Broardband speeds from the old to the new?

Hi. All

A question if I may please.
And that is Im quite a way from the exchange and also from the cabinet. Which makes my speed for the normal dsl that I am on around the 280-320 range? Which is the fastest I have ever got. (Tell a lie I had a period for a few weeks where I got in the 500-540 range but never found out why or how Must have been a fluke or what?. LOL)

I just wondered if there is anyone else who used to get the same sort of speeds as I did But have have migrated over to FTTC If so and like i said used to get the sorts of speeds as me what sort of speeds are you getting now please? I ask because im a little fed up of watching paint dry LOL No im fed up of the endless "Buffering" I keep getting now I am trying to watch over the internet. Even the wife who is completely technophobic gets her hair off when the daughter try's to put a episode of either doctors or Eastenders on BBC iplayer only for it to jump jerk and be quite pixelated to say the least.

Many thanks Andy

If your cab is enabled putting your phone number in to http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome will tell you what you can expect.

As jelv says, you need to use the phone number option of the BT availability checker for a fairly accurate prediction. If the phone number option doesn't work, use the address option. The postcode option is unreliable for FTTC predictions.

Your ADSL speed depends on the distance from the exchange, whilst your FTTC speed depends on your distance from the cabinet. There is not necessarily any correlation between the two.

It's hard to say whether FTTC will be worthwhile in your case. You certainly have slow ADSL, but FTTC falls off faster than ADSL with distance. If you are also a long way from the cabinet, FTTC might be worse than the ADSL you already have.

Well this is the chart I got back when I put in the phone Number which looks great dont it.
I just wish I could get a discount for all the years Iv been with them Now its over 13 years from the times of the 2400the 14400 and finally a 28800 analogue modems And all US Robotics. (wonder they went or did they get bought out.. cos they did make some good modems and comms gear)But so slooooow back thenLOL

Anyway here is the chart.
Errr how do i add a photo?

But in essence it says I can get ADSL-2 at upto 3.5Mbs within a range of 2.5 - 4.5? And Fibre is available at up to 51.7MBs which is good?

regs Andy

You have to put graphics somewhere on the web, then post the link. These days, I copy graphics to a 'thinkbroadband' folder inside my Dropbox Public folder, right click the file and choose 'Copy public link'.

51Mbit/s indicates you will get a substantial speed up from FTTC. What upstream speed is predicted?

that would be a massive jump in your case in simple terms you will see next to 0 buffering and would even download an episode of eastenders through iplayer in minutes.

In reply to a post by andyswain:

But in essence it says I can get ADSL-2 at upto 3.5Mbs within a range of 2.5 - 4.5? And Fibre is available at up to 51.7MBs which is good?

Sounds like you're not as far away from the cabinet as you thought you were. Strange that you get so much less than your estimated speed for ADSL though, if there is a serious issue between you and the cabinet that could affect your FTTC speeds.

Unless he means kBps, not kbps. He doesn't state either.

Also 51.7MBps is extremely good .

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 27-Sep-13 16:01:36)

In reply to a post by David_W:

You have to put graphics somewhere on the web, then post the link. These days, I copy graphics to a 'thinkbroadband' folder inside my Dropbox Public folder, right click the file and choose 'Copy public link'.

51Mbit/s indicates you will get a substantial speed up from FTTC. What upstream speed is predicted?

Iv just read again and it says Downloads Up to 51.7Mbs and upstream Upto 13.2Mbs Which would be great should I actually attain that speed. I wonder if there is any comback Say should I not get near these speeds?

I had seriously thought about going to Virgin net Simply because there is a connection point for next door right at the top of my garden on the pavement. But our house although it is No1 is missing from a lot of postal serches and other databases. One such is the one Virgin uses to see if we can get broadband LOL
And Iv even told them where there is a access point and that No3 who is the other semidetached house built on to me. Has got Virgin BB and so has No2 over the road. Then the house next to me on the other side also has access point at the top of the garden . So we are surrounded by 3 Virgin net (NTL as it used to be) and they tell us we cannot get it . What a farce. But even then I was going to think about going with Force9 Well Plus net as its now known.
That saib when I asked what they could do for me being such a loyal customer and being with them for over 13 plus years . What I got back was "well

In reply to a post by andyswain:

Iv just read again and it says Downloads Up to 51.7Mbs and upstream Upto 13.2Mbs Which would be great should I actually attain that speed. I wonder if there is any comback Say should I not get near these speeds?

Those speeds are only an estimate, and do not bind BT in any way to provide them. That said, they're normally a fairly good estimate and are often a bit pessimistic.

Part of the reason for the pessimism is that they allow for speeds dropping somewhat over time. FTTC speeds can be rather sensitive to the additional crosstalk as additional lines in same cable bundle as yours switch to FTTC. One additional line in unfavourable geometry to yours can, in some cases, knock several Mbit/s off your speed. BT Openreach are looking at deploying vectoring to mitigate against this kind of reduction, but there are only a couple of small trials at present.


If you're so far short of the predicted speed as to make FTTC worthless, you should be able to negotiate an exit from the FTTC contract without penalty and a return to the ADSL you have now. You should discuss this with PlusNet (or whichever FTTC ISP you select) before signing up if you want to explore your right to cancel.


With that estimate, it's a case of deciding whether to go for 40/10 or 80/20, as the additional speed of 80/20 may be relatively small. Most FTTC ISPs charge more for 80/20 because they pay more for the wholesale FTTC circuit. You have a fairly good chance of full speed if you opt for 40/10, but there's no guarantee.

With PlusNet, the choice is between 40/10 with a 40GB/month usage cap, or unlimited 80/20 for an extra £4/month. I'd say it was worth the extra £4/month for not having to worry about usage (you may surprise yourself how much you use with a faster connection) and the likelihood of getting a connection as fast as the line allows. If your phone service is with PlusNet, there's currently a £7/month discount on the unlimited offering for the first 9 months of your 18 month commitment, making the total extra cost of unlimited over the entire 18 months just £9!


I think you either quoted your speed in your first post as Kbytes/s, or you left a zero off. If you currently have the predicted 3.5Mbit/s ADSL, that likely has a upstream speed of no more than 0.5Mbit/s. Even an incredibly pessimistic 35/8 FTTC speed is ten times the downstream speed and sixteen times the upstream speed of what you likely have now.

In your position, I'd be signing up for FTTC immediately.