Is our new Gfast pod affecting our ADSL speed

Hi folks,

We have lived in our current house for over 20 years and have been an early adopter as far as broadband goes through its development.

We are lucky to live just over 100m away from our cabinet (122, Chester Central Exchange) and ever since it became available we have consistently had download speeds of 72-74 Mbps until a few weeks ago on the up to 80 Mbps package that it was originally marketed as.

A few weeks ago our broadband speed dropped consistently to 67 Mbps apart from a short period of a few days when it was back up to 74 again.

About the same time I noticed by chance when walking past our cabinet one day that it had sprouted a Gfast pod. Upon arriving home I dived into the ADSL checker to be pleasantly surprised to find that it was live already and I was able to place an order for the speed upgraded service.

As I only just negotiated a recontact deal back in September at BT's last round of price increases they wouldn't play ball at doing a deal on a sensible price to upgrade as an existing customer compared to the Black Friday discount deals they were offering to new customers, so I told them to forget it until they talk sense.

Back to the reason for my post to the knowledgeable folks out there - Is it the fact that our cabinet has had the Gfast pod upgrade the likely cause that our line has lost 5-6Mbps of speed?

In the short space of time since it was installed I don't expect there have many lines that have been upgraded to the new Gfast service because I expect that the majority of the locals don't even know that it is available, never mind place an order for it. It was only by chance I noticed as I walk past it 2-3 times a week.

I don't expect I will get anywhere if I try to complain about our speed decrease because I guess it is still within the accepted range. Just annoying when it has always been faster in our house from when it was launched.

Thanks in advance.
Jim

No. They are two different technologies that are designed to work separately and not interfere with each other. I assume you're on VDSL not ADSL?

It's very unlikely the g.fast pod is the cause.
They work on separate frequencies to ADSL and VDSL2.

It's most likely crosstalk, interference from other lines also on VDSL2/FTTC.
I know people who have dropped from 80Mb to under 60Mb so it's very likely to get worse over time.

If anything the g.fast pod may help. Those who switch from FTTC to G.Fast will no longer interfere with your service and your speed could increase. This is unlikely though as more will keep signing up to FTTC.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

It's very unlikely the g.fast pod is the cause.
They work on separate frequencies to ADSL and VDSL2.

g.fast does use the same frequencies as ADSL and VDSL - and goes way beyond.

No, OpenReach's implementation of G.Fast starts at 20MHz and ends at 106MHz.
They intend to extend it to 212MHz.

No decision has been made on what to do with 0-20MHz.

They can do as they did with VDSL2 on top of ADSL and reduce power levels and try share the spectrum.
They may just leave it as it is now, they DO NOT overlap.

edit: typo

Edited by j0hn83 (Sat 01-Dec-18 15:49:06)