibre, Zen, or a 4G/5G wireless router. Would welcome people’s recommendations and any info on resilience of 4G/5G routers in these high bandwidth times. I live on Devonshire Rd just west of the tracks.

I currently get 17mbit download and normally 1mbit upload, though right now I have 0.07mbir upload!

I’ve tried sharing my phone’s 4G, but my work VPN doesn’t get along that well with it - it didn’t seem to be that fast.

If you have fibre, I’d also welcome info on whether fttp requires our drive to be dug up, and how long it took for yours to get installed - obviously I appreciate it is likely to take longer now.

FTTP doesn’t require the path to be dug up. Well mine didn’t!
Basically the fiber is underground but it is terminated at the base of a telephone pole. The cable is fed up the pole and either tied on to your existing cable or to a wire to keep it taught. That cable is fed down to your house and a hole is drill through your wall with a bit of termination kit inside. A cable comes out of that to your router.
It was a mare to get installed - I posted my struggles with BT on an old thread on here. It was mainly because they got the order mixed up for FTTC not FTTP.
Despite initial difficulties it has been great - zero downtime to speak off and a free speed update from my original bundle. The upload speed is great as well meaning any synchs with cloud based stuff from your PC are quick.
Ill go take some pics to make it clearer…
4 or 5G routers are not my cup of tea for a permanent solution but good for temp provision. If you use a shed load of data it may not be suitable but I am sure there are decent packages available…

Thanks - our telephone cable doesn’t come of a telegraph pole, I think it’s under the drive…

Pics would be great. Which package are you on? Why did you choose BT over Zen?

I agree re the 4/5G stuff - and they have 18 month contracts!!

So the fiber arrives under ground and is terminated under the pole

IMG_20200321_1538303024×4032 6.36 MB

It is then chased up the pole and mounted on a catenary wire

IMG_20200321_1538413024×4032 3.56 MB

That is tied on to the house

IMG_20200321_1539383024×4032 3.66 MB

The cable is then rooted round the building and terminated (grey box)

IMG_20200321_1539484032×3024 3.55 MB

On the inside is the fiber breakout switch which eventually gets connected to your standard router.

IMG_20200321_1540154032×3024 4.17 MB

As an FYI the box on the left of the modem is a battery backup. It will eventually die (I’ve had FTTP for about 8 years) and kill the router’s power. You can use without it.
Also BT tried to install an internal fibre externally and that type break constantly (not weather protected). White is internal, black external - check they use the correct one

After about 5 years my battery box now has a red light on it, but everything still works - so long as there is mains power. Given the connections between the two units, I’m pretty sure at least OpenReach must know that LED is red, but no-one has ever contacted me.

I believe the battery is needed because there is a RJ11 telephone socket on the big white box (ONT) which could be used to provide a telephone that would still work in emergencies if mains power was lost. However, my ISP still insists I have a copper phone line and pay line rental, so is isn’t needed.

This sounds similar to my situation. The install took about 4 or 5 different visits by teams that each did one specific job, and only the last one needed me to be in as that’s when they did the inside install. It was done in 1 week once work started.

The first installation attempt was to reuse the conduit that carried the existing copper phone line and run the fibre up that. That conduit was however blocked.

The next team put a new duct in the soft run-away at the edge of my drive, only about 40cm down and a straight 10m to the road where there was already a telecoms pit. The fibre went through that.

I got my FTTP early on as part of a trial, and I think they’ve worked out how to do it quicker and with less cost now. Notably a neighbor who has a solid concrete drive looks to have their fibre routed along the wall at the side of their driveway - no digging required.

The OpenReach fibre is usually in a black sleeve with a straight green/yellow line down it’s entire length. Perhaps you can see it in places going to your neighbours properties? Or you could ask your neighbours if they have fibre and how it got to their house.

Also note that my FTTP is via the PlusNet brand, which may be an option with slightly different packages to BT.

Foresthull you could be me (a few years ago) Plusnet early trial as well. When you phone them up so they deny you have fttp? I’ve also had the problem everyone else denies we have fttp here (initially found out because I met the guy in a hole outside my house laying it for forest Hill so knew it existed)

Bt dont know the red battery light and don’t monitor for any other connections either (you have to tell them when it breaks - even when it said I was using terabytes an hour)

The rj11 theoretically can be used for a phone replacement, but it isn’t activated. The copper line is kept there as a form of revenue - technically you don’t need it at all

I’ve had that sort of experience - yes, I’m definitely an outlier in their customer base and I think it falls off the usual support flow chart and even the home router says “Technicolor TG582n FTTC” but has a PPPoE setup which looks to have been done manually by someone at PlusNet.

I’ve not had any real problems though, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will stay working, though actually I know the Technicolor TG582n has some well known security issues and I should probably replace it rather than relying on just secondary firewalls.

Yep - BT are moving towards VoIP, and OpenReach are stopping any new Fibre Voice Access at the end of this month so that port on the ONT will soon be completely redundant: https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/super-fastfibreaccess/fibrevoiceaccess/fibrevoiceaccess.do

Thanks everyone - @Foresthillnick I suspect our lack of telegraph poles means a more creative solution to get the cable to the house will be required. @ForestHull thanks that’s really helpful.

I suspect we may need to go down the 4G/5G router route for now, not least because crews to install the cable are likely to be in short supply.

Nick, what was your objection to the 4G/5G option?

Cheers,
J

I know you are asking @Foresthillnick, but I work in wireless telecoms and I agree - I love a good wire or fibre where it’s a choice. Wireless is just so complex to make it run efficiently and one bad device can muck it up for everyone else, as well as other effects from RF propagation.

That said, when looking at the whole package, wireless has some very attractive upsides like mobility and ease of install. Weren’t 3UK previously offering a next day delivery option?

If you signup for a new wireless thing, make sure you test this within the cooling off period in case there is something inherently poor in the VPN product which means it doesn’t like wireless. Or check with colleagues / IT department.

Thanks - that’s helpful

Like @ForestHull I work in IT (having fun today - work at a huge school!)
Interference, speed and data charges are my main issues. If you get a good consistent signal then fine but I use a shed load of data. However I note that now you can get unlimited packages which are not too costly - £22 for 1000GB which should be enough for just about anyone. Speed can be variable too…

I also live on Devonshire Road, and also am stuck with plain DSL. I can’t get FTTC or FTTP.

I contacted OpenReach about this, because to my mind it’s absurd I live 600m from a fibre enabled exchange but can only get 15mbps down over plain ADSL and they’ve informed me that because I live in a flat the freeholder\management company need to give Openreach permission\a wayleave to do the necessary works.

The Devonshire Road has the infrastructure in place, but individual properties will have individual challenges.

I would contact Openreach directly (not your ISP) and they’ll be able to advise

There is notthing stopping Openreach to upgrade the cabinet on the street so you can get FTTC , but they just don’t wantt to. I am also on Devonshire Rd in a flat and in the same situation.
I get in touch with Openreach some years ago about FTTH / FTTP , they did a survey and went quited.
I reached out to HyperOptic, but it looks like they are draggingg their feet. They also did a survey and promised to connect us soon, but then started asking for money for the installation etc etc.
We are still stuck on ADSL with a rediculus upload speed of 1MBit.

Thanks everyone

Continues: Broadband Recommendations [2020]