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

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

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

Matt,

If you have a BT landline then enter your phone number in the checker as jchamier suggested, the answer it gives is as definitive as you are likely to get unless you have inside information from Openreach ( not BT Retail. )

If you don't have a BT landline then that's not an option. In that case can I suggest you join the BTCare Community Forums ( Google it ! ) and post your question in the Infinity forum, giving the same information as you did here. You'll get some unhelpful replies but there are also some very good people there and you should at least be able to find out which exchange you're connected to !

*** edit *** I've just seen the other replies, it looks like you've already got all the answers you're likely to get !! A really strange set of speeds, but I guess it happens !

Edited by deleted (Tue 11-Sep-12 19:52:19)

Using the postcode and maps.thinkbroadband.com shows someone local on Infinity getting 58Meg, so suggestion is that maybe the checker is misbehaving and you will get faster.

Until you are like there is no way to tell

This has caught my interest so I made a map of post codes supplied by THS P6

http://batchgeo.com/map/7620c13a4dd234a6ef0ea251aff9...

FTTC is available on his cabinet, using the address 248 RG28EY gives an estimated speed of 69/20 so we know the cabinet is close to this postcode, and moving to the next postcode away lowers the estimate.

My guess is the cabinet is somewhere close to here http://goo.gl/maps/yhjox which makes his postcode about 1000 meters away, so should get more than 9 meg.

Anyway time for Holby and the wife will be shouting soon

Edit: Ignore the above, I forgot to use a cabinet with 100% lines, one I used only had 10% so chances are it's fed from another cabinet.

I'll be back later!

Edited by R0NSKI (Tue 11-Sep-12 20:04:54)

This is one i found close to that area in your post
Cabinet
And its saying its just over 0.6 mile Distance on map

Edited by deleted (Tue 11-Sep-12 20:30:50)

In reply to a post by iwish:

This is one i found close to that area in your post
Cabinet
And its saying its just over 0.6 mile Distance on map

Cabinet 6 is here

http://goo.gl/maps/s2mco

Just of the Shinfield road, on Halls lane

So the distance to his house is around 750 to 850 meters, should be far better that what the estimates are.

The estate the OPs on looks pretty new, google maps shows it half built, would they have run new copper to the cabinet for it? So it's unlikely to be ally?

Perhaps it's just an error in the database or calculations.

Sounds like it, prehaps worth a email to Openreach or CEO of BT to resolve it before ordering.

Thank you so much to everyone on this forum... such helpful information. My house was built 4 years ago so the google images are showing half-built but it is now a completed estate... maybe they just linked us up with string or something to the box! Copper too expensive?!

I'm going to ring BT/OR and see what happens next. Will update everyone in due course. I know exactly where that box is and it's literally down the road.