Fast fibre internet next door but not my house?

Hi all,

Some of you may recall my past issues on here. I moved from Talktalk fibre to BT infinity. BT managed to mess up my order and I was without internet and phone for around 2 months. I got lots of different answers as to why and the whole thing was a lot of stress.

I managed to get BT infinity in the end. My speed is normally 21-22mb/s although today it's 24mb/s. The line is perfect. Nice and reliable and much better than Talktalk.

However....

Several months on and I'm moving house. Weirdly I'm buying the house next door to mine. The house I'm buying is physically connected to my current house and the phone lines go to the same pole.

I called BT to arrange the move and there's a problem. Their system won't allow me to book BT Infinity at my new address. It says the most the line will support is 14-15mb/s at the top end and is only available as 'faster internet'.

The BT staff checked my current address. That's also showing as not having infinity available and the same speeds as next door shows but right now I'm on infinity and I'm connected at 24mb/s.

If I leave my router here and connect next door (the signal reaches but this house will have a new owner soon) I can use the internet at 24mb/s. If I have the line here stopped and move next door I'll only get 14mb/s maximum.

The BT staff said they'd never seen this before. Their manager was also stumped. They've put in a request with openreach to look in to this and said this will take a week or so.

The staff suggested openreach may be able to fix it. He said they may also be able to simply swap the line from this house to next door but he wasn't sure on that 100%. He also warned that it may be the case they have to move me to faster internet and put me on only 14mb/s.

I'm not sure what's going on. The houses are connected. I live on a very small culdesac with 10 houses. All appear to connect to the same telephone pole so I'd expect the same connectivity if all had the same decent line quality.

Anyone ever come across this before?

Several things, first thing is to check what the wholesale checkers say

https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s...

Take the address checker option and then enter your postcode, you will get a drop down list of houses and pick your current one and check what it says, then the new home and check what it says. (One real option is BT Infinity is often speed qualified and you cannot order it on slower lines, another may be that there is a waiting list mentioned, which means cabinet is waiting for some upgrade work)

It may be best to screen shot and share with us what it says exactly for the new address, masking out the actual address in the image.

Are they saying "Faster Internet" or "Faster Broadband"? Certainly "faster Broadband" is the BT name for FTTC where the forecast speed is 2-15Mbps. If you get greater than 15Mbps then they do not cap it.

Even on the 'faster broadband' which is a faux product they don't actually cap the speed, its sold as a way of managing average speeds on Infinity 1 and managing consumer expectation

Here are the results from the check.

It's address based because my new house has a disconnected line and no phone number now.

https://ibb.co/nj4BDv

It also says this is a Market B exchange.

Thanks

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Apr-17 13:00:13)

In reply to a post by MHC:

Are they saying "Faster Internet" or "Faster Broadband"? Certainly "faster Broadband" is the BT name for FTTC where the forecast speed is 2-15Mbps. If you get greater than 15Mbps then they do not cap it.

Yeah he suggested the product showing available to me was the non-Infinity fibre product.

That's fine, except the product I'm on now is Infinity and has never dropped below 21Mb/s. So I don't understand why moving to the house next door is going to lose a product from the availability list.

He also said my current address shows that infinity is not available to me. He was certainly surprised at the speeds I'm currently getting and suggested the only way this was possible is if the engineers 'pushed or forced' infinity on to my line because I complained. Not sure if that's possible, but that's what he suggested?

The service this time on the phone was good, but I'm not overly confident with BT's products. They're great when they get up and running but actually getting them up and running is a nightmare!

I've moved twice. First move left me without internet for months. The second move was a poduct move rather than a home move. Again no product for two months. Now I'm moving again, I'm stressing already they'll cut us off for months or leave us without what we're currently getting next door to where we're buying. It surely shouldn't be this complicated?

They cannot push or force the service onto your line. You get connected for VDSL2 (FTTC) and the speeds are dictated by what the line can support. The BT Techs can do a little tweaking to improve the physical line but that is all.

You then sign up for Infinity 1/2 and BT will apply a cap to the speeds - 40 and 80 Mbps, however with the Faster Broadband product no cap is applied.

You are just "lucky" and there is a possibility the neighbouring house will have a similar line but not guaranteed.. Do the neighbours have any service at present?

What does it say for your address? And also for phone number?

That suggests that next door can get Infinity1 based on the top line 20Mbps.

The house is empty and the line is present but disconnected.

In reply to a post by MHC:

What does it say for your address? And also for phone number?

That suggests that next door can get Infinity1 based on the top line 20Mbps.

Same results as next door. But on the phone the guy sorting my move said I'll only get 14mb/s.

Ah, I wonder if he's quoting the downstream handback threshold speed shown on the checker...

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Apr-17 13:39:30)

Either hedging or is reading the ADSL figures.

Can you get your address and number screen shots?

Looks like they are not willing to sell you Infinity but want to sell 'faster broadband' which is the same service but with a different name.

Other providers don't play this confusing get (yet).

This faster product will in reality be no slower, but you may be limited in terms of offers when signing up.

The advertising rules on broadband speeds are in focus, and thus by forcing you to a non-infinity product BT is doing exactly what campaigners unwittingly wanting, i.e. better speeds for advertised products, solution don't sell the advertised product to the slowest quartile of lines.

If the online order system lets you place an order for Infinity 1 (and it may) you may be better off doing that rather than talking over the phone.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Either hedging or is reading the ADSL figures.

Can you get your address and number screen shots?

weirdly my number says it's not available and may be because it's not a BT line or less than 24 hours old. I've been on BT for months now.

And for YOUR address?

I've had an update from BT today.

My line is still not showing as capable of getting Infinity. A little weird still as I have it here right now and I get between 21-25Mb/s at present, but never mind.

The staff were very helpful again today and weirdly turned out to be a user from this forum.

I've signed up to the non-infinity fibre product. 14-15Mb/s expected but as many have said it could be faster. I'm hoping it's as fast as I currently get here now.

I'm thinking about changing the faceplate and taking my nice modern one from here (less than a year old) to the new house where the wiring doesn't look as good.

I hope the wiring next door is up to standard and doesn't affect my connection but we shall see.

I've moved in. I've left my broadband for a few days to settle.

Next door in my old house I was getting 21-25mb/s. Here I'm getting 16.7mb/s.

We've literally moved next door. The two houses are connected on one side to each other and the lines both go to the same pole.

I had the wiring in my new house all freshly installed and a new master socket has been put on too. But it's not going over 16.7 ever.

So why is this happening?

Post up some router stats.

Can you also post the estimated speeds from the BT Wholesale availability checker.

Here are screenshots of my old and new house.

The old house is the faster connection. Same router. Same exchange. Houses literally next door to each other and are semi detached properties.

https://ibb.co/d9j7Y5
https://ibb.co/hbJqmQ

Attenuation is the key and is not on the screen shots

How do I get that?

In reply to a post by pebbleheed:

So why is this happening?

The biggest impediment to VDSL2 is crosstalk - interference from other subscribers.

Crosstalk noise gets introduced onto your line from the lines surrounding it on the cable back to the cabinet ... essentially making it random. You never know how much crosstalk you will get, and when it might change.

If both lines are currently running, you might even be interfering with yourself!

So, while your line might have a fault, and you should continue investigating, you should also be aware that differences are to be expected.

you might even be interfering with yourself!

This made me chuckle.

with the way things are, you may aswell be on adsl, it says you can get upto 14, granted its not guaranteed but surely its a cheaper option.

In the Hub 6 web based interface click 'advanced settings' then 'technical log' and then you should be able to provide the detail MrS asks for, thus ....

Product name:
BT Hub 6A
Serial number:
+084316+NQ64206356
Firmware version:
SG4B10002244
Firmware updated:
30-Mar-2017
Board version:
1.0
Gui version:
1.32.0
DSL uptime:
7 Days, 23 Hours 52 Minutes 39 Seconds
Data rate:
20.00 kbps / 80.00 kbps
Maximum data rate:
35381 / 103444
Noise margin:
15.3 / 12.8
Line attenuation:
9.8
Signal attenuation:
VPI / VCI:
0/38
Modulation:
G_993_2_ANNEX_B
Latency type:
Fast Path

Look at those stats, is your cabinet in your airing cupboard?

Not unless his airing cupboard is 80 metres away from his house
Must have been installed by a competent engineer

In reply to a post by arronlowley:

with the way things are, you may aswell be on adsl, it says you can get upto 14, granted its not guaranteed but surely its a cheaper option.

The fibre product here is a lot more reliable than ADSL. I had that for a while at the old house next door. It constantly dropped and had issues. Fibre fixed it all.

I think I'm still in my settle in period.

I've checked the speed yesterday and today and I'm getting 20.1mb/s down now.

It did this in the house next door in the past. Started at a lower speed and eventually ended up around 21-25. I'm happy with 20.1 but it if goes quicker still that's even better.

The new wiring looks good and neat and the new master socket seems to be a much newer version than I used to have too. So I suspect the installer did a good job. Hopefully the speed will stay as it is now, or rise.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Look at those stats, is your cabinet in your airing cupboard?

Init, I have heard of bringing your work home, but bringing the cabinet is a new one

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

I have heard of bringing your work home, but bringing the cabinet is a new one

Not new at all .

It's been going on at 10 Downing Street for a very long time.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

I have heard of bringing your work home, but bringing the cabinet is a new one

Not new at all .

It's been going on at 10 Downing Street for a very long time.

LOL

Paul