FTTP choices

Not wanting to count chickens before they're hatched and all that, but we should be having FTTP available to order within the next couple of months according to Superfast Cymru's availability checker.

Currently with BT and for sake of convenience would like to stay especially if Infinity 3 or 4 offered.

That said, I was very happy with Zen and it was only the £20 odd a month greater expense for their ADSL product compared to BT that made me eventually leave.

So, all things considered, if you had FTTP available who would you sign up with (any ISP, not just BT or Zen) and at what speed and cost?

p.s. should also add, current downloads about 5Gb/day but likely to increase significantly due to streaming etc.

Edited by deleted (Wed 26-Oct-16 10:13:35)

So, all things considered, if you had FTTP available who would you sign up with (any ISP, not just BT or Zen) and at what speed and cost?

You are going to find that your choices are limited at present. This being due to the Service Providers choosing not to use this method of delivery at present.

Both your named choices CAN provide service if you wish.

Zen only seem to offer 330/30 on their business packages, and it doesn't come cheap. They do provide home FTTP packages, but only at 40/10 and 80/20 speeds.

BT should be able to offer you their Infinity 4 service.

AAISP also offer FTTP and would be a solid choice, not sure whether you can get their Home::1 Terabyte package on FTTP though, or whether you'd have to go down the route of unit pricing.

Plusnet also offer an FTTP trial, but I think you might need to migrate your ADSL line first as you'd need to be an existing customer to sign on.

Well due to we (as in 5 adults) use the internet a lot here so we went with the 300 down and 20 up, so we was already limited to one of the following home providers:
1: Andrews & Arnold Ltd
2: Zen
3: BT

Not used A&A before so I didn't want to take the risk.

We have been with Zen before and they was very good and had no issues with them, sadly their prices wasn't cheap and wasn't really in our monthly price range.

And then there was BT, their prices was at a reasonable price for the package, only issue was most of their technical support can sometimes really suck. But an email to the right people in BT can and does help.

So we went with BT just because of the price, I would of gone with Zen if the prices was lower or if they had 300 / 20 on they had it as a home package.

And £53 vs £112 pm is no brainer, but that's just me.

Paul

Not to mention on 80/20 the 1TB limit can be tight - on 300 it could be very very tight

In reply to a post by Toonshorty:

Plusnet also offer an FTTP trial, but I think you might need to migrate your ADSL line first as you'd need to be an existing customer to sign on.

Indeed - an existing FTTC customer I should add. And the speeds offered are also same as FTTC tiers

The FTTP trial is available to any existing Plusnet customers who subscribes to a fibre product. Participating in the trial will not affect the terms of your current contract with Plusnet, which will continue to apply throughout the trial (except to the extent that the terms are amended by the FTTP Trial Terms and Conditions for the duration of the trial).

The following products and options are available for the FTTP trial:

Plusnet Unlimited Fibre up to 38Mbps - £14.99 per month

Setup charge - free
Speed - up to 38Mbps down, up to 1.9Mbps up
Contract - no change to your existing contract period
Usage - Unlimited
Router - free 3 port wireless

This product is the same as our FTTC Unlimited Fibre product only with FTTP.

Plusnet Unlimited Fibre Extra up to 76Mbps - £19.99 per month

Setup charge - free
Speed - up to 76Mbps down, up to 19.5Mbps up
Contract - no change to your existing contract period
Usage - Unlimited
Router - free 3 port wireless

This product is the same as our FTTC Unlimited Fibre product only with FTTP.

FTTP package with a 1.9 Mbps up speed is a wonder.
P.S. I wonder if this forum has a tag for collapsible quotes?

Edited by deleted (Wed 26-Oct-16 20:59:46)

An amusing bit of wording there. But to get it changed would probably require 18 months of debate in 19 committees before they would agree it was wrong.

Then they have to decide on the new wording.

Then they have to put it to the bottom of the queue for website updates.

The FTTP trial is available to any existing Plusnet customers who subscribes to a fibre product.

Quite apart from the incorrect grammar, (... customers ... subscribes ...), no customer who already subscribes to a fibre product, which means FTTC, can possibly move to FTTP - trial or no trial.

FTTPoD is often available to them, with a minimum installation cost to Plusnet of £1100 + Vat and annual rental of £1188 + Vat. I have my doubts about that being what they are offering. Particularly as that only applies up to 199 metres from the aggregation point. Each "up to" 200 metres further step is another £700 up to 999 metres, at which point things get even sillier.

I assume they mean that any ADSLx customer signing up to a fibre product will either go on FTTC or the FTTP trial depending on what Openreach provide in their "cabinet" area.

FTTP should be more reliable and it does not suffer from the distance and cross talk issues that plague DSL technologies.

The speed you get will depend on what you have paid for and any contention issues on the back haul. I do have FTTP but in my case the speed was several hundred times faster than the alternative of ADSL for not very much more money so it was a very easy choice to make.

Cough

There are small number 300-1000 lines in Surrey, North Yorkshire where low speed FTTC (sub 10 Mbps usually - but oddly one postcode with full rate VDSL2) is available as well as FTTP. The majority of FTTP infill though goes to postcodes where even if on an enabled VDSL2 cabinet there is no speed estimate due to the distance.

As ever the PlusNet wording could be clearer and when I managed someone's account for them the portal always had me scratching around to find what I wanted.

D'oh!

Yes, I'd forgotten about there being a few cases where both are available. And it never occurred to me about the infill ones - despite seeing them reported here quite frequently.

Time to stand in a corner with the pointy hat on .