Confusion regarding Fibre/VDSL and what i'm actually getting

I live in an area which is around 2 miles from my cabinet. I moved in January 2014, and immediately discovered that the ADSL available was useless. The D/L was 1MB and upload was almost non-existent.

After checking the BT availability checker I worked out which cabinet I was connected to, (Cabinet 15) and that I was connected to the LEMINGTON exchange. I even went so far as to work out where the cabinet physically was (around 2 miles drive from my door) and then began to google businesses which were local to that cabinet, for their telephone numbers, and to then run a check on their landlines to see the speed and availability that they had. I discovered that the cabinet was running around 80MB D/L to the businesses which were very local to that cabinet. I had however been told by providers such as Sky and BT that Fibre was not available to my premises. I managed to force one of the providers to proceed with an order for fibre, and found that I could connect. It took some time but eventually I managed to improve my speeds to around 7-10MB D/L and 1MB U/L - although having to pay much higher costs for fibre broadband every month, whilst getting speeds which were closer to ADSL.

This has continued for 5 years, and nothing has changed. iNorthumberland look into rural spots which have substandard connections, and have promised superfast was on its way. They have since changed their mind, and told me that it isn't as it isn't cost effective to add another cabinet for our collection of houses. I have googled some businesses not too far from my place and found that 500m down the road, their D/L speeds are closer to 20-25MB.

I am not sure if there is anything I can do to fix the issue, and have looked into 4G and other internet technologies, but nothing seems to be cost effective, esepcially due to the level of downloads I make, which smashes through any of the satellite monthly caps by miles. They are just not an option. I have wondered about whether clubbing together to get Fibre to the Premises may be an option, but I don't think my neighbours are that bothered. I am also under the impression that diggin trenches etc to lay the cables would cost in the 10's of thousands. I feel like we are just being left to rot due to our location, and that Northumberland will be meeting most of its quota for getting people the services, and we are just an awkward collection of 5 houses or so, and therefore they couldn't care less about spending money to include a new cabinet.

The BT checker provides me with the following:-

Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Handback Threshold(Mbps)

WBC FTTC Availability Date

WBC SOGEA Availability Date

Left in Jumper

High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 11.7 6.4 1.2 0.8 4.7 Available Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 11.7 6 1.2 0.6 4.2 Available Available --
Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

WBC FTTP Availability Date



FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available -- --
ADSL Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date


Left in Jumper

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 1.5 -- 1 to 3.5 Available -- --
ADSL Max Up to 1 -- 0.75 to 2.5 Available -- --
WBC Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available -- --
Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available -- --
Observed Speeds

VDSL

Max Observed Downstream Speed (Mbps) 7.89
Max Upstream Observed Speed (Mbps) 0.52
Observed Date 2019-04-26
Other Offerings




Availability Date



VDSL Multicast -- -- -- Available -- --
ADSL Multicast -- -- -- Available -- --
Premise environment

Status

Bridge Tap N
VRI N
NTEFaceplate N
Last Test Date 01-05-2019



The way these results are set out, now has me thinking that in relaity I am actually only receiving VDSL and not Fibre, yet I have been paying a £40-50 monthly fee for fibre for the last 5 years. Can anyone tell me whether I am actually getting Fibre, and if not, why not? I know my cabinet is connected to Fibre, and I have been told the reason why I am not getting high speeds is because there is a drop off on Fibre, if it has to utilise copper wires to the property, and that it can be quite drastic. i.e. starts at 80 MB or so in the cabinet and by the time it reaches me, it's down to 5-7 or whatever it feels like on the day! I have seen it as a low as 3 and as high as 10.

I'm a little lost, and seems like nothing is going to change soon, so I am starting to wonder about the costs associated with installing fibre to the premises myself.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

To resolve your confusion, you explain your lowish speeds perfectly in your long paragraph following the estimates table.

You have FTTC, (Fibre To The Cabinet). That is the end of the fibre run from the exchange.

From the cabinet to you the broadband signal which is VDSL2 is merged with the phone signal on a DSLAM in the fibre cabinet (which you will find within 80 metres of your phone cabinet which is numbered 15), and comes down the pre-existing copper to you just like the ADSLx did.

Because the higher frequencies used by VDSL2 to get high speeds near the cabinet attenuate/degrade much more rapidly than the lower frequencies used by ADSLx, the speed at two miles is much reduced from the 80Mbps available near to the cabinets.

FTTPoD is available to you, and that would bring fibre all the way into your house, and the connection speed would be exactly the full advertised figure for the product you sign up to.

Throughput/speed test speeds are always lower than that depending on the speed the website can transmit at and the throughput capacity your ISP has bought. Just like in any consumer DSL service.

You will see number 4 of the FTTPoD quotes threads currently on this forum. It would cost you nothing to get a �desktop� quote, as explained many times in the four threads. Almost certain to be in the tens of thousands, for exactly the reason you give yourself. Though the full survey prices tend to come out much lower.

One cheaper alternative would be to get a second (or more) FTTC service and either bond them or load balance them to give you a higher combined speed than you have now.

Another, if you have a decent 4G mobile signal on Three, would be either to go entirely for mobile broadband as I have done, see this thread , which is nothing to do with satellites, or do that and load balance that with your FTTC. See this thread.

You can test the Three speeds by buying 3-2-1 SIM from a newsagent for £1 and putting it in your phone for testing. Unlimited mobile broadband is available from Three. Currently £20pm for a phone SIM, but of course that probably goes with you when you go out, or HomeFi at £22pm which is a WiFi router including an unlimited data SIM. I have both a phone one and the HomeFi.

Thank you so much for the response. That is very helpful. I will have a look at the threads regarding bond/load balance and learn some more!

I will add, that given your distance - 2miles (3.2 km) you have a pretty good connection. I have one I deal with occasionally, 3km from cabinet and it gets anywhere from a little over 2Mbps to just under 3Mbps. The original ADSL and 9km was under 1Mbps.

Treat yours carefully.

Having read up on this, it seems that I am in an area with good indoor 4G coverage. Whilst my current fibre connection is by no means horrendous, it does mean that the option to stream 4K is a no no. Due to the size of the house and thick stone walls, I currently have a router in the kitchen which is connected to the phone line, and then I have cat6 cables through the walls to the living room, and games room. These 2 rooms have their own routers in place, with appliances connected by ethernet where possible.

I am hoping that if I order a 3 unlimited 4G Sim and install it in a 4g modem/router, I will still be able to attach the other 2 routers and continue to use them as wifi spots and also for ethernet connections. Is that possible?

I hope by routers in the other rooms you actually mean switches/wireless access points, it's not good to have more than one router unless you've disabled DHCP on the additional ones.

To get the best reception you can use an external aerial for better results, but be sure to read up on what type is better.

You should be able to use a 4G modem with your existing setup but really depends on what gear you have.

As RONSKI says re your multiple routers.

In particular if the "games room" or any other refers to online gaming then HomeFi type solutions are not suitable for that. You would need to ensure any gaming devices were running via the FTTC. Mobile broadband latency is currently always all over the place, and AIUI stable latency is far more important for gamers than raw speed.

Downloading game updates however could well be much faster over the HomeFi.

Note that the Three router I linked to is a pure mobile broadband router and the price includes the 4G data SIM that is supplied in the box. It does only have a single ethernet port, mainly for firmware updates and other ancillary procedures I expect. Like I have a spare laptop connected to it sometimes, and I also needed it for the initial setup of a wireless security camera. It does not include a DSL modem.

You could indeed use the cheaper phone SIM in a dongle into a load-balancing VDSL2 router. Before I got the HomeFi I was sometimes running with my phone acting as a wifi hotspot for the other devices, and at times with the phone connected by USB into my router.

All this type of usage is allowed by Three, but they do have a caveat that although it is truly unlimited usage of more than 1TB per month might cause them to query whether the service is being used for commercial purposes. Which is not allowed on a Home service .

My camera is currently uploading around 3GB per day to some web storage I have, and I expect to add more cameras that will probably use less. I'm probably using 50-60GB per month downstream to my laptops and iPad connecting through it as well. I don't expect to have any problems even if I end up using considerably more than 1TB.

Hi,

Are you in Northumberland or Tyne and Wear?

Lemmington is near the border between the authorities and that could be why no one wants to help. The exchange itself is in Tyne and Wear.

If you�re a group of 5 homes, how far is the next group of houses? As broadband not spots are fixed, the more expensive locations like yours become the next to be fixed so don�t give up hope.

Yes, sorry, should have been clearer. It�s 3 routers with 2 having DHCP disabled so they act as wireless access points for the house. I wanted to have Ethernet connections for devices as much as possible, and also have WiFi access in each room, so that�s what I dreamt up. 2 Bt homehub 5�s and a current EE modem. I�m
Thinking that I will get a modem that can house the SIM card for the 4G element and an outdoor aerial too

Disappointed to hear that the gaming latency won�t improve with the 4G approach as that was a big thing, but to be honest I would be happy paying for the 4G connection every month just for streaming and downloading tv etc. Keeping the FTTC will take some working out if I try to spread the 4G around the house for everything but the gaming!

Load balancing is probably above my ability st the moment though. Will get a 4G setup going first and see if it works I think!

I think you�re spot on there. I�m right in the sticks. Our dead end road turns from
Tyne and Wear into Northumberland around 500 metres from
The house. I pay Northumberland my council
Tax but my address seems to be Tyne and Wear. Very weird! There�s a housing development going up around a mile away but that�s in Tyne and Wear so cant work out if it is going to help or not! Also I�ve got an 0191 telephone number. Very frustrating.

In reply to a post by Cam_Scrappy:

Due to the size of the house and thick stone walls, I currently have a router in the kitchen which is connected to the phone line, and then I have cat6 cables through the walls to the living room, and games room. These 2 rooms have their own routers in place, with appliances connected by ethernet where possible.

I am hoping that if I order a 3 unlimited 4G Sim and install it in a 4g modem/router, I will still be able to attach the other 2 routers and continue to use them as wifi spots and also for ethernet connections. Is that possible?

Yes. Ideally you'd put the 4G router as high as possible (e.g. in the attic) and run a Cat6 down to the rest of the network. Then, if you need an external antenna, the coax cable to the 4G router will be as short as possible

Of course, if it works well enough in the kitchen or one of the other rooms, then just do that.

As for having separate networks for 4G and FTTC, that may be simpler than you think: just use two different wireless SSIDs. Example:

* Existing FTTC router in kitchen with SSID "GAMES" linked via CAT6 to games room, also SSID "GAMES"
* New 4G router in kitchen with SSID "WORK" linked via CAT6 to living room, also SSID "WORK"

Trouble is, you will only have one of the SSIDs available in the living room and the games room.

If you want both SSIDs available in all rooms, then the best option is multi-SSID access points and a switch with VLAN trunking, but that does need rather more understanding to configure

Thanks for all the info! I�ve unfortunately hit a rather large stumbling block in that I got a router and a 3 SIM and whilst the coverage was supposed to be good at my place, in reality it�s very poor on 3. Often reverting back to 3G. In comparison, my EE Sim flies but they don�t have a suitable unlimited plan at the minute. I have my FTTC with EE though so going to call them and see if I can blag a deal for a 4G subscription. Fingers crossed!

Did you try the router in the attic? Also, one of the Three routers has an external antenna connection, so you can mount an antenna on the side of the house and run a coax cable into the router, which should be as close as possible.

If your phone is Android get the app called �LTE Discovery� from Play Store. There are lots similar but this one gives you both the signal strength and an arrow that points to the mast it is connecting to.

Brilliant for finding the best place for siting anything, and even which way to point kit with internal antennae.

Just to add,

Three have another "service" provided by them, sort of like an MVNO I guess, called SMARTY they do unlimited 4G data for £25 a month and it's PAYG. You'd need a MiFI device or Router with 4G capabilities but worth a look.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

If your phone is Android get the app called �LTE Discovery� from Play Store. There are lots similar but this one gives you both the signal strength and an arrow that points to the mast it is connecting to.

Use caution on that arrow, mine points in a random direction when I can see the mast out of the window. (Using Google Pixel 1 phone).

Mine is right though. Maybe Huawei is the firm we can trust, not USA ones �.

(Had to crack that one ).