New line vs Existing line expected speeds?

Hi all,

I recently moved from Plusnet to Virgin in November. However, I have since cancelled Virgin due to area congestion and am moving to Plusnet again this March. Due to incompetent Virgin installers removing my BT master socket, I now need a new line from Plusnet put in.

My question is: would this new line be capable of achieving similar speeds as my existing line which had 76mbps sync on the day I left for Virgin? Looking on the "codelook" website, it says that my cabinet is 100% full.

Would a repair of the existing line be better for getting speeds than a brand new line?

Thanks!

What does http://www.dslchecker.bt.com show for your property? You'll need to use the address checker if you don't have an active line. As far as I know, codelook doesn't report capacity. Perhaps you're confusing the "100%" with what codelook displays as the percentage of that postcode served by the specified cabinet number.

It's unlikely that "new" line would be much different to a previously ceased one in terms of performance as you'll likely be on the same pair to the cabinet. Unelss it's a very busy area, it's unlikely the D-side would have been swapped.

U need to enter your address on here: https://www.dslchecker.bt.com and it will tell you if your FTTC is on the waiting list (mean the cabinet is full)

BT Checker

I'm guessing that there is room on the cabinet for a new line then? Reason why I ask whether a "new" line is going to have different performance than my existing one is that when enquiring Sky with regards to FTTC, they said that a new line would result in different (slower) predicted speeds than if they used my existing one.

Anything I should watch out for when the engineer arrives? I'm guessing they will push for a repair of the existing line but I would like to have a "new" line as my logic is that this will be free from any problems in wiring - resulting in slightly higher sync/stability.

Yep there's no capacity issues by the looks of it.

What was the issue with your previous line?

There's unlikely to be any "new" cables in the bundle, unless you live in a new estate.

You're also unlikely to have an engineer visit if there's only exchange work required.

Issue was that my BT master socket was removed by Virgin and the drop wire severed. Also there are fraying cables from the drop wire running down from the top to the bottom of my house.

Ideally, I'd like them to run a new cable from the pole outside to the top floor of my house where I would like my new master socket to be fitted. The previous master socket was located on the ground floor.

Would it be realistic to expect the engineer to carry this work out as part of a new line install?

Thanks

I think it unlikely there has been any damage to the cable from the pole to your eaves. There is a junction box there. Has the cable down the house been detached from that or cut near to it?

What I would be doing would be sweet-talking the Openreach engineer to re-route from that junction box to my preferred location. I did succeed in this several years ago, when I had a line fault, but Openreach management were more helpful in those days.

The engineer was able to do this without asking for authority as it actually made the job simpler due to having to rewire from the junction box anyway and re-establish three extensions. (Which would have been necessary in order to reach the master - a messy previous setup).

I think all the engineer would be is test the line from the cabinet or pole to the BT80 (small white box) before it would of reached the master socket.

And that being well they will install a new NTE5A or newer Master Socket.

If the drop wire is split, they may have to replace either the entire cable from the enclosure in the chamber to your home, or they will just install a small black tube shaped enclosure just below the gutter on your home and join a new cable down the wall, we had the second one done to us a while back.

But if its that bad and the engineer can see it, just try and bribe them with a cup of Tea and some Jammy Dodgers, they might replace the whole cable if its needed, but at the end of the day it all depends of the engineer that you get.

Paul

There is no way the engineer will go further back than the pole unless a fault shows up at the pole.

Similarly the wire from the house to the pole. That will be used if OK at the house eaves. The chances of the VM engineer having touched that other than possibly to disconnect the wire down the house is remote.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

There is no way the engineer will go further back than the pole unless a fault shows up at the pole.

I was more referring to where the OP was no longer using it BT might of disconnected it at the chamber and re-used it for another home due to the lack of working free pairs.

Like the copper wires my old copper cables goes down has no free good pairs left due to it being an old cable.

And the same would probably happen to me due to our phone line is over FVA, so if a home on my phone pole wanted another copper line I am almost sure they wil use my old copper line in the chamber rather than pulling through another thick wad of copper cables.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Tue 21-Feb-17 00:42:54)