Concerned about a potential poor line affecting speeds

Hi everyone

There is fibre availability in my area and I'm looking into it now (have been for some time).

The line it would need to be connected to is, as far as I recall, probably at least 20 years old if not considerably longer.

It's only within the last couple of years that the phoneline has had a standard face plate put on it, before that it was connected directly to the phone as the phone was one of those old ones with the spin dial on it.

It had to be changed over due to crackling on the line, whether it was the phone or the line I don't know but it stopped after the face plate was put in and a new phone was added.

Anyway...long and the short is...can a poor quality or old phone line affect FTTC speed? I assume it will but I thought i'd ask.

Is there any way of finding out the quality of the line? There is no broadband connection on the line at all at the moment.

Thanks very much!

[edit]
Is this the same premises as this thread, or is it somewhere else? If somewhere else, then continue with the checker I suggest. Unless you've already done that and forgotten to tell us what it says .

Other posters - check out that thread. It's meaty.
[/edit]

This checker will give basic information about what performance you could expect. The age of the copper is usually irrelevant.

Please copy and paste what the checker says, so we can interpret the results for you. It can be a bit daunting, and some of the figures shouldn't be taken at face value. (Don't paste your phone number, of course ).

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 30-Nov-12 17:48:18)

Yes line quality is actually a bigger factor for VDSL2

Quality for carrying a signal up to 17 MHz can really only be learnt by running the line with the VDSL2 service on it.

Or in plain English it is suck it and see

Andrew - note he has a rather detailed previous thread, see my edit above, but apparently a different line.

Oh blooming nora, I'd completely forgotten about that thread!!! *facepalm*

OK...in the house we have two phone lines...

One upstairs which currently has:
O2 broadband
O2 voice
VOIP

Downstairs
A bog standard phoneline with BT
A credit card machine which dials out using that line (home based business if you were wondering)

What I'm wanting to do is to kill the O2 line upstairs, which is about 14 years old, it was installed and wired up in 1998.

Enable fibre on the downstairs line and have:
Phone line with anytime calls on the line
Fibre
Credit card machine, upgraded to a broadband terminal so it doesn't tie up the phone line
VOIP number

All coming off one line...hopefully decrease the bills a bit.

I hope that'll all be OK running off one line!

*edit - checker details added*


ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 13Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 11.5Mbps and 14.5Mbps. Our test also indicates that your line could support an estimated ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line speed of 1Mbps and downstream line speed of 13Mbps; typically the downstream speed would range between 11.5Mbps and 14.5Mbps.

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 25.7Mbps and upstream line speed of 5.7Mbps.


Interestingly I've just run the same test with my upstairs phone, and it's absolutely accurate with the downstream on ADSL2+, I do indeed get download speeds of between 10-12mbps, when downloading it tops out at an absolute maximum of 1.4MB/s - it also shows that the downstairs phone line should support slightly faster ADSL2+ speeds!

your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 11Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 10Mbps and 12Mbps. Our test also indicates that your line could support an estimated ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line speed of 1Mbps and downstream line speed of 11Mbps; typically the downstream speed would range between 10Mbps and 12Mbps.

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 25.7Mbps and upstream line speed of 5.7Mbps.


It predicts the fibre will be the same speed for both lines...disappointingly lower than I had hoped. The upstream is good compared to the 1mbps we have now though...don't upload much though, except for backing up to cloud storage.

Looking on Google at the distance to the cabinet using the distance checker and comparing on the TB fibre board I was hoping for around 34mbps as we are around 700 yards from the exchange.

Edited by PhotoFiend (Fri 30-Nov-12 18:28:26)

Thanks for the reply....hmmm...I thought that might be the case...can't tell how good/bad it is until I've taken out at least a years contract.

I started an alternative suggestion, then decided it might be risky, came back to check something and lost it all anyway !

The estimates on a line do adjust over time to be close to the actual. Assuming you didn't put the upstairs number in by mistake, it looks as though they have picked the nearest comparable line to use as an estimate for your location ... which is ... .

Part of what I lost - it's almost certain there is only one cable coming to your house. That will have either two pairs or three pairs in it.

At the point it reaches the house one pair is supplying upstairs and one downstairs. The ages of the two pairs should be the same unless one has been replaced between that divergence point and a socket. The fact the two estimates are the same probably implies the two e-sides, (the lines from the cabinet to the exchange), follow the same route. They may or may not be down the same cable at that point, so ages could be different. It should be irrelevant.

As Andrew says, it is suck it and see, as what can make a difference is the state of every joint/junction over the whole route from socket to exchange.

My alternative, in short, was to discontinue the BT line and temporarily use the upstairs one for the credit card machine, then migrate the upstairs line and broadband to your chosen (BT?) line and FTTC supplier. The engineer at install line should be able easily to alter the link at the divergence point to send it all downstairs.

The risk is that the simultaneous migrations might fail to happen on the same day. The upside is that you already know the quality of the line, whereas the downstairs one may turn out to be better or worse.

In reply to a post by PhotoFiend:

Looking on Google at the distance to the cabinet using the distance checker and comparing on the TB fibre board I was hoping for around 34mbps as we are around 700 yards from the exchange.

It's distance from the cabinet to your property that matters, not the exchange with FTTC, it is possible your cabinet is further than the exchange.

In reply to a post by PhotoFiend:

it also shows that the downstairs phone line should support slightly faster ADSL2+ speeds!

No ,it doesn't! It is a pure figure plucked out the air. That line has no history of BB for the BT db to know anything about it other than its number.

The line to my place was fitted in 1967, still works, gets 70+ meg sync rate.