Broadband

[Topsy2]

Ok, so it’s been a crazy couple of weeks for me, but upshot is, following a move a few months back into temporary accommodation, I and my better half, are now intalled in a brand new new build home somewhere in the sunny SouthWest.

One of the key benefits of moving into a new build home, is that most of the new develpments now I believe, are fully wired up for Fibre To The Premises (FTTP), so no more copper lines, just a fibre optic cable straight to the exchange. As BT installed the ONT, I’m currently tied to BT, but actually it’s no bad thing really. I got what I believe, was a pretty decent deal from BT, a homebuyers special, Full Fibre 100, (150mbps upload, 30mbps download) on a 24 month contract, first 3 months at £17.99 then £34.99 a month. I honestly can’t justify the costs for either 300 or 900 mbps, we’re not gamers and we don’t download huge files etc, so the basic Fibre 100 package is more than adequate.

Well BT had my contract all up and running on the day of move in, all I had to do, was connect the router. I decided not to use their supplied router, preferring my own third party kit. It connected straight away and the speeds are absolutely as advertised. I’m pretty impressed if I say so myself.

We didn’t bother with a landline either. With full fibre, it’s VoiP because obviously, there’s no Adsl. In any case, we haven’t utilised a landline in our own home for over a decade, so we aren’t missing out on anything there.

All in all, so far, so good. Can’t fault the service, it’s the best we’ve had in decades.

[RB51]

Looks to me like you have a very good deal there. We are also in SW but have fibre up to the cabinet and then about 800m to us. We get half your speeds and pay the same money. Also BT. Well done. R-

[Dan]

Sadly for me, my new build development was copper only, with only half the houses having access to FTTC. I’m one of the unlucky ones stuck on ADSL, and even that is down half the time

I believe they changed the rules regarding requirements around full fibre connectivity shortly after I moved in a few years ago.

[Seb]

@Dan

I’m one of the unlucky ones stuck on ADSL

So are we, I feel your pain!

I posted a bit on FFT a while ago about the ongoing travails of the supposedly-impeding rollout of FTTP to put area. Since then, it’s actually arrived for some people locally but the rest of us still have to wait and the same (annoying re-elected) local councillor has caused another delay in order to prioritise another area with FTTC to be upgraded at our expense.

Such a shame and now we are wondering if it will ever arrive.

I haven’t had the energy recently and I’ve been a bit busy with other things, but I’m going to start a local campaign and start kicking up a fuss about it!

I hope you get FTTP soon as well (if you ask me, us still on ADSL should be prioritised first for fibre as FTTC is generally good enough but ADSL is painful in this day and age).

[Dan]

@Seb

I hope you get FTTP soon as well (if you ask me, us still on ADSL should be prioritised first for fibre as FTTC is generally good enough but ADSL is painful in this day and age).

Honestly @Seb, at times I have to resort to connecting to my phone’s hotspot just to take part in a Teams meeting. It’s ridiculous. There’s a company promising 1Gbps fibre in the area soon, though their availability checker keeps flipping between “pre-order now” and “we aren’t in your area yet”

[Cookies]

Are you a gamer? If not, have you thought about satellite internet, StarLink might be expensive but these guys are reasonable, and judging by my conversation with them they are also very honest. They were more than happy to tell me that their service wasn’t a good fit for me

[dudesuper1982]

We had cityfiber installed 18months ago and got 500 download and upload for £38 a month I’ve noticed now tho it’s around £50 a month so won’t be renewing my contract

[Topsy2]

@RB51

Looks to me like you have a very good deal there.

Oh, and the most important bit which I forgot to add, I did the deal on the last day of the most recent BT sale but through Topcashback and I’m expecting £89 cash back within 3 months. I’ve done BT contracts before via Topcashback and earned good money back, so it’s well worth doing!

[Dan]

@Cookies

Are you a gamer?

I wish I was - I have several consoles and a Stadia controller I’m currently unable to use. Some of the console games are fine - no good for things like Call of Duty, but other online games work OK. Stadia won’t work at all though - far too laggy. That’s one of the main things I’m looking forward to when I eventually get better broadband!

@dudesuper1982

I’ve noticed now tho it’s around £50 a month so won’t be renewing my contract

In my situation, I would snap their hands off for £50/month

[dudesuper1982]

I rang them to see if they could better the price and they looked at my account and said how did you get it that price and I was like I got it when first put in my road and they said we can’t get anywhere near that price so I wouldn’t recommend you recontract!!

[RB51]

Some folk just land on their feet don’t they? To be honest the 50% of your download speed that we get is fine for us. We don’t do any gaming so for Netflix, Amazon and iPlayer it is fine. R-

[N26throwaway]

Upload speed on offer there isn’t sufficient for HD conferencing if you’re remote working.

Starlink should fix most of the drawbacks to satellite and even elevate it beyond FTTC, with lower latency, and higher speeds.

Downside to satellite solutions though is the big increase in energy consumption too.

[Cookies]

Agree but i’d assume that a large % of people remote working don’t necessarily need HD conferencing, it’s a nice to have. I have FTTC and just the ability to video conference at all would be nice, I spend my life on buffer and drop outs.

StarLink will remain out of reach for the majority for a long long time yet, both deployment times and high costs will shut out so many, the costs may reduce but realistically not by much.

There’s a lot of downsides to satellite, one of the main ones being line of sight, if you’re in a built up area or surrounded by trees, it’s useless. I just wanted to share it as a possibility as I know many people are oblivious to the fact that satellite interner exists and if you can get it must surely be better than ADSL.

[Charlie]

Recently just finalised my Starlink order, pretty excited tbh! I have crappy 25mbps down and 2mbps up, so this is gonna be game changing Hit me up if you have any questions about it

[N26throwaway]

Fancy! Please post back here with your thoughts once you’re up and running and have been using it for a while!

[Charlie]

compared to 20 down and 2.5 up with BT, it’s definitely an improvement!

[N26throwaway]

Jitter isn’t as bad as I was expecting it’d be! Seems solid from that!

If you’re interested to measure quality metrics (latency, jitter, packet loss) over a longer period of time, you can set up a free CQM graph here: Broadband Quality Monitor | thinkbroadband

I’d certainly be interested to see the results of one of those after 24 hours!

Also, if you run the test here: Speed test - how fast is your internet? | DSLReports, ISP Information How does the bufferbloat look on the download side of things?

Sorry for being so inquisitive, just very curious how well this performs in all aspects, because that speed test paints a very impressive initial picture!

[Charlie]

Here’s your DSLReports test
This nperf test is pretty representative since the last Dishy firmware update.

I posted the Speedtest.net screenshot as it’s nice & simple; as you say, it paints a very impressive picture. But that has been my experience with Starlink thus far Besides Facebook/Meta & Reddit QUIC protocol/response time issues.
Ignore the speed below; my SamKnows agent is the first-gen and a 100Base-T router.
I installed Starlink on the 24th btw. Once I have my issues with Grafana sorted out, I’ll post some more in-depth data

The downtime was caused by me stowing and mounting it; we get less than a minute downtime a day, even in 50mph winds. Honestly, it’s insane

[N26throwaway]

Awesome! Thank you!

These results look very very impressive! Quality metrics are at least on par with VDSL which is unheard of via satellite delivery!

I imagine it’s only going to get better over time too.

Look forward to seeing the more in depth data once you have it!

[Topsy2]

Holy thread revival I know but seeing as some of the biggest price rises we’ve seen in years have now arrived, I thought I’d share what I’ve achieved with BT today.

So 22 months into a 24 month contract I received notification of the 14.4 percent increase on my contract which would increase my monthly payment from just over £38 to over £43, a rise of £7.50. My internet speed has been at 150mbps since contract start.

I managed to renegotiate a new contract at £34.99 a month with a speed increase to 500mbps. So I’ve knocked 2 quid a month off what I was paying before the price increase took effect and got a stonking speed increase to boot. Not bad for 15 minutes chat on the phone