Why has BT dsl halved esitmated speeds?

My next door neighbour is thinking about upgrading to FTTC, I ran his number through the BT checker it is nearly half my estimate. I then put my number is and mine too has changed.

Here is what it used to say:

FTTC A Range High 48.7 Low 33.8

It now says

FTTC A Range High 26.1 Low 17

Any idea's why the change? For info my current speed is over 30mb

Cab 5 Hatherleigh

In reply to a post by Storm_Force:

Any idea's why the change?

So as not to disappoint? In anticipation of increasing crosstalk, and ever lower syncs, as take-up increases?

P.S. You've let a stray apostrophe fly into the forum. (Latin: apostrophicus superfluosis)
PM Batboy about it. He's an avid collector of, and fount of knowledge on apostrophe's of all kind's.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

PM Batboy about it. He's an avid collector of, and fount of knowledge on apostrophe's of all kind's.

Apostrophes are not my thing.

They've deluiberately reduced the estimates.

When I signed up back in July, I was getting 54Mbps download, its now only 43Mbps. I guess because of more people signing up and crosstalk.

In reply to a post by keith969:

They've deluiberately reduced the estimates.

Why the use of 'deliberately'? What are you trying to imply?

I guess you are right perhaps they are now under estimating the speeds.
For example I get an estimate of 25mb and get 30mb I am happy however if I get an estimate of 40mb and get 25mb then its endless phone calls complaining about not getting the estimated speed!

Edited by Storm_Force (Sat 21-Nov-15 20:30:41)

In reply to a post by Storm_Force:

I guess you are right perhaps they are now under estimating the speeds. For example I get an estimate of 25mb and get 30mb I am happy however if I get an estimate of 40mb and get 25mb then its endless phone calls complaining about not getting the estimated speed!

Our 'estimate' is down by more than half of what it was 18 months ago. BT finally recognises that, for many, its superfast broadband is a pig-in-a-poke. As with any product or service, a reputable (haha!) supplier should never over-state its potential. That's what BT initially did. Only encouraging complaints and disappointment.

BT's under-estimating of possible FTTC speeds is now widespread across the country.

With estimates being so savagely cut, BT must be well aware that FTTC is gonna get a lot worse in the future, as crosstalk really takes bite.

And with no mitigation available - BT has flumped on vectoring-capable kit that might have helped - nothing in the medium-term can solve it.

The only practical remedy if FTTC isn't going to be ditched altogether - and can't see that happening any time soon - is to rip out and replace all the DSLAMs in the street cabinets for vectoring-capable ones. And turn off all the LLU providers' DSLAMs at the exchange too.

FTTC - an annoying case of like it or lump it. BT had the chance to build a superfast fibre network, future-proofed for a generation to come, but instead it blundered and bought cheap, as usual.

Edited by deleted (Sun 22-Nov-15 02:25:36)

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

FTTC - an annoying case of like it or lump it. BT had the chance to build a superfast fibre network, future-proofed for a generation to come, but instead it blundered and bought cheap, as usual.

You're exaggerating. BT's FTTC is doing fine. It's clearly providing most people with at least as much as they want - plenty of people aren't even interested in the top-tier package. As ever BT have just about managed to keep up with what most people want and the forthcoming G.FAST/FTTPoD upgrade should keep that trend going.

The implication is that the original estimates were too optimistic. Now they're more inline with what I actually get (which btw has gone down from 54Mbps in July to 43Mbps now)

Yeah, they did this on my broadband

It was estimated at 6 Mbps when I signed up.

It now states 1-1.5 Mbps!

Personally a blundering BT means much wider investment opportunities for others exist and then the true speed and promise of FTTH can be shown by those willing to roll it out.

Oh wait, they've had almost 20 years to do so and where are we?

Rather than conspiracy theories the reality is that as lines go live they take on board the connection data they get back from the line and feed this into the checker systems.

Or them using the estimate as some sort of cop out, this is what they have been doing ,so by adjusting the estimates in a downward direction = less work for BTOR investigating low sync issues
They are supposed to be use as nothing more than estimates , but this in reality isn't the case certainly by some CP's
My BT wholesale estimate has always been lower for both ADSL and FTTC and i have had FTTC for over 2 yrs always had the full 80/20 apart from brief periods, due to DLM over reacting prior to G.inp being rolled out

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Rather than conspiracy theories the reality is that as lines go live they take on board the connection data they get back from the line and feed this into the checker systems.

Well if that was the case why has mine always been wrong ,? and in their favour?
It maybe it is what their ( BT) official line of response is, But in reality it would appear something very different has been happening in many cases

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 22-Nov-15 20:14:03)

Any evidence that this is the case though? It would mean a lot of big data analysis to collect and feed this data into the checker, and what's the financial incentive for BT to do this?

After a complaint to the ASA, BT commited to providing realistic estimates to customers based on their address https://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2014/5/...

Edited by deleted (Sun 22-Nov-15 13:40:01)

Where I am, there are probably a maximum of 20 lines on te cable from the cabinet. I was an early adopter and there was no forecast at that time - however when I received around 65Mbps, I was happy as it tied in with the line length, maybe a little slow but totally acceptable. Other estimates for properties on that cable were all slightly above mine - I am the last.

When I had an issue, the BT tech actually located a bad connection in an underground chamber that was totally "hidden". That pushed my speed up to around 74Mbps.

Within a few weeks all of the line estimates towards my end of the cable actually then increased.

So, proof that real data is fed back and estimates can go up as well as down.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

PM Batboy about it. He's an avid collector of, and fount of knowledge on apostrophe's of all kind's.

Apostrophes are not my thing.

That's not what I got told. Your ex say's you got specimen jar's full of apostrophe's preserved in formaldehyde.

I suggest you delete that comment before I report it.

In reply to a post by MHC:

When I had an issue, the BT tech actually located a bad connection in an underground chamber that was totally "hidden". That pushed my speed up to around 74Mbps.

Within a few weeks all of the line estimates towards my end of the cable actually then increased.

So, proof that real data is fed back and estimates can go up as well as down.

Similar sort of story...

My previous line was estimated in the region of 50Mbps, but we achieved 80/20. After a couple of months, the estimates had improved considerably, but were still somewhat conservative; the nearest properties' estimates improved in line with these. That change was over 2 years ago, and hasn't changed since.

These properties were a little island connected to one cabinet, via poles out the back, in a sea of properties connected underground to a different cabinet. None of those properties had a change in their estimates at that time.

My experience isn't that there is a widespread, systematic decrease in estimates. Instead, I see targeted changes that reflect reality.

In reply to a post by B31:

Yeah, they did this on my broadband

It was estimated at 6 Mbps when I signed up.

It now states 1-1.5 Mbps!

(in ITN fashion) And how does that make you feel?

BT's estimate for me has always been around the same despite me getting MUCH high speeds. Here's what the BT checker estimates:

High Low High Low
FTTC Range A (Clean) 55.1 35 14 8.3

Here's what I'm actually sync'd at:

Attainable Rate (Kbps) 67874 18116
Rate (Kbps) 67893 18093

BT estimates seem to be way out for my cab (SWTB - Cab3) - most of my neighbours get similar if not higher speeds to me.

Edited by WelshWArrior (Mon 23-Nov-15 08:43:01)

Yes indeed it's a bit of a daft rant, FTTC has been a bit step up for a lot of people, and for a great many it does the job very well.

Despite the fact that our FTTC service was over 12% slower than the initial estimate, it's over ten times faster than our ADSL service was. I've since dropped from an 80/20 to a 40/10 service as I didn't really see the need to pay for something which we only partially got. But it suits the household just fine, in a way the old ADSL service definitely didn't!

Edited by binary (Mon 23-Nov-15 21:50:08)

Agreed, we finally got our FTTC last week and we went from link speeds of 3.5 on a good day to 39. This was after well over a year of waiting to be allowed to order. I see no reason to go any higher, after all at busy times I only get about 15 throughput in any case.

Sadly I will have to start all over again next summer as we will be moving to a place which has no current plan for FTTC, is many miles from the exchange and 3 miles from the cabinet so not likely to get usable FTTC in any case unless they build a closer cabinet. We'll be lucky to get 3mbps then so back to the bad old days. FTTP? I doubt it in my lifetime.