UK Broadband

Louise · 10th November 2008

UK Broadband i think is compared to Nederlands is poor
After living out in Netherlands for four years it seems the UK is overselling what it has to give to the customer especially with the big download online and Stream online market at the moment or are we just greedy.
With the Gordon Brown promises broadband for all i cannot see it getting any better, working at a local BT exchange i'm seeing time and time again things that are going wrong to the point of people moaning about there speeds, i live about 4 mins away from the exchange i work at and i even still don't get the correct speeds i should get, so how can a company such as BT put a * depends how far you are away from an exchange point.

People are catching on and moving to virgin media not that i know if VM is any better i know there advert with copperwire and fiber optic.

So do you have a view on what's going to happen or is happening ?

racksense · 10th November 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Louise

People are catching on and moving to virgin media not that i know if VM is any better i know there advert with copperwire and fiber optic.

Given how much traffic throttling they apply I think that advertising the benefits of fibre is a load of nonsense..

Quote:

So do you have a view on what's going to happen or is happening ?

An article I saw the other day was talking about some new filtering technology that BT are developing which should help achieve better results.

I have also read before someone saying that having replaced some of their house phone wiring made quite an improvement to their sync speeds.

Louise · 10th November 2008

well i've heard nothing apart from talk to the upgrade, surely they can only filter out so much on a phone line ?

racksense · 10th November 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Louise

well i've heard nothing apart from talk to the upgrade, surely they can only filter out so much on a phone line ?

After a bit of googling.. BT I-Plate.

aXeR · 10th November 2008

There is a difference between sync speeds and actual achievable throughput.

The former relies on the distance and quality of the wire to the exchange where as the latter (which is the biggest factor imho) relies on the contention within your chosen ISP.

Most people seem to sign up with the cheapest provider they can find and then complain like hell when they get poor speeds, I don't understand that mentality personally!

Louise · 10th November 2008

That's 70% of why people change these days, unless your upto date with the terminology and what and why people will still end up being this way,
the iplate is for old BT lines. IE

Please be aware of these instances of where the iPlate will have little or no effect, including:
- Where there is already an SSFP (Service Specific Front Plate) installed that separates the broadband and telephone signals
- Where the socket is a newly installed BT Openreach socket (with BT Openreach Logo)
- Where the line is newly installed, without the ringer wire included
also Not for people who have current micro filters.

I thought somewhere i heard that BT are going to change the internet providing structure from phone lines to cable.
Not that anyone at work knows either

aXeR · 10th November 2008

I think BT are trailing fibre to the door in some select regions. How likely this is to be rolled out nationwide I do not know, unlikely I would think!

Luckily where I'm moving to has Virgin connectivity as even Virgin are not laying many new cables these days

othellotech · 10th November 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Louise

not that i know if VM is any better i know there advert with copperwire and fiber optic.

The only thing better than BT by VM is the quality of the actor doing voiceovers in the adverts, BT are stuck in the 80's storytelling model based on Nescafe Gold, VM are going full out on the epilepsy inducing lawnmower man model

Ricky · 10th November 2008

I'm syncing at 17Mbs/1.3Mbs on my Be* line at home - movies in 6 mins

PaulC · 10th November 2008

When Virgin works, it works well, throttling doesn't affect me but I can download an ISO at the full 10Mb/s when I need to.

Don't forget BT may be trialling fibre to the home, but Virgin don't and probably won't as long as they rely on the cable infrastructure.

goscombtech · 10th November 2008

My dutch broadband sucks...

freethought · 10th November 2008

The fibre to the premise (FTTP) trial (also known as Generic Ethernet Access) is in Ebbsfleet. BT want to roll it out across the country but aren't happy with the restrictions Ofcom want to impose. They either want the government and/or ISPs to chip in more money or they want to have less regulator restrictions. Not really surprising when you look at the projected billions of pounds they are going to have to spend to roll it out nationwide without any significant returns (at least initially) unlike 21CN where they will start saving money straight away from the retiring of legacy networks.

The thing that really annoys me about the Virgin Media averts (and I know it's nit picking) is that they still use copper in the coax cable that feeds your house so it's not fibre optic right the way through like they make out.
That said, I always get good speeds on VM and they don't seem to be too bad with the throttling (can't remember ever really noticing it).

Oh, and the iPlate really does work on bad lines. I recently recommended a friend of mine to install it and his speeds increased considerably.
He's 3 miles from the exchange (which isn't the closest exchange oddly enough) and was getting about 300Kbps down and 450Kbps up with a massive number of disconnects.
I'm going to have to check what the final numbers are since the BRAS profile eventually updated, but I know he saw an immediate improvement with speeds over 512Kbps in both directions and no more disconnects.

Louise · 10th November 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by othellotech

The only thing better than BT by VM is the quality of the actor doing voiceovers in the adverts, BT are stuck in the 80's storytelling model based on Nescafe Gold, VM are going full out on the epilepsy inducing lawnmower man model

haha

Quote:

Originally Posted by goscombtech

My dutch broadband sucks...

Who you with i went with casema

BurtyB · 10th November 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by freethought

The thing that really annoys me about the Virgin Media averts (and I know it's nit picking) is that they still use copper in the coax cable that feeds your house so it's not fibre optic right the way through like they make out.
That said, I always get good speeds on VM and they don't seem to be too bad with the throttling (can't remember ever really noticing it).

Virgin Media Ltd

Quote:

Virgin explained that they did not use copper wire to deliver broadband to their customers, but used aluminium or steel wire with a copper coating instead.

ChrisB.

freethought · 10th November 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by BurtyB

Virgin Media Ltd

ChrisB.

Pffft, semantics. It's still not fibre though is it?