FTTP Providers 300Mbps or more

Seems where ever I look ISP providers of FTTP 300Mbps or more are limited to BT and Zen.

Is this likely to change in the near future or do you take your pick and roll the dice.

For what its worth I have been with BT for over 10 years now and service has been good (although only 1Mbps where I live) but starting to look at options as FTTP Fibre is drawing closer now.

Thanks for any info.

Please no lectures on "you don't need 300Mbps"

Edited by busterboy (Wed 29-May-19 19:24:33)

Are you aware that if the 300Mbps service becomes available to you, so does 80/20 FTTP at the same price as FTTC? It does give a fairly noticeable increase over 1Mbps, and will probably have far more sellers by the time you can get it .

It's also worth noting that BT does not guarantee anything approaching 300Mbps throughput. AIUI it is below 100Mbps. The sync of course is always as per the package description.

While you wait, as you don't say how close in time the FTTP is, how good is your Three 45 signal? See this excellent product.

Or you can get a completely unlimited SIM-only for your phone from them for £20pm. Tethering allowed. I have both products.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 29-May-19 18:27:34)

Cerberus offer various FTTP packages up to 1000Mbps:

https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/node/183#cerberus...

In reply to a post by busterboy:

Seems where ever I look ISP providers of FTTP 300Mbps or more are limited to BT and Zen.

Plenty of ISPs offering 330/50 or higher on the Openreach (BTW) FTTP platform other than BT Retail & Zen. From the top of my head:

IDNet
Cerberus
Trunk Networks
Structured Communications
Gradwell
Highnet
Optanet
Fluidone
Giganet

However BT Retail is likely to be the cheapest for 330/50 especially if they're offering discounts and/or going through a cashback site.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It's also worth noting that BT does not guarantee anything approaching 300Mbps throughput. AIUI it is below 100Mbps.

It used to be less than 100 Mbps on the legacy Infinity 4 (330/30) product, its now 150 Mbps on the latest Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus service (330/50):

https://postimg.cc/VJgM3sSQ

Link to our package list with Openreach FTTP flag turned on https://www.thinkbroadband.com/packages/fttp-broadband

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Link to our package list with Openreach FTTP flag turned on https://www.thinkbroadband.com/packages/fttp-broadband

Mr S,
Looking at Spectrum Internet FTTP packages here, right at the bottom it states

Wholesale Provider details:
BT Wholesale

That is incorrect, as Spectrum use their own LLU network from the exchange onwards (backhaul) which is why they only cover a handful of exchange areas in S Wales & SW England.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It's also worth noting that BT does not guarantee anything approaching 300Mbps throughput. AIUI it is below 100Mbps.

It used to be less than 100 Mbps on the legacy Infinity 4 (330/30) product, its now 150 Mbps on the latest Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus service (330/50):

https://postimg.cc/VJgM3sSQ

Thanks for the update/correction .

WOW lots of answers in the time it took to eat my tea thank you everyone.

I honestly had no idea so many providers were available to me but as you say BT and Zen look to have the best prices before I start trawling deeper through them all.

If my decision was to stay with BT I presume once available its a straight forward procedure and a new term would be put in place.

Roberto sorry but not looking to take out a sim deal as fibre is almost with me.

I have been tethering my EE phone to my PC and using data from that but my 20Gb a month I get already soon goes.

Had Fibre been nowhere near I would certainly consider it.

If you can tell me which exchanges then can see about setting up the additional filtering that this would require

A mornings work.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It's also worth noting that BT does not guarantee anything approaching 300Mbps throughput. AIUI it is below 100Mbps.

It used to be less than 100 Mbps on the legacy Infinity 4 (330/30) product, its now 150 Mbps on the latest Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus service (330/50):

https://postimg.cc/VJgM3sSQ

The Stay Fast guarantee on Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus (330/50) is 150 Mbps, but the Stay Fast guarantee on Super Fast Fibre 2 (80/20) is only 49 Mbps. So the 330/50 service is over three times as fast as the 80/20 service, however you look at it.

In any case, they�re only the guaranteed speeds. I usually get 300 down, 50 up on speed tests on my Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus.

In reply to a post by dewi:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It's also worth noting that BT does not guarantee anything approaching 300Mbps throughput. AIUI it is below 100Mbps.

It used to be less than 100 Mbps on the legacy Infinity 4 (330/30) product, its now 150 Mbps on the latest Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus service (330/50):

https://postimg.cc/VJgM3sSQ

The Stay Fast guarantee on Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus (330/50) is 150 Mbps, but the Stay Fast guarantee on Super Fast Fibre 2 (80/20) is only 49 Mbps. So the 330/50 service is over three times as fast as the 80/20 service, however you look at it.

In any case, they�re only the guaranteed speeds. I usually get 300 down, 50 up on speed tests on my Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus.

Well BT now have it listed as 300Mbits, it use to say 314Mbps (Infinity 4) which I guess was 330Mbps minus the overheads.
I still normally get about 300 to 307Mbps throughout the day.

BT have the guaranteed minimal speed shown below:

[SUPERFAST FIBRE ESSENTIAL]		[SUPERFAST FIBRE]
Your download speed range 35Mb - 36Mb	Your download speed 50Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 32Mb		Your Stay Fast Guarantee 25Mb
Upload speed range 8Mb - 9Mb		Upload speed 10Mb
� Price per Mbit £1.05 to £1.10		� Price per Mbit £0.88

[SUPERFAST FIBRE 2]
Your download speed 74Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 34Mb
Upload speed 20Mb
� Price per Mbit £0.65

[SUPERFAST FIBRE PLUS]			[ULTRAFAST FIBRE PLUS]
Your download speed 74Mb		Your download speed 150Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 34Mb		Your Stay Fast Guarantee 100Mb
Upload speed 20Mb			Upload speed 30Mb
� Price per Mbit £0.80			� Price per Mbit £0.40

[ULTRAFAST FIBRE 2 PLUS]
Your download speed 300Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 150Mb
Upload speed 49Mb
� Price per Mbit £0.22

� Price per Mbit are just an estimate.
So if you can afford it and want to get the best for the buck then the 300Mbit package is the one.
If not, you can choose a slower package and if later on you realize that that's not enough or its too much speed, you can always upgrade or downgrade to another speed package (these changes are limited to a certain amount so be aware).

BT did use to have the guaranteed minimal speed with the Plus packages, but now seems to have it for all.

I cannot say how good other providers are, I know Zen was very helpful when my younger brother took his connection with him when he moved out which did cause an small issue when trying to get ADSL2+ with BT at the time, so we was not with Zen but they still tried to help resolve the issues.

Any issues we have had with our fibre connection with BT has been resolved within 24 to 48 hours and a couple has been resolved while on the phone.

But at the end of the day its down to what you want to pay and the actual deal you are given at the time of enquiring.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

In reply to a post by dewi:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

It used to be less than 100 Mbps on the legacy Infinity 4 (330/30) product, its now 150 Mbps on the latest Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus service (330/50):

https://postimg.cc/VJgM3sSQ

The Stay Fast guarantee on Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus (330/50) is 150 Mbps, but the Stay Fast guarantee on Super Fast Fibre 2 (80/20) is only 49 Mbps. So the 330/50 service is over three times as fast as the 80/20 service, however you look at it.

In any case, they�re only the guaranteed speeds. I usually get 300 down, 50 up on speed tests on my Ultrafast Fibre 2 Plus.

Well BT now have it listed as 300Mbits, it use to say 314Mbps (Infinity 4) which I guess was 330Mbps minus the overheads.
I still normally get about 300 to 307Mbps throughout the day.

BT have the guaranteed minimal speed shown below:

[SUPERFAST FIBRE ESSENTIAL]		[SUPERFAST FIBRE]
Your download speed range 35Mb - 36Mb	Your download speed 50Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 32Mb		Your Stay Fast Guarantee 25Mb
Upload speed range 8Mb - 9Mb		Upload speed 10Mb
� Price per Mbit £1.05 to £1.10		� Price per Mbit £0.88

[SUPERFAST FIBRE 2]
Your download speed 74Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 34Mb
Upload speed 20Mb
� Price per Mbit £0.65

[SUPERFAST FIBRE PLUS]			[ULTRAFAST FIBRE PLUS]
Your download speed 74Mb		Your download speed 150Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 34Mb		Your Stay Fast Guarantee 100Mb
Upload speed 20Mb			Upload speed 30Mb
� Price per Mbit £0.80			� Price per Mbit £0.40

[ULTRAFAST FIBRE 2 PLUS]
Your download speed 300Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 150Mb
Upload speed 49Mb
� Price per Mbit £0.22

� Price per Mbit are just an estimate.
So if you can afford it and want to get the best for the buck then the 300Mbit package is the one.
If not, you can choose a slower package and if later on you realize that that's not enough or its too much speed, you can always upgrade or downgrade to another speed package (these changes are limited to a certain amount so be aware).

BT did use to have the guaranteed minimal speed with the Plus packages, but now seems to have it for all.

I cannot say how good other providers are, I know Zen was very helpful when my younger brother took his connection with him when he moved out which did cause an small issue when trying to get ADSL2+ with BT at the time, so we was not with Zen but they still tried to help resolve the issues.

Any issues we have had with our fibre connection with BT has been resolved within 24 to 48 hours and a couple has been resolved while on the phone.

But at the end of the day its down to what you want to pay and the actual deal you are given at the time of enquiring.

Paul

Thanks Paul, I think its fair to say we all like a bargain but not essential in my case.

Fact is people in our village are at our wits end with a service that's more than useless right now so trying to run our businesses is almost impossible as it is so paying any premium wouldn't be such an issue.

This is just not about internet for running our daily jobs but things we have never had like Netflix, Sky Q, any streaming service that others take for granted.

FTTP cannot come soon enough for us.

In reply to a post by busterboy:

Thanks Paul, I think its fair to say we all like a bargain but not essential in my case.

Fact is people in our village are at our wits end with a service that's more than useless right now so trying to run our businesses is almost impossible as it is so paying any premium wouldn't be such an issue.

This is just not about internet for running our daily jobs but things we have never had like Netflix, Sky Q, any streaming service that others take for granted.

FTTP cannot come soon enough for us.

Yeah, I know the feeling when we was on ADSL2+ with 4-5Mbits on a very good day to not even having a phone line on a bad one, so it was also an issue trying to watch Netflix, YouTube or Twitch etc.

We were looking at our FTTP Hardware for 5+ years arguing with BT that the hardware was all in place, where BT would keep saying its not.
But they then gave up when I kept sending them (i.e. the CEO and my local MP) photo evidence of it being there all ready and also knowing we was not going to give up, and then one morning we were allowed to get FTTP.

Just like a friend round the corner from me, they all have the same FTTP hardware (i.e. 2 Stage Install) in place since 2011 / 2012 and you can even see it on Google Maps and BT are still saying there is no fibre hardware in place.

You just need to keep at them, but being polite at the same time, going off at them never resolves anything.

But I hope you don't have to wait too long for FTTP.

Paul

In reply to a post by busterboy:

Fact is people in our village are at our wits end with a service that's more than useless right now so trying to run our businesses is almost impossible as it is so paying any premium wouldn't be such an issue.

This is just not about internet for running our daily jobs but things we have never had like Netflix, Sky Q, any streaming service that others take for granted.

FTTP cannot come soon enough for us.

FTTP is a real game-changer and well worth the wait. We were getting less than 2 Mbps ADSL in our village. It was very frustrating. On ADSL, we'd get buffering while streaming Netflix in SD, downloading a film to the SkyQ box would take overnight and emailing an attachment would take forever. We went straight from that to 300 Mbps FTTP.. On FTTP, we can stream HD (4K if we had a 4K telly), we can watch films on demand rather than downloading them overnight and emailing attachments is no problem at all. The other day, I bought a game on Steam and was surprised to find it was going to take 25 minutes to download. I then calculated it would have taken 3 days to download on our old ADSL connection!

In reply to a post by dewi:

In reply to a post by busterboy:

Fact is people in our village are at our wits end with a service that's more than useless right now so trying to run our businesses is almost impossible as it is so paying any premium wouldn't be such an issue.

This is just not about internet for running our daily jobs but things we have never had like Netflix, Sky Q, any streaming service that others take for granted.

FTTP cannot come soon enough for us.

FTTP is a real game-changer and well worth the wait. We were getting less than 2 Mbps ADSL in our village. It was very frustrating. On ADSL, we'd get buffering while streaming Netflix in SD, downloading a film to the SkyQ box would take overnight and emailing an attachment would take forever. We went straight from that to 300 Mbps FTTP.. On FTTP, we can stream HD (4K if we had a 4K telly), we can watch films on demand rather than downloading them overnight and emailing attachments is no problem at all. The other day, I bought a game on Steam and was surprised to find it was going to take 25 minutes to download. I then calculated it would have taken 3 days to download on our old ADSL connection!

dewi its very refreshing to hear your findings once FTTP was enabled.

We tried for SKY Q but was refused on the grounds we only have 1Mbps internet connection and they would not connect us as the product wouldn't work on our internet input. We did try.!!

I presume people once they have FTTP soon forget how bad the poor connection was before it arrived.

I drive an Audi A8L which retails at £76k new price but once the novelty wears off I think to myself a 1 Litre VW Polo or similar would do the same job...�� Until I get back into one.

In reply to a post by dewi:

FTTP is a real game-changer and well worth the wait.

I totally agree.

In reply to a post by dewi:

We were getting less than 2 Mbps ADSL in our village.
It was very frustrating. On ADSL, we'd get buffering while streaming Netflix in SD, downloading a film to the SkyQ box would take overnight and emailing an attachment would take forever.

We were similar as you, we would schedule who was doing what when somebody wanted to stream or download.

Also we now have no connection drops, apart from BT's resetting the IP, but that's like every couple of months.

In reply to a post by dewi:

We went straight from that to 300 Mbps FTTP.
On FTTP, we can stream HD (4K if we had a 4K telly), we can watch films on demand rather than downloading them overnight and emailing attachments is no problem at all.

When we first got FTTP I was doing loads of tests, like trying to stream several 4K streams and was very impressed to see them all play flawlessly.

In reply to a post by dewi:

The other day, I bought a game on Steam and was surprised to find it was going to take 25 minutes to download. I then calculated it would have taken 3 days to download on our old ADSL connection!

Yeah, we still have a joke and say can you imagine downloading this on our old connection, so we would pull out a calculator and work it out.
Like a 70GB game would now take 31Mins where as before it would of taken 1 day, 10 hours, 34 mins, and that is nonstop downloading, sadly we couldn't download for that long due to other people trying to use the internet, so it use to take a week to download that game.

And don't get me started on game updates LUL.

Paul

Even if FTTP isn't avaiable via Openreach you can contact Altnet providers and they can potentially do a FTTP ful fibre community project. I know Spectrum Internet (a Cardiff based ISP) does these kind of things for places in the Gower, Cardiff, Chepstow, Monmouthshire and Bristol.

Could be worth looking at providers who install their own infrastrucuture.