Fibre Speeds - do they change between providers?

We currently have BT Fibre (upto 52Mb package) and luckily we get pretty much full speed. For a while we were on the wrong service and being given upto 79Mbps package.

I am considering switching to Vodafone who according to the speed checker give the same speed range and the one via Samknows for BT. It also offers a minimum of 39.81Mbps out of is estimated 44Mpbs to 60Mbps. That would be a significant reduction in speed. Hopefully they are just being cautious.

My question is have people switched between Fibre suppliers and seen any significant change in speeds? Thanks!

Not really, no. Some providers like Plusnet have their own profiling system which robs you of a couple of percentage points of throughput but that's all. Others may run with a slightly different DLM.

But the simple answer is no. If you already have FTTC then you know how fast your connection can be. There's no point changing to try and get something faster and no reason to expect anything slower for the equivalent package.

The slightly more complicated answer is that you might notice a difference at certain times of day. In the same way that roads have 'rush hour' so do networks. Different providers deal with this differently. Some providers run their networks such that at peak time some people will see a speed reduction (Virgin Media is infamous for this). Others might throttle certain types of usage. The best (usually but not always the most expensive) ISPs will simply ensure that they have enough capacity at all times. The expense comes from the fact that if you have enough capacity to handle peak usage then by definition most of the time you have more capacity than you need.

Thanks! I am not looking to change to get faster, I just don't want to get noticeably less. Main reason for change is just completely fed up of being lied to by their customer services team. I am STILL waiting for the supervisor to ring me back from weeks ago as I couldn't talk to him then.

I am not sure Vodafone is going to be any better on that front but I don't want to reward BT by renewing after lying to me so many times.

However if we were to loose out on speed it could be a case of cutting our nose of to spite our face.

Two things to watch out for when looking around.

What Andrue says about the Openreach 80/20 product is correct. (Advertised generally as Up to 78Mbps or up to 76Mbps). But on the lower packages it is a bit more complex.

I think only two ISPs currently provide the 55/10 product you are on. BT is one but I forget the other. The others are either 40/10 or 40/2. I believe most are 40/10.

Plusnet and TalkTalk retail are 40/2. Maybe some others also are. Vodafone I haven't found the upstream, it seems to be well hidden, but the downstream appears to be 40. As you are by the sound of it getting well over 40Mbps on the BT 55/10, you would get a drop to 40Mbps unless you went for Vodafone's Fibre 76.

The upstream may not matter to you of course, but to some it does. A few have been caught out by the Plusnet one as it used to be 40/10. Even 40/20 for a while.

Thanks for that. I was looking at the Vodafone 76 service as we didn't want that drop

Upstream for Vodafone is apparently upto 16Mpbs when checking the availability / speeds. As long as that is 10+ though higher the better.

The Vodafone upload speeds are up to 19 Mbps and up to 9.5 Mbps, on the up to 76 and up to 38 Mbps services respectively.

Recent speed test:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14843...

Having now switched, I can confirm the speeds are inline with our experience of this Fibre speeds with BT, and not the very silly low speeds the Vodafone online checker quoted me. So happy bunny.

Thanks for updating us.

Keep an eye on your connection, some VF users have had a lot of problems with disconnections, believed to be down to the HHG2500 router, and as VF point blank refuse to give out user names & passwords you can't use your own router.