Hi Sam. The green cabinet outside my neighbour's place that I thought was BT upon closer inspection is for something else. Certainly no numbers on it. Perhaps BT were working in the underground hatch cover that is opposite. Anyway my nearest exchange is in the town of New Forest . Thanks
I can get Virgin as my house already has a fibre connection. I went on the Virgin site and entered my postcode and they reckon, if I wanted to spoon my eyes out every month to them, I can get 152mb download speeds. Though, to be honest, their basic 50mb speed package would do me fine. At the moment, the BT connection isn't fast enough to support the MotoGP streamed live through my PC. At my previous address it was nearer 10mbs so it was fine.
I'm the same. I don't see the point in anything over 10mbps unless you are downloading stuff all the time. 10mbps is plenty to stream and also have multiple computers on at once. I always go for the lower BB package and the better TV package as i don't do downloading
Ha. Sorry. New Forest Dorset. Though I'm also close to the border to Hampshire. Verwood exchange has been infinity for a while. .
Verwood Exchange is Fibre enabled but not all the Cabinets are Infinity enabled as there hasn't been the take up for it in certain areas. They will only put a DSLAM (Fibre Cab) in if it is financially viable. it costs too much money to fit one and power it if they only have a few people wanting the service. Have you registered an interest for it via BT.COM? they will only look at fitting one when enough people from that Postcode register an interest, If not enough people register an interest it doesn't even show up on the Radar
Thanks. Yep, sure I registered years ago but I've done it again now. Will get onto my neighbours also. My contract ends in October so I will be giving serious consideration to the whole lot. Might as well go off-grid and weave yoghurts out here !!
Agree about being over BT/Openreach but I get quicker responses and fixes from PlusNet than I do BT, even though BT own PlusNet. Also PlusNet are normally cheaper and do 12 month contracts. As said your distance from the exchange is not a factor, however the distance from the exchange to the cabinet is one, as is your distance from the cabinet. If BT won't play have a look to see what else is in offer. There are commercial wifi companies that cover some regions, and if you can get a signal the speeds can be pretty good. As for me the BT engineer has said we won't get more than our current 6-7mb from our fibre connection.
Thats not entirely true. This is the case if you are on a standard PSTN network (Copper cable from Exchange to Premesis) but if you are on a Fibre to the Cab network then the line Loss is Minimal from the exchange to the Fibre Cabinet, it is once the fibre finishes and the Copper from the Cab to the Premis starts where the major Loss happens.
It your ADSL connection is copper all the way then distance does make a great difference. The cable resistance and capacitance start to reduce the speed and there is no getting away from it. I am curious at the usefulness of these xtra high speeds coz at the end of the day your data up/down load have to wait in a queue at the provider's exchange servers then at the target website servers and depending on how many subscribers are on line at the time, is where the bottle neck is. A bit like having a 180mph car that can only travel at 60 becausr of traffic, traffic lights and speed bumps even if the road is super smooth, wide and potentially fast. perhaps I am missing something somewhere
Exactly. I have raised this with senior Management in BT Broadband, I asked why they are so focussed on getting such high speeds when they should be more concerned with bringing at least 10/15meg BB to EVERY household. I asked this as i don't have Fibre down my Street due to when the houses were Built Virgin done a deal with the developers to be the sole provider of a Fibre network so unless i want to go with virgin i can't have Fibre, Considering i Don't pay for Phone & Broadband (My work pay for it all) i'm highly unlikely to Go to Virgin and pay for it when my 2meg service i get now is more than enough for my needs.
<rant mode on> Wife had an interesting chat with an engineer today. The theoretical max our line will support is 9Mb, rather than the 15Mb + it should deliver based upon conservative estimates due to the restrictions of the technology. i won't mention the 35Mb that BT says is likely. The cause is crap cable to the cabinet. The problem is that BT/Openreach won't replace the cable because "there is nothing wrong with it". They won't swap it because it works for the phones and delivers some broadband, even if it is not up to the unofficially suggested minimum. What can we do about it? Sweet FA. The engineers report it, the bean counters refuse it. BT may not officially be a monopoly but they act like one and are effectively one when it comes to the infrastructure they were given when privatised. If FTTP/FOD was an option I would take it despite the costs, but I can't because BT won't allow me to. Rock meets hard place and Joe Public gets shafted. Beware all those who want BT to get more involved in sport coverage etc. because you may get your wish. </rant mode off>
I feel for you. For many years my maximum speed was 0.25mbs. Our exchange is in the next village, just under five miles away. A very patient gentleman on the BT helpline told me that if it had been five miles, they would have not recommended we took out a broadband contract... They explained that the poor speed was not sufficient excuse for them to invest in improving the matter and that there was no perceivable problem with the line itself, and even suggested that tuning the settings on my computers would enhance the speed... There was no question of swapping us to the village's digital exchange. All surplus room on that was reserved for any future builds in the area... Then, our landline failed. And, when the BT 'landline' engineer heard the bacon frying on the line he proclaimed. "I know exactly what that is mate. These lines off that pole there, they're the original 1960s ones. Stands to reason. They're shagged out mate. You see, the copper breaks, probably up by the drip loop near the wall. Then it only works because the broken ends are touching. When the wind blows, it makes and breaks contact all the time, but you probably think it's just interference. The extra resistance in the circuit must be bloody awful though. I'm surprised you get any broadband at all, squire..." Eyebrow goes up... He ran a new wire from the pole (five separate breaks in the old one, right where he said it would be). Broadband shot up to a blistering 1mbs. Maybe not enough for HD porn but nirvana for me. Then, of course planning for 2500 new houses was granted between us and our exchange, and although BT never made us aware of the fact, all of a sudden fibre was available to our cab...
For £66 Virgin Media will give you the Big Kahunas Package, though its only £48.99 for the first 12 months. A shed load of channels, landline phone, for those that still use a landline and 152MB broadband, I only have 100MB myself and I have never reached its limit no matter how much stuff we run over it, and that's a lot with PlayStation's, Xbox's, multiple laptops, tablets and mobile phones using it. Its well worth while and I have used them since day one, switching from cable & wireless etc, very rarely have any downtime or drop outs at all.
We used to have ee for broadband and would regularly get about 9mb. We switched to bt to get the bt sport for last years moto gp and with them could only get about 4mb. They were very unhelpful trying to sort the issues so I threatened to pull on them and we were then offered fibre right into the house. (Not bad for sleepy old Cornwall) lol. This has not been without its issues on the installation side but were up n running now about 35mb with thè potential for 400+ if I subscribed to more. Still not a great customer friendly company and will soon switch once out of contract.
Cornwall has one of the best fibre networks in the country for BT. We spent fortunes there as a test site for fibre to the premis. I spent a few months there myself a few years back building the fibre network.
Admittedly I don't pay it but my old man gets Virgin 2x TV hd boxes, all channels, Internet, landline and costs him £80 a month pretty good deal I think internet a rapid too. But I don't pay it [emoji28]. I just watch moto gp and use Internet.
I've been with Virgin for donkey's years, Tom. They occasionally need a slap down when they try to raise the prices but other than that they've been excellent. Whatever speed broadband they've sold me I've got and a little bit more. I recently had their 100mb and it was bouncing just over at around 106mb. To be honest though I've recently downgraded to the 50mb and I'm buggered if I can tell the difference. You will need the XL TV package to get the BT Sport though. Make sure it's included in whatever package you buy as it's not standard across the board. Here's the speedtest I've just done and as always, it's whacking off (no pun intended) 50mb.
Groan. No landline or internet since the lightning storms. Have to wait till Wednesday for an engineer. My neighbours are fine. 3g very patchy at home. Still, at least Sky TV still works.
