Will I receive a benefit from FTTC?

I've recently found out that my local cabinet is going to get FTTC in December.
My parents (whom I live with) are currently with Virgin on an ADSL broadband connection.

Our connection speed is (at best) 1.5Mb/s and usually hovers around the 1Mb/s speed.

Will the cabinet's FTTC upgrade benefit our speeds on the current broadband package?
(e.g. Will our current connection's speed suddenly jump up when the cabinet is upgraded? or will my parents have to purchase a package such as BT's Infinity in order to notice any difference in connection speed?)

I haven't been able to get a definitive answer so far, so thanks to anyone who can provide some really clear information.

In reply to a post by Matthew32:

Will the cabinet's FTTC upgrade benefit our speeds on the current broadband package?

You'll need to sign up for a new service (either upgrade if your ISP offers it or switch to a different ISP). If you do nothing, nothing will change

Do you know how far away the cabinet is (by the route the wires probably take)? As Andrue said, you will get no benefit at all unless you change to an FTTC package, but your distance from the cabinet determines largely just how big a benefit that would be.

indeed, like you im on a slow (but not as bad as yours) connection and thinking of going to fibre, im on 3.5 to 4 (depending on the weather) but with fibre i will be getting 70+ if i take the relevant package, my cab is about 200 meters by road and maby add another 40 or 50 for pole and internal routing

My nearest cabinet was FTTC'd a month or so back but it made no difference to our speeds on the ADSL package. We are about 1.5 kms from the exchange and the best we got was 9.5 Mbps.

However, last week I was connected up to FTTC, from Plusnet as it happens. A techie from Open Reach came round and installed a new socket and a fibre modem last Thursday. The ISP supplies a suitable router (the ADSL one doesn't work apparently).

As of today, 1 week later, speeds have jumped around a bit but I am on 28.5 Mbps, ie about 4 times as fast as I was on ADSL.

I am no expert but that is my experience. You are stating from a much lower speed but I am sure you will see a significant increase on ADSL. Ask Plusnet to give an estimate.

I don't know where my specific cabinet is.
The closest I can think of (visually see) is around 0.7 miles away via road (more like 0.5 miles as the crow flies) but I assume there must be a closer cabinet?

I did a check on BT wholesale adsl checker to see about my local cabinet, and they reckon I'll get up to 24Mb/s once it's moved to FTTC.

I believe the rollout is stage 8b? And will be complete by December 31st this year apparently (Chichester Exchange).

So - in short - once it's on FTTC, I'll have to buy a new internet package to see any boost in speeds?... How unexciting.
Although at least I'll be getting 24Mb/s instead of 1.5.... I think there may be a slight difference in my usage experience then xD

In reply to a post by Matthew32:

I don't know where my specific cabinet is.
The closest I can think of (visually see) is around 0.7 miles away via road (more like 0.5 miles as the crow flies) but I assume there must be a closer cabinet?

I did a check on BT wholesale adsl checker to see about my local cabinet, and they reckon I'll get up to 24Mb/s once it's moved to FTTC.

That may well be the right cabinet, given the low speed estimate. Plenty of people have them even further away!

In reply to a post by Matthew32:

So - in short - once it's on FTTC, I'll have to buy a new internet package to see any boost in speeds?... How unexciting.

Well, it's an upgrade at least and probably a new minimum term contract, but I don't know whether Virgin offers FTTC. Extra cost may not be that great - I only paid an extra £5/month when I first went FTTC.

Edited by kasg (Thu 20-Sep-12 17:41:21)