FTTC Survey

Looking to do a survey to see the lay of the land regarding FTTC ISPs. Pretty simple really...who do you use. Not sure if it's open to abuse but i'd ask that you just vote once. It's not a popularity contest - just looking to get some rough figures. If I've missed out some obvious ISPs then let me know and i'll try to update it.

Click for the survey

I'll update the results periodically on the FTTC comparison matrix. You can view that from the link in my signature below. There is a button/tab at the bottom called "Survey results".

Edited by orly (Wed 23-Mar-11 19:10:42)

Voted.

Done

iechyd da

Done.

35 responses so far, so early days.

Seems BT is a clear favourite at the moment with Aquiss seemingly the 2nd most popular choice.

Quite a number selecting "Other". From what I can ascertain looking at the IPs of the voters here, there are some Virgin, Be, and Plusnet votes.

Interestingly, BT has got a few responses from people using IP addresses belonging to Be and one from IDNet. Two responses for Aquiss are from current BT users. One vote for IDNet is from a current Be user. Seems there is a bit of a spread and people potentially moving between ISPs.

Take all the above with a pinch of salt as it's just based on simple IP lookups.

Or it could be that they have voted for their ISP but are using another connection, say from work to access the site.

As I remember it when I did the survey, (possibly the first?), it asks which you are with or would probably move to if you could. (Interestingly it doesn't allow me in again, perhaps due to a fixed IP).

That seemed to me to be a recipe for distorted results. There needed to be a way of telling which was which.

There's also a tuning factor missing - Aquiss and ADSL24 and perhaps others accept orders for the 5Mbps product, whereas BT is still minumum estimate 15Mbps unless the punter can find the elusive "BB Option 3 with fibre".

Maybe that BT are the one's offering Fibre in most of the UK????????????

iechyd da

In reply to a post by paul1360:

Maybe that BT are the one's offering Fibre in most of the UK????????????

?
So are all the others.

A major national (misleading) TV campaign may be more relevant. Plus giveaway pricing.

Sorry if that's the case, With me the FTTC option I have is BT hence why i said what I did

iechyd da

Even semi knowledgeable people tend to think FTTC is only offered by BT. Why is that.
Just takes a couple of minutes in a search, even better the spreadsheet above constantly updated.

In reply to a post by hareng:

Even semi knowledgeable people tend to think FTTC is only offered by BT. Why is that.

Because the TV advert says "Infinity- only available from BT".

True, strictly speaking, but as Bob said earlier, misleading.

Question was: Which FTTC ISP do you use / will be signing up for when it becomes available?

Think it's ok. If you're using it already - who with. If you were signing up tomorrow then who would you go with.

I wouldn't say the poll is meant to be super accurate. I just wanted to get some indication of which ISPs were attracting the customers.

Misleading?

Infinity is BT's product/offering.

Kinda like "Cable - only from Virgin" or "Vision - only from BT"

Possibly. Seen an Irish IP address and one seemingly linked to a German bank.

I haven't removed any responses despite this sort of thing because I thought similar to you - people at work

In reply to a post by orly:

Possibly. Seen an Irish IP address and one seemingly linked to a German bank.

Could be users coming in via proxies.

Edited by billford (Thu 24-Mar-11 18:27:12)

In reply to a post by orly:

I haven't removed any responses despite this sort of thing because I thought similar to you - people at work

I am not sure where I was when I replied - memory like a sieve you see. However if I did it from work it will almost certainly appear to have come from a German range of IP addresses, despite me being in England. Just happens to be where the IP subnet is registered.

Commerzbank or similar?

In reply to a post by orly:

Commerzbank or similar?

No, IBM or AT&T

79 responses now.

BT still the clear leader with Aquiss and IDNet following.

Nearly missed the place where the results are being counted!

BTW - Strictly, Aquiss isn't second. Surely that honour falls to "Other/Unlisted"?

can you add an option "isnt becoming available in my area" then we can see how many are in an area not picked.

Time to add Plusnet to the survey. Not possible easily on the spreadsheet proper.

I see Aquiss and IDNet are equal at 9 now.

Done. Even used my Infinity connection, rather than my Sky connection ....

So I took the survey, but even after registering with Survey Monkey, I can't see the results so far, or is that private?

Follow the link in Orly's signature - then the survey results are on the second tab of the spreadsheet

That explains thing. Sigs disabled.

Note to people who put useful things in their sigs...get everyone else doing the same, and I might enable them.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Sigs disabled.

Note to people who put useful things in their sigs...

Irony alert

er... I guess you can't see your sig

Of course.

Give me a convincing reason to remove an interesting an humerous sig?

Nope, but I guess you did...

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Of course.

Give me a convincing reason to remove an interesting an humerous sig?

I would if you had one

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Give me a convincing reason to remove an interesting an humerous sig?

Other than it makes your posts three times longer than they need to be, and gets tiresome after the second time one reads it?
--
Short Sig Man

Yup. That's why I disable em.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Give me a convincing reason to remove an interesting an humerous sig?

Other than it makes your posts three times longer than they need to be, and gets tiresome after the second time one reads it?
--
Short Sig Man

Particularly the three posters I am aware of (without needing to stop to think) who have huge numbers of blank lines in them. One from cussedness, one initially to poke fun whan I was complaining about it, and now one who thinks theirs is humorous. (A view I can just about agree with, but not the waste of valuable screen space).

Short of being in a hamlet in some rural shire, it's hard to say with much certainty that it won't become available.

Going to have to do a new and improved version I think

In reply to a post by orly:

Going to have to do a new and improved version I think

You definitely need to separate already connected from future intentions.

People change their minds right up to the last minute, and new suppliers in the meantime before being able to get FTTC can change intentions. E.g. the imminent arrival of PN could make a big difference to already-posted intentions.

Sky and TT even more so.

Thinking i'll create my own as a webpage and host it. Similar to how a contact form works so that people fill it in and it just emails me the responses to a specific email account i'll set up for catching the results. Allows me to easily modify it and put in mixtures of drop downs and simple text boxes to get different info.

Anyone have thoughts on the layout or questions to ask?

Possibly on the "already have" questions the chosen upload speed, and whether it is a 15+Mbps product or not, independent of the normal connection speed. Or perhaps the normal IP Profile as unless they get their initial speed from the engineer they won't know.

In reply to a post by orly:

Anyone have thoughts on the layout or questions to ask?

Well if its any help, my cabinet is not yet enabled (won't be until June) but a I'm on an 18meg sync already, the only reason I'll move to FTTC is for faster upload. I won't sacrifice the download benefits for it.

So I'm not going to BT Infinity, but IDnet or Aquiss are the closest - but I'd prefer a company that doesn't use the WBC backhaul.

I'd clearly like to see BE launch FTTC, even with a per gigabyte per month usage cap (perhaps 250gb upwards for varying fees) - and given the BE MD this week said "What I don't want to do if offer something which is a "me too" service or offers an experience where the service runs slow at certain times or is heavily shaped or capped. " it seems there might be a wait.

BE's MD also said the two BT FTTC wholesale offerings (wholesale and openreach) are not different enough - and I guess that means they're not cheap enough for BE to offer a product on them. And that's from an ISP that is just increasing prices for ADSL2+ services.

I still compare WBC to the Alan Sugar in the original Amstrad way of "pile 'em high sell 'em cheap" - mass market but lower quality. BE is the BMW / Mercedes of the ISPs - and perhaps AAISP is the Rolls Royce. Once you've paid £24/m for quality you don't look back.

And I'd be prepared to pay £40/month max (that's without a phone line rental). Doubt many others are !

Going to try doing it as a series of questions with drop downs. This means the responses are the same each time rather than a text box where users can say "BT" or BT Infinity" or "BT Option 2" meaning you get 3 results for generally the same thing. Then the results can easily be plugged into a database and read out. Pretty simple Mysql and PHP.

Shouldn't be too difficult but might be a project for the weekend when I'm not working.

And I'd be prepared to pay £40/month max (that's without a phone line rental). Doubt many others are !

Totally agree. So would I.