So what is the difference between the SKY service and BT Infinity.

I ask because I have an existing SKY service of approx the same stats. What does the FTTC react like. Does it actually feal different doing stuff on your home computers. Whats the difference?

In reply to a post by iand:

So what is the difference between the SKY service and BT Infinity.

I ask because I have an existing SKY service of approx the same stats. What does the FTTC react like. Does it actually feal different doing stuff on your home computers. Whats the difference?

The same stats as what?

37Mbps download and 8Mbps upload? Or are you misreading the post? See here for a basic description of FTTC.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 06-Sep-11 18:13:26)

you have missed the point. It is not all about the download speed. I was after the difference or in other words what is the "experiance difference"

In reply to a post by iand:

you have missed the point. It is not all about the download speed. I was after the difference or in other words what is the "experiance difference"

And you missed the question . You said "an existing SKY service of approx the same stats". The same as what?

As for the "experience", how did broadband feel after dialup?

Browsing isn't a lot different. By all reports multi-user streaming alongside gaming is dramatically different. Software downloads/updates are extremely rapid.

Ah - I just realised ytou don't mean stats at all. You mean the Sky connection speeds. They aren't relevant as they don't affect the speed you get on FTTC. That is determined by your distance from the FTTC cabinet, instead of from the exchange. So you may be close to that, or you may be a long way away and get quite a low speed.

The original poster said the moved from a SKY connection of around 6M download, which is around what I have, to a BT infinity 34M ish connection. What I was interested in was what is the difference. For those of us who are old enough when we moved from dialup to ADSL 512K the web pages were like lightning. Is this the same with a stark difference?. If the house was to have 4-5 people using the internet at the same time, does this just work with no notacable drop in speed. Are we now ar a point where it just works. I ask about the SKY vs. Infinity difference as there is a cost associated with that difference. So what is the difference. What can we do differently with Infinity vs a std SKY service, or any ADSL2(+) service?

OK, possibly the following is what you were after .......

I used to be on ADSL max, solid 8128Kbps sync, I now have the full 40 meg sync and 10 up with Infinity.

At home there are three laptops, a pc, a Wii, an Xbox, and BT Vision, and two 'smart' phones all using the connection. On the previous service when everything was busy, it could be 'felt' all a little sluggish. This now doesn't happen. The Xbox live is surely happier, you seem to host more often than not, and as Robertos said, downloads rock. I player and it's mates stream very nicely in HD.

So yes, I think it's worth it.

In reply to a post by iand:

So what is the difference between the SKY service and BT Infinity.

I ask because I have an existing SKY service of approx the same stats. What does the FTTC react like. Does it actually feal different doing stuff on your home computers. Whats the difference?

There are 6 of us in my household (wife, 4 daughters & myself) and when all 6 are online doing various stuff (daughters youtubeing, video chatting & whatnot, wife watching iPlayer, Sky Go, youtube) it was getting a bit much on the connection for me to happily do what I like online (gaming, Sky Go, iPlayer & the likes).

I decided to get a new line and have BT Infinity installed for myself. When we get rid of Sky we will all be able to be online at the same time - doing what we all normally do & do it without any stuttering or stammering. Gaming is also a lot better as my ping is far better & gaming is far more responsive. Browsing is a bit more responsive with load times, but the biggest difference is watching videos & gaming for me.

If you're the only person using the connection then it's probably not worth your time changing - unless you're looking to try to improve pings or download files faster.

Hope this helps.

OK; fourth day in and all looking good so far (but ONLY BECAUSE I've come from a 4.5Mbps connection).

I've had a maximum sync (and a 38717kbps profile) since activation.
At off-peak times Usenet (best way to max out your connection) has achieved maximum download speed whenever I've checked.

At peak times (odd occasions during the evenings and now - at 10:30am on a Saturday), maximum throughput has dropped off sharply.
Currently (again; this is at 10:30am on a Saturday) I'me getting around 30 to 33 Mbps from Usenet (so around 10 to 20% down from the maximum speed).

The BT speedtester reflects this peak-time loss of speed and is currently producing results around 22000kbps from a line with a profile of 38717kbps.

So great for me (as I migrated from a 4.5Mbps BE connection), but pretty poor for anyone who's already on a 20+Mbps ADSL2+ connection, as peak times will see little improvement over their current speeds.

It does show that already (in the very early stages of roll-out, and with very few people using FTTC on our exchange), the BT network is showing signs of congestion.
Quite how BT's network is going to cope (as more and more people switch to Infinity) is beyond me - unless they invest significantly in their back-bone networks, we're going to be seeing some very large speed drops over the coming months.

Relatively happy, but to the 'BT is great and BE's network is obviously congested' crowd (he knows who he is), I will say "so is BT's network".
At least my BE connection stayed at maximum speed 24/7 (which is more than I can say for Infinity).

If I'd have moved from a 24Mbps BE connection, I'd be thinking "I've wasted time, money and effort".
Because I've moved from a 4.5Mbps BE connection, Infinity is good for me.

Like I've said all along; Infinity would have to be seriously congested or throttled to be worse than a 4.5Mbps ADSL connection.
It's not worse yet, but give it time

If I'd have moved from a 24Mbps BE connection, I'd be thinking "I've wasted time, money and effort".
Because I've moved from a 4.5Mbps BE connection, Infinity is good for me.

Hardly anyone gets the max on Be as I have repeated elsewhere, and of course there is going to be congestion, I gave up on the idea of max speed 24/7 years ago on the old ADSL max products when I was various ISPs over the years including the expensive ones like Zen. Besides when BT do the upgrade to the current FTTC product so there is the possibility of 80Mbps download then Be`s connections are going to look piddly

Also you never know maybe BTs network is ready for the these uber fast connections!