Fibre optic broadband

[FILFAN]

Reasons why FTTC is not available yet,

1. Not avaiable in your exchange area at all.

2. Cabinet installed but may be waiting for a suitable 240v. connection.

3. Local council in dispute as to the cabinet location, sited in wrong place according to the plan.

4. Conservation area committee don't want more street furniture in their area.

5. Cabinet mainly serves an industrial park, OR and BT won't provide FTTC to business's, they are hoping for FTTP(premises) to be taken up by business users instead.

6. OR and BT just completely forgot about installing FTTC.

7. Distance to cabinet too far and not economic.

You forgot to mention that bt are also muppets who don't really care. Only today I have been providing equipment for another 896 20meg lines in Huddersfield. They don't even require it. had a quick look while at the exchange and there are atleast 3000 lines just waiting to be used and I didn't check everything. I don't know the reasons behind it but my suspicions are so they can claim to be providing greater percentage of lines. based on population not geographic location.

Prior to the Olympics all they were bothered about was providing 8meg equipment. There is a chance that most 8meg can be upgraded to 20meg soon (overtime galore)

My money would be on future wireless technology like 4G as the costs involved in ripping out all the copper and ally cables and replacing them would be great. Though certain members of society already seem to be ripping it out.

[hilux]

Im With virgin 60mb whenever I've done a speed test it seems pretty much on the nose

Mein Gott in himmel................................. ............................you lucky lucky barstewards

I can only dream of that.

Here in rural North Herts (halfway between Hitchin and Luton) we in our village (who are off the primary BT DB) get an average of about 2.4 Mb/s and some who are are on extensions from the main DB get 1Mb or less!!!!

There`s one family who are on the Herts/Beds border near us who are served by loads and loads of telegraph poles across fields only get modem type speeds still

[SootySport]

You forgot to mention that bt are also muppets who don't really care. Only today I have been providing equipment for another 896 20meg lines in Huddersfield. They don't even require it. had a quick look while at the exchange and there are atleast 3000 lines just waiting to be used and I didn't check everything. I don't know the reasons behind it but my suspicions are so they can claim to be providing greater percentage of lines. based on population not geographic location.

Prior to the Olympics all they were bothered about was providing 8meg equipment. There is a chance that most 8meg can be upgraded to 20meg soon (overtime galore)

My money would be on future wireless technology like 4G as the costs involved in ripping out all the copper and ally cables and replacing them would be great. Though certain members of society already seem to be ripping it out.

Your right Phil, a lot of 8 and 20meg. ccts are becoming free because of the uptake on FTTC.

4G. has promised a lot but I can see that being just a big let down as was 3G, download speeds seem to tail off very quickly after it was set up. Personally I can't see the attraction of fast internet on a moble phone, I for one do not want to watch a film on a 3 or 4inch screen, whats the point when I can watch on a big screen at home and stream from wherever.

Cable replacment is ongoing but only when the Pikeys pull it out for scrap

[Dodgey]

Tethering mate, tethering. I'm waiting for the day I can lose my phone line and run off 4g for everything. Over 40mb down and 15 up is more than enough for me. The phone just becomes a modem router. The screen becomes irrelevant .

Problem is the mobile phone companies are going to be very frugal with data usage on 4g for some time. They just don't have the backbone to cope with half the population downloading at 40+ meg . 4g is faster than most wifi in real throughput terms.

I'm paying BT 140 quid a quarter for unlimited Internet and phone line rental. I get a perfectly adequate 16 down and 1.5 up. I'm paying 30 quid a month for my mobile phone with unlimited data ( real unlimited - an old contract ) unlimited texts and 10 hours calls. If I could have a working 4g phone for significantly less than 70 quid a month then it would make sense to ditch BT and run entirely from my phone.

Problem is, at the moment the most 4g data you can buy is 8gb per month at £56 . It's cheap enough to justify ditching BT completely but 8gb is far from enough for me.

The moment that situation changes no one will want a landline any more..... Will be very interesting to see how it all pans out in the future.

Back on topic - if you like avoiding hassle then BT make good sense . Which every other provider you use over copper, they will always have to deal with BT behind the scenes when you have a problem, which can slow things right down. But, the price to pay is the fact BT are pricey.

[langy]

Still on dial up here

[MrL]

My girlfriend is on Virgin and it's terrible. So called 60 meg, in busy times it's slower than my O2 DSL (6 meg) service.

The wireless router is useless too, Can't get a signal upstairs (in a 3 bed semi) and it loses connection to the wireless devices every 45 mins or so and needs rebooting. Seriously considering BT 21CN when I move in there.

[Blatman]

How old is the wireless router? I tend to find those sorts of issues are often the router starting to fail. May be worth asking Virgin for a new Superhub.

How old is the house? Victorian and Edwardian houses can sometimes be challenging for wireless as there can be things like lead pipes, re-inforced plaster walls / ceilings causing a faraday cage effect or simply thick brickwork. Also I find Apple iPads a bit sensitive to wireless signal strength, more so than a laptop or smartphone.

It may be worth trying to borrow an access point and place it next to the router to see if that improves matters. Switch the routers internal wireless off when you do this.

If you have the ability to pull some cable upstairs, run some CAT5 from the router and add an access point to the upstairs of the house. My current favourite access point for this sort of thing is a Cisco WAP123 or Netgear WG103. Not the cheapest but both very good IME...

[MrL]

Thanks for the tips Blatman.

The router is about 4 months old, the house was built in the 50s or 60s I would think.

I will certainly look into those access points.

[SootySport]

Tethering mate, tethering. I'm waiting for the day I can lose my phone line and run off 4g for everything. Over 40mb down and 15 up is more than enough for me. The phone just becomes a modem router. The screen becomes irrelevant .

Problem is the mobile phone companies are going to be very frugal with data usage on 4g for some time. They just don't have the backbone to cope with half the population downloading at 40+ meg . 4g is faster than most wifi in real throughput terms.

I'm paying BT 140 quid a quarter for unlimited Internet and phone line rental. I get a perfectly adequate 16 down and 1.5 up. I'm paying 30 quid a month for my mobile phone with unlimited data ( real unlimited - an old contract ) unlimited texts and 10 hours calls. If I could have a working 4g phone for significantly less than 70 quid a month then it would make sense to ditch BT and run entirely from my phone.

Problem is, at the moment the most 4g data you can buy is 8gb per month at £56 . It's cheap enough to justify ditching BT completely but 8gb is far from enough for me.

The moment that situation changes no one will want a landline any more..... Will be very interesting to see how it all pans out in the future.

Back on topic - if you like avoiding hassle then BT make good sense . Which every other provider you use over copper, they will always have to deal with BT behind the scenes when you have a problem, which can slow things right down. But, the price to pay is the fact BT are pricey.

£140 is too much Dodgey, if you are out contract restraints, then start FTTC on a new package http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=25633&Infinity=yes

[Blatman]

Thanks for the tips Blatman.

The router is about 4 months old, the house was built in the 50s or 60s I would think.

I will certainly look into those access points.

Bit new to fail but not unknown. They can be tempremental bu99ers when you're trying to configure them, which is kind of odd 'cos underneath they are more or less a Netgear DG834 and they're usually OK...

50's houses can still be brick or re-inforced plaster inside (or both).

And you could always use the Ethernet over Power (sometimes called Powerline) adapters to give you the option of hard wiring hosts and/or adding access points. I fitted a pair of TP LInk Powerline Adapters in a house recently and saw 144Mb/s almost immediately. Yes the headline speed is 200Mb/s but I'm fairly happy with 144, especially when the internet is running at just 8Mb/s...

[Dodgey]

£140 is too much Dodgey, if you are out contract restraints, then start FTTC on a new package http://www.productsa...33&Infinity=yes

I know I know. I set the BT adsl up on a basic deal for my parents, but then I moved in instead of them. Then I needed more bandwidth but was locked in with BT for 18 months. It expires in 2 months and they are gone then.

[FILFAN]

Bit the bullet and gone for 4g. Coverage isn't that hot at the min but was getting 10meg download around Manchester today

[AidanPlace]

Am I win?

BT fibre here

[FILFAN]

That's nice. Wish I could get it

[Norman Verona]

We're moving offices because we can't get fibre at the present offices. Bit ironic really as the building we're in at the moment was the first to have a computer installed in Sheffield in the 1950s.

We're also running out of space nad the new offices are larger for less.