Fibre Speed.

I am on a capped FTTC package and get 35 Mbps which works fine for the three of us (Gaming, Youtube, surfing etc) having just read the latest FTTP thread and seeing the speed test results i was wondering what everyone uses all this speed for, this is not trolling i am genuinely interested.

At what point did you decided the package you were on was not fit for purpose and what do you use all the extra speed for?

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65 views and not a single answer

Well Netflix recommend 25 Mbps or higher for their 4K content, which looks stunning if viewed on a good screen. If 3-4 people are watching Netflix 4K simultaneously then the higher speeds come in handy. Other things like 4K online gaming and downloading Xbox games close to 100gb per game also eat bandwidth like there's no tomorrow. Having said all that, 35 Mbps is still a highly respectable speed if you're not into heavy bandwidth usage and/or can schedule your large downloads overnight.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Jan-19 16:55:04)

I sometimes work from home and connect to work over VPN. It is noticeably slower than when I'm in the office, affecting productivity.

I realise both ends would need FTTP in order to make a difference to this...

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Well Netflix recommend 25 Mbps or higher for their 4K content, which looks stunning if viewed on a good screen.

Thanks i never thought about 4K TV, 25 Mbps plus wouldn't leave us much spare on our connection.

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For me personally I require ultrafast internet to download the 4K movies/content on my sky q box quickly. Also for downloading playstation games.

With lower speed the internet is still usable, however it takes twice as long to download large games/files.

Edited by max360 (Tue 29-Jan-19 17:02:34)

Thanks tinklerj.

In reply to a post by max360:

For me personally I require ultrafast internet to download the 4K movies/content on my sky q box quickly. Also for downloading playstation games.

So is it 4K TV that is mainly driving people to ultra fast BB?

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For some I think it is they can so they do - there isn't always a driving reason beyond availability. I have similar speeds to you at the moment and generally don't have issues but when someone else is doing a large game download it can impact the quality of streaming and so more bandwidth wouldn't hurt - but it also wouldn't be a major game changer.

Or it could be your VPN slowing things down ?

I�m soon to move in to a new build house that has FTTP, and I�m trying to decide what speed to go for. It�s just me but watch lots of 4K stuff and play the odd game that�ll need downloaded.

Probably going to opt for the Ultrafast 1 as it�ll be more than enough although I�m tempted to just go the full hog just because I can...

In reply to a post by ian72:

For some I think it is they can so they do - there isn't always a driving reason beyond availability. I have similar speeds to you at the moment and generally don't have issues but when someone else is doing a large game download it can impact the quality of streaming and so more bandwidth wouldn't hurt - but it also wouldn't be a major game changer.

Thanks Ian, I did wonder if some had to have the extra speed just because its there, i will definitely pay for more should i ever need it but at the moment its not an issue for us.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Jan-19 18:05:49)

In reply to a post by C225:

I�m soon to move in to a new build house that has FTTP, and I�m trying to decide what speed to go for. It�s just me but watch lots of 4K stuff and play the odd game that�ll need downloaded.

Probably going to opt for the Ultrafast 1 as it�ll be more than enough although I�m tempted to just go the full hog just because I can...

What is the price difference?

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Ultrafast 1 is £54.99, Ultrafast 2 is £59.99 both for the first 18 months then both go up by a fiver.

I can afford the fastest but in a house myself even Ultrafast 1 is a bit overkill but I still kinda want the fastest I can get.

In reply to a post by Chippy_Tea_:

So is it 4K TV that is mainly driving people to ultra fast BB?

I'm a techie, I work from home a lot, and I copy big files around.

If I could get 80/20 FTTC I would be able to live with that. But my current FTTC sync speed is 27-33M down and 4.5-5M up; it's the upload speed which is the key factor for me.

In reply to a post by C225:

Ultrafast 1 is £54.99, Ultrafast 2 is £59.99 both for the first 18 months then both go up by a fiver.

Thanks.

If I could get 80/20 FTTC I would be able to live with that. But my current FTTC sync speed is 27-33M down and 4.5-5M up; it's the upload speed which is the key factor for me.

Thanks.

I have 20mbps down which is okay most of the time. I can stream movies along with my children. However the upload is only 0.8mbps. This makes sending email, iMessages with photos and especially my children's use of the bandwidth wasting snapchat unbearably slow.

Hence looking forward to 300/50 more for the '50' part....

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Chippy_Tea_:

So is it 4K TV that is mainly driving people to ultra fast BB?

I'm a techie, I work from home a lot, and I copy big files around.

If I could get 80/20 FTTC I would be able to live with that. But my current FTTC sync speed is 27-33M down and 4.5-5M up; it's the upload speed which is the key factor for me.

FTTC is odd with upload speeds as when I had FTTC at my last addreses it usually synced at only 19.7mb down, however the upload was almost 6mb.

I work from home and would love better upload speeds. Although, not sure it'll make much difference when the business only have a 100mb leased line for everyone on VPN

My FTTC connection managed netflix 4K ok, but struggled with YouTube 4K.

I would be happy with the 80/20 as I found BT much more reliable than Virgin Media.

One time that Virgin Media came in handy with 200mb+ was when kids wanted new games on their xbox. Some games are 75+GB and even with a 200mb connection you are looking at 50+ mins flat out and no congestion.

In reply to a post by Chippy_Tea_:

Thanks i never thought about 4K TV, 25 Mbps plus wouldn't leave us much spare on our connection.

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HDR 4k will munch 40mbits.. Atm it is 4k Hdr and multiple usage that will dictate higher bandwidth requirements.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

If I could get 80/20 FTTC I would be able to live with that. But my current FTTC sync speed is 27-33M down and 4.5-5M up; it's the upload speed which is the key factor for me.

I'm on 16/1.2 ish, and the upload is no faster than adsl2+ for me and thats painful for large file up loads

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Well Netflix recommend 25 Mbps or higher for their 4K content, which looks stunning if viewed on a good screen. If 3-4 people are watching Netflix 4K simultaneously then the higher speeds come in handy. Other things like 4K online gaming and downloading Xbox games close to 100gb per game also eat bandwidth like there's no tomorrow. Having said all that, 35 Mbps is still a highly respectable speed if you're not into heavy bandwidth usage and/or can schedule your large downloads overnight.

Netflix should make it clear that 25 Mbps isn't actually a requirement for UHD because the streaming speed for their UHD content is between 7.63 Mbps and 15.62 Mbps and has been for over two years now. Even at the lowest speed the picture is very good.

Mind you a faster connection than I have at the moment would be nice.

I was only quoting what Netflix recommend on their website wrt speeds for UHD/4K streaming:

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Jan-19 09:49:45)

So is it 4K TV that is mainly driving people to ultra fast BB?

I don't think there is any single answer.

I'm on 80/20 FTTC. To be honest, one of the lower bandwidth FTTC packages would have been fine. But, when I need to download files off the internet (mainly software, operating systems, updates etc), it tends to be upwards of 1GB in size. And I'd rather this take as less time as possible and hence I am on 80/20. I'd move to FTTP if it were available.

And then, as others have said, 4k video takes up a fair bit of bandwidth. 4k HDR even more so.

I also RDP on to my home Windows PC remotely and, from home I need to connect to work Windows sessions (via Citrix) so all three of down, up and latency are important for me.

ADSL is available but is not an option for me. Prior to FTTC being available on my cabinet, I was on ADSL and the distance from the exchange meant that my max was 4 down, less than 1 up and the connection was very unstable.

VM contractors are putting up cabinets and laying cable on my road now so 350/20 should be available soon for me.

Edited by teshy (Wed 30-Jan-19 10:08:54)

Recent TVs that support Netflix 4K will use HEVC encoding rather than H264 so require about half the bitrate - older equipment may need to use the H264 4K format streams that may take up to 25Mbps.

In reply to a post by brookheather:

Recent TVs that support Netflix 4K will use HEVC encoding rather than H264 so require about half the bitrate - older equipment may need to use the H264 4K format streams that may take up to 25Mbps.

Any 'live' streaming is always worse as they can't encode it as much

In reply to a post by brookheather:

Recent TVs that support Netflix 4K will use HEVC encoding rather than H264 so require about half the bitrate - older equipment may need to use the H264 4K format streams that may take up to 25Mbps.

My bad, I wasn't aware Netflix used H.264 for UHD content.