Warning about fibre

In my opinion, every ISP offering fibre broadband should be forced to put something like this prominently in all of their promotional literature:

"Warning: fibre is a non-guaranteed service. That means we can provide you with a connection that works only 50% of the time and there's nothing you can legally do about it."

Right now I'm having a torrid time with my Zen connection, by the looks of it because of BT's network being terribly unreliable. There's nothing that can be done, and Zen can get no extra information on this from BT. As far as I know, things could just stay this bad for the rest of the year.

I know that one isn't paying for a "mission critical" service when one pays for residential broadband, but nevertheless perhaps it's time for OFCOM to mandate some kind of minimum availability and maximum number of disconnections per day that is acceptable for something described as a "broadband" service? At the moment, it seems ridiculous that they can just do what they want and call it a "non-guaranteed service".

Edited by jez9999 (Mon 02-Dec-13 13:04:36)

there's a legal requirement in any contract to provide something that meets the reasonable expectations of the customer given the product description. I doubt 50% downtime would pass that test, if indeed that is what is happening. Most people experience less than 1% if not 0.1%

By the way, your MaxDSL diagnostics site is dead.

In reply to a post by jez9999:

By the way, your MaxDSL diagnostics site is dead.

Works for me.

not from here it isn't Perhaps it's your connection <ducks>

Edited by yarwell (Mon 02-Dec-13 13:35:07)

Weird. There's something about this SeaMonkey profile that causes that page to give me "We are sorry, a system error has occurred. Please try again later." If I start a new profile, it works OK. I tried disabling all the addons in this profile and removing cookies for sites.google.com and googlepages.com, but I still get that error in this profile. Very strange.

TBH it sounds like you're suffering from a dodgy Openreach installation. It wasn't a cowboy contractor install, was it?

I can't imagine it's anything to do with Zen, it's well known they're perfect

Yeah unfortunately it was a contractor install. However, what do you mean by "dodgy"? I've checked the master socket and the wiring is fine. A quiet line test is fine.

By dodgy, I mean it doesn't work reliably. For example, my BT Infinity install was done by a real Openreach employee and it's *perfect*.

This poster has 5 threads on the same subject, three started today.

For god's sake BT should axed all dodgy Openreach installation! Banned them for no certified qualified.

I don't really see the issue here, plenty of us have suffered with dodgy broadband connections for extended periods of time - your problems don't seem to be a special case that warrants a warning to all FTTC users.

strictly speaking the consumer could probably leave under "unfit for purpose" trading standards protection.

But yeah the isp's in their own t&c's wouldnt allow an opt out for that.

The way things are currently with no trials, no monthly contracts etc. is pretty crazy stuff.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

strictly speaking the consumer could probably leave under "unfit for purpose" trading standards protection.

But yeah the isp's in their own t&c's wouldnt allow an opt out for that.

Fitness for purpose is a sale of goods concept, not supply of services.

The concept you're probably thinking of is s. 13 Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, which requires services to be provided with "reasonable care and skill". In practice, the test is the same as that for negligence. Though the law implies this term into all contracts for services, liability (other than for death or personal injury) can be excluded in the terms of the contract if that is reasonable (s. 2 Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, with the test for reasonableness being found in s. 11).


This does not appear to give a particularly strong platform for consumer action in most cases, especially if the terms and conditions explain the limitations of FTTC. However, there is a point where the service provided by the ISP fails to live up to the duty of care owed to the consumer, and the consumer is therefore entitled to terminate the contract under s. 13 SGSA 1982.

Aw come on Max, can we at least have a coherent non-sensical post ???????

maybe but I have successfully got out of services under "the unfit for purpose" including a broadband isp.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

maybe but I have successfully got out of services under "the unfit for purpose" including a broadband isp.

I'm sure most companies would exercise their discretion not to hold to contract any customer showing a demonstrable and irredeemable failure in the service they received. I flagged up the legal position for those occasions where it is necessary to resort to a rights-based approach.

I think ofcom should bring in all broadband isp's should have including 28 days cooling off period. If unhappy under 28 days can leave without being held in a long term contract for unfit purpose.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I think ofcom should bring in all broadband isp's should have including 28 days cooling off period. If unhappy under 28 days can leave without being held in a long term contract for unfit purpose.

I proposed this to ofcom months ago, sadly I dont think they have plans to impose it tho although monthly wholesale contracts are on the way, just taking their sweet time to arrive. ~When the wholesale contracts change tho its still upto the retail isp's what durations they set although I expect zen, aaisp and other smaller isps will drop to a month as a selling point. Any other caveats? I think mrsaffron may be right when he said the monthly contracts exclude first time installs, so it might be for migrators only.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 04-Dec-13 01:30:37)

The majorty of the people people I know that have had FTTC, which is very few to be honest, have not had any problems with connectivity, but I don't any of them are getting the speed they thought they should get.

FTTC is not all it's cracked up to be considering how much extra some people pay compared to ADSL.

Ok if you got a 1-2 Megabit ADSL connection and FTTC giver you 20Mb/s or more, then it may be worth the extra. i still know many people who have no interest in going for FTTC, even some that got pretty slow ADSL speeds.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

but I don't any of them are getting the speed they thought they should get.

I know you don't know me, but I have always achieved well above my estimated speed.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

FTTC is not all it's cracked up to be considering how much extra some people pay compared to ADSL.

Ok if you got a 1-2 Megabit ADSL connection and FTTC giver you 20Mb/s or more, then it may be worth the extra.

Couldn't disagree more, going from 3Mbps (on a good day) to nearly 70Mbps (and 20Mbps upload) for an extra fiver or so a month was well worth it for me, it has transformed the way we user the Internet.

I must be one of the lucky ones
70/20 without a single outage in 18 months.
Speed has reduced slightly during that time probably due to crosstalk.

I see these type of posts both here and on the BT forum whereby an isolated incident is enough for the customer to expect the whole world to change.
I don't know how many customers are signed up to FTTC but 18 months ago it was 500,000.
I believe an inherent technical issue would result in many more posts.

Used to get 10Mb down, 1Mb up on ADSL2+.

Now get 50Mb down and 16Mb up on FTTC (both in excess of the original estimate).

I'm happy - the extra upstream is especially useful for uploading photos to Flickr.

When I changed to FTTC it cost me about £2 more, but with referral fees I'm now paying less.

A lot of people simply don't use the Internet to its full potential, so never need the speed.

My FTTC expecting go live in February 2014 hopefully. I will sign up to have Plusnet FTTC as it was estimated 74/20 (low is 68/19) as my ADSL2+ only do 15-16Meg. Will cost me an extra £10 for FTTC.

Edited by adslmax (Wed 04-Dec-13 12:54:40)

Now over two million and climbing rapidly

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Now over two million and climbing rapidly

BT would get a nice profit money now!

Well as they claim to have spent £2.5 billion to allow those two million to actually order, then I think it will be a while before they are making a profit.

In reply to a post by kasg:

I know you don't know me, but I have always achieved well above my estimated speed.

I am so glad. I think my brother is getting good speeds, so he said, but then he would have got good speeds without FTTC

Couldn't disagree more, going from 3Mbps (on a good day) to nearly 70Mbps (and 20Mbps upload) for an extra fiver or so a month was well worth it for me, it has transformed the way we user the Internet.

i am sure for some people it will, certainly if you got a family that uses multiple devices.

In reply to a post by smouty:

I must be one of the lucky ones
70/20 without a single outage in 18 months.
Speed has reduced slightly during that time probably due to crosstalk.

I never said about outages, as far as I know none of them have had outages, but they don't seem to have the speed they was told they could get.

Someone who can walk out of their gate and see the cabinet is getting 35Mb/s from plusnet, something is wrong there. BTOR have had a look and say it is fine and the connection is 60+, so if that is the case it must be Plusnet with their traffic shaping again.

Next door neighbour 20Mb/s if they are lucky, with BT should be getting at least 30.

I see these type of posts both here and on the BT forum whereby an isolated incident is enough for the customer to expect the whole world to change.
I don't know how many customers are signed up to FTTC but 18 months ago it was 500,000.
I believe an inherent technical issue would result in many more posts.

I just don't think FTTC is as great as it is made out to be and as more people uses it we will have more problems with crosstalk.
I did think about FTTC before I went for the service I have got, but after thinking about it, I decided to go for something different.
One reason was because BT was dragging their heals with FTTC here, changing the dates all the time, not knowing what the hell they was doing. they did get it up and running about a month after I changed to my current ISP.

Another reason was because I had enough of the large ISPs before, which is why I went back to ADSL24 for ADSL.

I am glad i made the choice I did and looking at what is happening with large rISPs and being told to use filters where your surfing is going to god knows where to be scanned, certainly with Talk talk and their Chinese partners.

Sure it is not for everyone, but i now get a decent 10Mb/s, instead of the 3-4 i had with ADSL and know phone line is ideal, as long as this wind don't blow any of the repeaters over

i am not saying I will never got for FTTC, but at the moment it is not for me.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

When I changed to FTTC it cost me about £2 more, but with referral fees I'm now paying less.

A lot of people simply don't use the Internet to its full potential, so never need the speed.

I agree, like my next door neighbour who got FTTc and yet uses their computer once in the blue moon and got no other device connected to the connection. I still know of two households on dial up. one because they don't see the need to change and the other because ADSL where they are is worse than dial up. the one lot is changing next year to the same service I am with once they get it up and running in that area.

One of my brothers is now changing from the post office to EE ADSL, not FTTC, as the speed he gets with ADSL is fine for what he does. A mate of mine is also on ADSL with a small ISP on the cable and wireless network, he is a big games player and did think about FTTC, but he have got a good connection with 16Mb/s and he don't want to upset the apple cart.

I use my connection for netflix, it is my only form of video entertainments as I don't watch TV, so i am using my internet to it's full potential, but i still don't see the need to have speeds of 20Mb/s.
I expect there are lots of people who don't see the need for faster speeds if they get a pretty decent speed anyway, not everyone wants to watch video or do about ten things on the net at the same time.

My contract ends next year, but I am not ready to change unless the company gores belly up or if I move.

Then throw in the cost of the adverts re football, and the cost of buying the 'rights' for the football (that I am not the slightest bit interested in anyway). Then the letters I get once a week from BT with a 'special customer card' offering me cheap deals to sign-up to BT...

I am on FTTC now, but not with BT... so maybe they are losing money?

Nick

Someone who can walk out of their gate and see the cabinet is getting 35Mb/s from plusnet, something is wrong there. BTOR have had a look and say it is fine and the connection is 60+, so if that is the case it must be Plusnet with their traffic shaping again.

Have they checked with Plusnet as it could be that they have been accidentally ordered on the 40/2 or 40/10 service?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Someone who can walk out of their gate and see the cabinet is getting 35Mb/s from plusnet, something is wrong there. BTOR have had a look and say it is fine and the connection is 60+, so if that is the case it must be Plusnet with their traffic shaping again.

Nonsense, Plusnet does not do any such "traffic shaping" - as ian72 says, they should check it with Plusnet, they will sort it out, probably on the wrong product or the wrong Plusnet profile.

Edited by kasg (Fri 06-Dec-13 09:34:12)

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a wifi issue

I was previously on 2.5Mb/s unlimited I'm now on 74Mbit/s unlimited(59Mbit estimated by checker), it's costing about £3 extra per month. I'm not just getting extra speed I'm getting most of my connection to the exchange routed over fibre rather than copper. The less copper in my connection the better.

My usage has also changed a lot, I used to average 100GB/month I now average 200-300GB/month(not due to P2P or newsgroups but legal video streaming/downloads). The advantages for such a minimal increase in cost make FTTC a no brainer for me and many other people.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Someone who can walk out of their gate and see the cabinet is getting 35Mb/s from plusnet, something is wrong there. BTOR have had a look and say it is fine and the connection is 60+, so if that is the case it must be Plusnet with their traffic shaping again.

Have they checked with Plusnet as it could be that they have been accidentally ordered on the 40/2 or 40/10 service?

Nope, because when he first had the service, it was fine, then it went downhill after a couple of weeks. Plusnet said he is on the right service, he ordered just before it went unlimited.

In reply to a post by kasg:

Nonsense, Plusnet does not do any such "traffic shaping" - as ian72 says, they should check it with Plusnet, they will sort it out, probably on the wrong product or the wrong Plusnet profile.

If plusnet don't traffic shape, then there is something very wrong with their service. plusnet and traffic management goes together, because they used to love doing that which is why when they took over Metronet i left right away.

Plusnet sort it out? well they have not yet, in fact my mate have given up and decided to leav it as it is as he still gets a faster service and cheaper than when he was with Mad as a fish.

In reply to a post by smouty:

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a wifi issue

Then be surprised as it is not a wi-fi issue. I went directly to the router by ethernet and even directly to the modem, by passing that excuse of a router that Plusnet gives out. no difference.

In reply to a post by Spud2003:

I was previously on 2.5Mb/s unlimited I'm now on 74Mbit/s unlimited(59Mbit estimated by checker), it's costing about £3 extra per month. I'm not just getting extra speed I'm getting most of my connection to the exchange routed over fibre rather than copper. The less copper in my connection the better.

My usage has also changed a lot, I used to average 100GB/month I now average 200-300GB/month(not due to P2P or newsgroups but legal video streaming/downloads). The advantages for such a minimal increase in cost make FTTC a no brainer for me and many other people.

My usage have changed a bit over the last couple of years, only because I don't watch TV and most of my video viewing comes via Netflix. the reason why I updated to 10Mb/s from 5 is because of HD on Netflix, but I could go back to 5 if need be.

Even if I went for FTTC, i don't think it will change the way I am using the net at the moment. I know that if I went for FTTc I could get it a bit cheaper than what I am paying now including line rental as I don't have line rental as i am at the moment, but it means I would have to go with one of the larger ISPs with all the restrictions and filters and blocking and what other stuff they think I should or should not be doing.
so i will be staying as I am.

My brother on the other hand might find FTTC useful, but it would not be easy to persuade him to pay extra for it.


the one thing that is annoying me is people who think I need the high speed, which I don't, i am happy witht he service i have got even if it is not super fast, but considering what I had before it is like a jet fighter, well almost.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If plusnet don't traffic shape, then there is something very wrong with their service. plusnet and traffic management goes together, because they used to love doing that which is why when they took over Metronet i left right away.

That was a long time ago. It is simply not true now.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Plusnet sort it out? well they have not yet, in fact my mate have given up and decided to leav it as it is as he still gets a faster service and cheaper than when he was with Mad as a fish.

That's a shame. They are usually very helpful with this sort of problem, especially on here or in the community forum.

I agree that paying for speed, to some extent, has diminishing returns. When fibre on demand comes to my exchange I will probably get a quote but that's not because I want 330Mb/s (I'm happy with 80/20). I previously had a unpleasant time(at another address) with a dodgy ADSL line and now want to avoid copper broadband connections as far as possible.

"as long as this wind don't blow any of the repeaters over"

And what repeaters are these zyborg47 ?

He's using wireless broadband.

In reply to a post by kasg:

That was a long time ago. It is simply not true now.

i was told Bt did not traffic manage either, but they certainly did with me, or they just could not cope. after being lied to to by both Bt and Plusnet in pre-Bt days, why should I believe them now?

That's a shame. They are usually very helpful with this sort of problem, especially on here or in the community forum.

All they said was that they would send a BTOR engineer around again, my mate was not having that as they found nothing wrong the first time and the next time they may end up charging him.

Up to him now, I done my bit.

In reply to a post by Spud2003:

I agree that paying for speed, to some extent, has diminishing returns. When fibre on demand comes to my exchange I will probably get a quote but that's not because I want 330Mb/s (I'm happy with 80/20). I previously had a unpleasant time(at another address) with a dodgy ADSL line and now want to avoid copper broadband connections as far as possible.

i am paying a bit extra for speed in that if I went down to a lower speed i would be paying less. but my thought is that i am still paying less for my broadband than I was for broadband at a lower speed and my phone line which I never used.

In reply to a post by btbert:

"as long as this wind don't blow any of the repeaters over"

And what repeaters are these zyborg47 ?

As Spud2003 said, i am using wireless broadband or to give it the full name. point to point wireless broadband, It was set up by a local company more so for people out int he sticks that could not get broadband or if they could it was naff.
I doubt there is many in the city itself that uses it, saying that on my travels down different estates I have seen the module on the roof of a couple of places.

Thanks Adrian .

In reply to a post by btbert:

Thanks Adrian .

No problem.

I keep getting asked why I choose to go wireless when I can go FTTC. at the time FTTC was not available and Bt kept moving the date. My ADSL was ok, but not great due to the distance I am fromt he exchange, All pay just gave me another option. I will stay with them now I think, FTTC don't offer me anything that I can't do with the service I am with. in fact it offers me less with all the filtering and censoring that the government wants the larger ISPs to do.