Managing expectations: FTTC as a replacement for VirginCable

Hello - I wonder if some of you may be able to answer a question regarding BT FTTC.

First let me explain the background: I live in an area that had 1-2Mb at best ADSL due to distance from the exchange. After a couple of years struggling we got connected to Virgin's 50Mb cable service, which would seem much better. Every year virgin's cable service slows down to a crawl in the autumn and recovers sometime between easter and the summer holidays. Usually this means speeds of 1-2Mb and packet loss. Last year Virgin "fixed" the issue by adding more cables between Wycombe and Reading but again come September this year it's all gone like treacle again. I won't go into the technical aspects as they have been raked over on VM's forums...

What's different this year is that my house falls into an area served by FTTC, and I have no contactual ties to Virgin. So I'm thinking perhaps I'll change the phone and broadband to BT Infinity, PlusNET or ADSL24.

The BT Checker says I'll get a predicted 26Mb downstream. Okay, that less that VM's 50Mb but If I get a consistent 26Mb even at peak times then I would be happy.

My question to all you FTTC Customers is what is the service like? Do you see download speeds drop and ping times jitter in the winter evenings? Are there utilisation and congestion issues like there are on VM Cable? If you do a run on speedtest.net is the result consistent in peak and off peak periods?

Thanks

Andrew Kirby
[email protected]
Virgin Media Cable 50Mb customer (more like 1.5Mb tonight!)

A predicted 26 means you'll probably get close to 35+ (we were quoted 15, but got 28). The checker is very conservative. Admittedly, we weren't on BT, but connection speeds were consistently fast.

Been on BT Infinity since November last year. No problems, occasionally drop a meg or so at peak times, but since I get full 40/10, it's no biggy. No issues with packet loss. 100% happy.

The estimate is usually very safe, so there's more than fair chance you'll get a higher rate than the predicted. Get the 10meg upstream option, very nice if you game.

You anywhere near Reading, I know the area very well.

Edited by Zarjaz (Fri 30-Sep-11 21:53:56)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

. . .
Get the 10meg downstream option, very nice if you game.
. . .

Cough! I think that is an Oops moment, is it not?

Good to hear they're being conservative about attainable sync speeds. The bit I'm worried about is the real life speed when you factor in how many people share the bandwidth from the cabinet to the exchange and then through the ADSL provider's network.

I'm based near West Wycombe Village - I was told that all wycombe's virgin cable internet traffic goes down cables to Reading and shares UBRs with the Reading network... How accurate that is, I don't know.

Andrew

Its totally different tech to Virgin's cable network, I'm not saying its not possible to get contention of course you can, you can get contention in any part of the network but you aren't sharing local cable plant like you do with the coax on your street and the fibres back to the exchange are provisioned to ensure adequate bandwidth exists, I believe should the time come when bandwidth is an issue for a cab they just add more fibre, don't quote me on that though

Contention is a constant gripe for some areas of the VM network, I've not seen similar gripes with FTTC

I'm with PlusNet FTTC, beware the current PN offering is only 2Mb upload speed (as with some options from othe providors), so far it's been very good, no significant speed drop at busy times.

In reply to a post by Al1264:

I'm with PlusNet FTTC, beware the current PN offering is only 2Mb upload speed (as with some options from othe providors), so far it's been very good, no significant speed drop at busy times.

Same here - apart from the traffic shaping that Plusnet applies (which you can avoid by paying an extra £5 a month) I have experienced no significant speed drops at peak times.