PS Assuming that an estimate of the speed expected on the line in question was offered before purchase, it really shouldn't be a problem. This ought to deal with any misunderstandings about "up to 20Mb" or indeed "up do 24Mb" as offered by some, as it gives a more personalised estimate for the line.

PPS Its always worth checking the internal wiring too, as interference etc can reduce line speed considerably.

I have one house in te wilds of Scotland with an up to 8Mb service and I get just under 8Mbps. A couple of friends have up to 20Mb service and they get around 18 or 19Mb - so it is possible and a lot of people get hiogh speeds but BT cannot change the laws of physics or economics.

As for FTTC at my other house outside London - I get 39Mbps and that is capped. The line will support 48Mb down and 17Mb up.

I had a sim provide of a new BT phone line and BT Infinity last week (8th Feb). My line length is exactly 547m to the fibre cab (BT engineer who installed line and Infinity informed me of the line length).

I have a profile of 38717 kbps down and 10000 kbps up. All tests and actual use have been close to those profiles - normally getting about 37+ mbit down and 8+ mbit up regardless of the time of day (speedtests to show this via BT Speedtester as I like to know how my new line is doing).

Speedtest results from 'My Broadband Speed' which I have found to pretty accurate:

This evening:
http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/results/77340571.png
http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/results/77299241.png
http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/results/77286311.png

Hope this helps. You might also want to ask in the BTCare Communbity Forums as there are plenty of threads (both good and bad) relating to BT Infinity there

In reply to a post by yarwell:

Below 15M isn't provided at the moment (may have changed)

No change there Phil.

My sincere thanks to all for your thoughts on this.
Unfortunately SamKnows information is that we are 3.118KM from our Windsor (01753 8) exchange , rather further than most of you.
TB's slowspot maps are interesting, showing blue spots over a very large area round here. Intriguingly that includes Windsor Castle, so maybe HM has problems too (or perhaps not).
Most prognostications suggest 31/03 for activation of FTTC although that seems to depend where within BT you get your info.
Certainly the BT website confirms that work on the exchange itself has been completed, and those little green cabinets have sprung up all over our immediate locality. Not absolutely sure which one is ours but let's hope ...

BT Wholesale availability checker.

It may or may not give a date, but it should give you a (low) speed estimate for FTTC.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by spranglebolt:

I am, of course aware that there will still be cable from the cabinet and that there could still be a measure of contention in the immediate area.

Actually I'd expect the contention to be near the ISP in the link that connects them to BT's network but local contention is also a possibility.

As for connection speed:It's all been said before. The behaviour of xDSL over distance is well documented and well known. Your idea of a guarantee would just have killed of xDSL - or limited it to a select few within close proximity to the exchange. That's the way it used to be back when we had fixed speeds. ADSL max allowed far more people to be connected because it worked on a 'plug it in and see what you get' strategy. Unfortunately there's proved to be no straightforward way to describe that in adverts.

The moral is:Don't blindly believe adverts. At least by asking the question here you've had the sense to ask the questions that the adverts failed to answer

ignition has quoted BT still only budgeting for 2 figure kbit use per customer, if that is true it is shockingly low so performance during peak when growth is done might not be pretty. Looking at ho wlow infinity pricing is at retail level theen those figures make sense.

ignition has quoted BT still only budgeting for 2 figure kbit use per customer

there's a similar figure (same ?) in the OFCOM thing about Market 1 exchanges - average Wholesale just under 50 kbits/s demand and capacity is about double that on exchange backhaul to give 90% of time >2M speeds.

Talk Talk LLU is same. Not an issue if it matches the average use, shirley ?

They also asked LLU operators but didn't publish figures. I'll FOI them.

What you have not done is consider whether the wiring in your home might be knocking a meg off your speeds.

Example, I am 3.5km of cable from the exchange, but have faster test results on our map than those living 100-200m from the exchange.

This is why there are numerous guides to doing things like getting your ADSL modem stats http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php and sites that will estimate what you should be able to get http://www.farina1.com/adsl and if there is a big disjoint in the numbers then 20 minutes of fiddling can get the two sets of figures closer.

On the cabinets - they need mains power, linking to the old green cabinets, the active hardware installed, then it all commissionign. The dates are not set in stone, like any project outside things like weather can make a big difference to timelines

Roberto- many thanks for your post.
In a perverse sort of way I wish I hadn't followed it, because the site you mentioned gives yet another target date, i.e. September, but I guess that must be regarded as definitive. Curiouser and curiouser!