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!)