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Dear all,
We currently have poor rural broadband download speeds of around 0.5-0.75Mbps. I'd heard that the village was due to be upgraded to fibre soon - this was really exciting until I read the following on the BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker:
"Your cabinet is planned to have WBC FTTC by 31st December 2012. 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 1.8Mbps and upstream line speed of 900Kbps."
We're currently around 500m from the cabinet in our village - can this be right? If it is correct then I'll have to suppress my excitement as, although it will be 2-3 times faster, it'll still be difficult (impossible) to do much on iPlayer, Youtube, LoveFilm, etc.
Any advice or feedback would be very much appreciated.
Mandy (living the rural dream, apart from the Internet connection, for 11 months)
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The estimates can sometimes be pessimistic, so it is wait until the service is live and see what close neighbours get or take the gamble yourself.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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If the 500m is the actual distance of the cable route then that figure is well under what you would expect. At around 450m I get 40Mbps with a potential for 65Mbps.
The statement is also confusing in that the says FTTC by December then goes on to say that your line currently supports fibre technology ... Something is not quite right on the results.
Can you try a couple of neighbouring properties and their numbers?
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M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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The statement is also confusing in that the says FTTC by December then goes on to say that your line currently supports fibre technology ... Something is not quite right on the results.
Sadly that's normal for the website - mine said "currently supports" for over 2 years before my FTTC cab was installed and enabled.
James BT Infinity 2 19/09/2012 - Estimate 44.6/6.5 - Install 52/12 - Actual 46 / 8 Mbps
13 years of broadband - ntl:(512k/1M)/BTbusiness(2M)/Metronet(2M)/Bulldog(8M/16M)/BE(16M)/BT FTTC(50M)
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Many thanks to Andrew and MHC for their responses. I will try to be patient. In the meantime I tried MHC's suggestion to try a neighbour's number - unfortunately the only local one I know at the moment seems not to be a BT line. So I tried the poscode checker and got the following:
"Your cabinet is planned to have WBC FTTC by 31st December 2012. 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 between .1 to 76.5 Mbps and upstream line speed between .1 to 20 Mbps."
I think I'm going to have to be patient. Thanks for your advice in the meantime.
Mandy
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Postcodes can be pretty large in some rural areas, so not the best guide.
A date at the end of December is also just a quarterly date, those dates are the ones most likely to be missed, if it said in a few weeks time then it would really be time to get excited.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Mandy
Nice to know another rural area is getting FTTC, if you are only 500m from the Cab your speed should be much better than that.
The line estimator doesn't seem to work well until there are some working lines in the area, then it's guesses get more educated!
I have no evidence except empirical but it seems to work by taking the attenuation over the distance house back to the exchange then pro-rata for the house to cab. If the house to cab is better than Cab to exchange you will get a far far better speed.
The state of your internal wiring can also affect the above so check that you can't improve the existing by unplugging all extensions then using the test socket only direct to the modem and wired to the PC. Wait 10 min after unplugging beofre turning it all back on and see if the speed improves.
Just interested but what exchange are you on?
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At least that is a little more optimistic ...
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M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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Yes, mine and many others posted on these forums said "currently supports" long before the cabinet was installed. I think it was included at the time the cabinet was first scheduled.
It's only recently that I've seen this claim that it doesn't appear until the cabinet is live.
My broadband basic info/help site - www.robertos.me.uk | Domains,website and mail hosting - Tsohost.
Connection - Plusnet Extra Fibre (FTTC). Sync ~ 57.4/14.6Mbps @ 600m. - BQM
"Where talent is a dwarf, self-esteem is a giant." - Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn.
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Allergy information: This post was manufactured in an environment where nuts are present. It may include traces of understatement, litotes and humour.
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We are 400 metres from the cabinet, by the shortest possible (and most likely) road route. We get a full 80/20 sync.
The kind of numbers that you are being predicted would match a line length of over 1km - perhaps nearer 1500m (assuming copper lines). Is it possible that you are connected to a different cabinet? You aren't always connected to the closest one.
One way to find out which cabinet, and get a better idea of dates, is to question Openreach themselves. Their email is given in the FAQ on this page... something like [email protected]
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