Fibre Problem - not faster than ADSL2+

Hello can anyone help me?

I live in Reading, postcode RG2 9GY. I have O2 ADSL broadband with a speed about 9Meg. Various providers are now offering Fibre broadband but they say I can have a speed of 9.1Meg. Surely, any fibre connection would be faster than ordinary ADSL? I've tried calling them (Plusnet, Sky and BT) and they assure me that it's 9Meg with Fibre.

I looked on the website http://fttc-check.alc.im/results.php?postcode=RG29GY and it says:

Cabinet P6
Probability 100%
Uplift 3.21
Phase 4a
Status Part of Deployment
Type FTTC (Fiber to the Cabinet)

If uplift is 3.21, don't I just take my current 9Mb and multiply by 3.21 = 28.89Meg?

Can anyone shed any light as I'm totally confused by it all.

Thanks so much in advance
Matt

IF they are telling you the truth then you either have aluminium cabling or you are a l-o-n-g way away from the cabinet; in either case it appears that you'd gain nothing by moving to fibre.

However I took the liberty of entering your postcode into the BT Broadband Availability Checker and THAT effectively says that fibre is not yet available to you at all and furthermore that there are no current plans to enable it. This is not as accurate a check as entering your landline number ( providing you have a BT landline, it doesn't work if you don't ) but it does at least imply that someone is telling you porkies.

I'm especially confused by BT assuring you your fibre speed is going to be 9Meg because a) they should know that you can't get it and b) they don't usually offer Infinity at all if your estimated speed is below 15Meg !

I think a little further digging is needed here.........

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Can anyone shed any light as I'm totally confused by it all.

Forget postcode its too inaccurate.

Use your phone number here:
https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html

and post what you get back.

Suspect poster is confused as they think they are checking fibre, but providers have dropped back to ADSL2+ estimates as it may not be available

Thank you Biffo for your reply. it is indeed quite strange... I also found out that sometimes providers think I'm connected to Arborfield Cross exchange and others say Reading South. Now, I believe that somehow the results are getting muddled... Arborfield is not FTTC whereas Reading South is. I'd be highly surprised if I was connected to Arborfield as they'd have to run a cable across the M4 to do so!

Do you have any idea who I can contact for further digging?

Matt

Hi Mr Saffon - I am definitely checking Fibre... I've been careful not to get caught out on that one... they checkers (Plusnet in particular) is showing Fibre not ADSL.

Thanks - I did this check, I cut the most important bit:

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 7Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 4.5Mbps and 11.5Mbps.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a fibre technology with an estimated WBC FTTC Broadband where consumers have received downstream line speed of 9.7Mbps and upstream line speed of 1Mbps.

So it seems, I'm lucky getting 9 when the say 7 for ADSL2+ but still showing 9.7 for fibre.

Your cabinet may for fibre services actually be connected to the other exchange, but for adsl and PSTN to another.

Or the postcode is split across two exchanges
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre/checker.php

If there is data will show two lines if the postcode is split

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

So it seems, I'm lucky getting 9 when the say 7 for ADSL2+ but still showing 9.7 for fibre.

Yes, it sounds as if you're at one of those strange locations where you might be just far enough from the FTTC cabinet to get a slow speed. I guess you'd have to sign up to find out if you could get any better or not! All the other ISPs are just going to report what the BTwholesale database has for your line.

Thanks again... shows a single listing as follows:

Postcode Exchange Service Type Probability Speed Increase Phase Cabinet
RG29GY READING SOUTH FTTC 100% 3.21 4A announced April 2010 Ready March 2011 P6