Left Be for BT Infinity only issue was the Homehub and wireless issues, been nearly a year and hand on heart its been great. Apparently there is some speed upgades coming as well! Our connection is well used, my usage has increased alot if I'm honest but all seems very fast and more importantly gaming is good, no issues with my WoW addiction and Xbox live runs great.

In reply to a post by andygegg:

I didn't expect ADSL2+ to do anything at all so I was pleasantly surprised when my speed doubled

That's cuz you are running under ADSL2 (w/out the +) = G.992.3.

AFAIK, BT are planning on trialling 80/20 FTTC sometime in the autumn, then rolling out in the new year to all existing FTTC customers.

In reply to a post by MrGrumpy:

Left Be for BT Infinity only issue was the Homehub and wireless issues, been nearly a year and hand on heart its been great. Apparently there is some speed upgades coming as well! Our connection is well used, my usage has increased alot if I'm honest but all seems very fast and more importantly gaming is good, no issues with my WoW addiction and Xbox live runs great.

Thank you - this again is very helpful; particularly your comment about increased usage with FTTC which is my major concern about staying with IDNet. I see from various forums that BT installs its own FTTC modem. I assume that there is no contractual obligation to use the HH3? I have a Fritz!Box that is also my DECT base station and I would not wish to cast this box to one side as it is a very solid piece of kit. It is also VDSL2 capable.

In reply to a post by greenglide:

Since your CAB is not yet enabled the date can move and a 17.5Mbps connection is well above average.

What you "should" have done is change to BE a long time ago (if available in your area) as they don't have a "system" regulating the speed.

I would sit tight and wait. I am doing that (21Mb/s down) to see what is on offer when my CAB gets enabled (installed but not enabled). and waiting for the big players to start selling FTTC products - it will eventually happen!

I was with BT, then Nildram, Aquiss and now IDNet (5 years plus). Sadly, BE is not available in my area. I should add that it took 5 months for my ADSL2+ connection to get from 8.5 to 17.5 ( 3 months for the first SNR drop from 15 to 12). I would not be leaving IDNet out of any sense of dissatisfaction - only because their FTTC package prices/sizes do not suit. On current usage, I could be downloading 50GB this month (mainly because of major upgrades to Apple products). I will manage this but I do not want to be up in the early hours monitoring downloads to save peak bandwidth.

In reply to a post by lexden16:

Thank you - this again is very helpful; particularly your comment about increased usage with FTTC which is my major concern about staying with IDNet. I see from various forums that BT installs its own FTTC modem. I assume that there is no contractual obligation to use the HH3? I have a Fritz!Box that is also my DECT base station and I would not wish to cast this box to one side as it is a very solid piece of kit. It is also VDSL2 capable.

The Modem is provided by Openreach, this is regardless of who you choose as your FTTC provider. BT retail provide the HH3 but you are not obliged to use it. I swapped back to my Apple Airport Extreme as soon as the engineers left. (there is no-one else around here on the 5GHz band )

A few people on here have used other VDSL combined modem/router units with some success.

You are supposed to use the OR modem apparently. People using VDSL2 routers have had mixed experiences.

A relevant thread.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You are supposed to use the OR modem apparently. People using VDSL2 routers have had mixed experiences.

A relevant thread.

Reading other forums, the problem with the Fritz!Box was setting the VLAN to 101 for FTTC. This problem has been addressed in the latest RC firmware update so there is no longer a need to edit the configuration file with a 3rd party editor. The Fritz! is expensive but it can now been bought online from France with free delivery for about £180.

My list of pros and cons re BT Infinity versus ISP-provided FTTC gets longer by the day thanks to some very helpful responses on this and other TBB threads. As I have said earlier, what I have concluded is that it is best to do nothing until FTTC availability is confirmed on my line.