BT Full Fibre 500

Hi all

I upgraded to BT Full Fibre 500 yesterday and thought I would share my experience in case anyone else was thinking of ordering FTTP.

I placed the order on 31 May online whilst 3 months into a 12 month contract with old ISP. as soon as BT’s website allowed and news of OpenReach engineer’s carrying out customer premises visits from 1 June.

I live in a newly classified ‘Fibre City’ location where OpenReach has run Fibre up the telephone poles to the Distribution Point (DP).

It was a one stage install. Although a connectorised cable should have been fitted the engineer mentioned that they had gone back to using a customer splice point (CSP) with the Optical Network Terminator (ONT) fitted inside. This is because they had issues with the copper part of the cable where the tension springs were squeezing the wire too tight causing too many failures. They are now using EZ bend cable which has a connector fitted at both ends but in my case one end was cut off and fibre spliced to an internal thinner cable at the CSP. The outside cable used is a dual cable which has the fibre part and copper part together in a figure of eight.

Took about four hours to do, would have been quicker but had to wait for the lift van to arrive as the engineer could not run the ladder up a corner for safety reasons.

Very professional and made it look all too easy.

The ONT is the newer Nokia unit, which does not have a telephone jack. Existing copper remains in conjunction with the fibre.

The CSP is smaller than I imagined and is not too obtrusive. The ONT is very small now with no Battery Backup Unit (BBU).

So once the ONT firmware had updated and the Smart Hub 2 did its bit, speeds were a bit haphazard at first but seemed to have settled to around 490-510 Mbps on the download and 70-73 Mbps on the upload.

Using wireless will not give you maximum speed. My phone went up to 450Mbps maximum burst, settling around 400Mbps. And distance from the router makes a difference to the speeds too.

Everything has gone smoothly except don’t get your hopes high expecting the maximum speed unless you are on a wired connection and your system can handle it.

I do note that BT have pulled the Full Fibre 500 service and are only offering Full Fibre 300 or Full Fibre 900. So will see what happens in the future. Other than a financial loss with ditching the FTTC part-way through the contract and the initial disappoint of not receiving maximum speeds on wireless, I am a happy bunny!

Edited by deleted (Thu 25-Jun-20 08:28:47)

Thanks for sharing your experience.

500Mb is still available over the phone. About £47.99 they were offering it to me.

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

500Mb is still available over the phone. About £47.99 they were offering it to me.

That's good to know. Thanks for sharing that AyeUp.

PS123 Nice to read posts like this, Thanks for letting us know and sharing you're experience.

Hi AyeUp

You must have got lucky. I did call BT before but they wouldn’t budge on the £49.99 a month charge.

So in the end, I ordered it through one of the cashback sites who were offering £100 cashback. Will go towards some way of offsetting the costs of ending FTTC early, assuming I get paid of course!

I ended up opting for 900Mb for £54.99 a month which isn't too disimilar to what others have been offered. By the time I factored in the discount and the potential from cash back it was about £40-£60.

My install date is 30/07.....by that point I will have sacked off Virgin Media.

I don't think I need 900Mb......but why not have it?

Either way it will be a game changer for me and streaming thats for sure.

How did you end up with it for £54.99? I called up and they absolutely REFUSED to budge on price, now paying the full price

In regards to OP, hit us up with a speedtest!!

In reply to a post by max1486:

How did you end up with it for £54.99? I called up and they absolutely REFUSED to budge on price, now paying the full price

Was easy to get that price, I didn't even haggle for the price, the £54.99 (inc line rental) was what they offered to me on the phone, I might of been able to knock off a couple of quid, but thought that price was fair.

I have always got a good deal when phoning up at the time of renewing the contract.

Paul

I was still in contract, but with a hefty discount on BT's superfast packages. Got full 80/20 sync and only paying £8.95 a month. I did ask if I could transfer the discount to the new service but alas no. As I say by the time I factored how much I could get from cashback (£155) and the reduced price £54.99 which is £120 saving over 24mths, wasn't much in it.

Being honest its more about the upload for me, as I play games online and co-stream with friends (I'm rather poo at online gaming but I enjoy it) it will allow 4K with very little issue.

I just rang them, on the automated menu saying I wanted to cancel and got me through to someone in the "customer options" team and they offered to me at that price with very little haggling.

Yeah we were in mid contract when I phoned to upgrade us to the 900 package, BT was fine with us renewing another 24 Months at the same price that we were paying for the 300 package.

To be honest I was ready for the haggling LOL like I have done many times now at renewal, sadly none was needed due to I think that price was fair for the speed.

I was also expecting for them to say sorry, but you are a few months in contract, but I never got that and that they were very happy to do the upgrade.

Like I have said before we upgraded so that I can use the faster upload so that I can upload contents faster even after I cap my upload to 100Mbits (leaving about 15Mbits for everything else) while I am uploading stuff.

Paul

Hi max1486

On Speedtest.net I got 508.18 Mbps down and 72.45 Mbps up.
Fast.com gave me 530 Mbps down and 73 Mbps. Fast.com always gives higher results for some unknown reason.
tbb's own speedtest gave 412 Mbps down and 72.4 Mbps up.

Having said this, the connection seems to wildly fluctuate at times, but I guess there are a number of factors involved.

Also, Smart Hub 2 has not updated to latest firmware yet, still on version 15. Hopefully, after update to the latest firmware, speeds might settle down a bit.

Hi PaulKirby

Lucky you! BT would not budge a millimetre on the price. so had to settle for the Cashback route.

I think it depends on how far into FTTP rollout an area is that dictates whether BT would budge or not...or perhaps it is because I am not classed as an existing customer.

In fairness, I probably don't need a 500/73 package but it was the upload speed that got me to switch.

Agree, it was the upload for me that got me to switch.

In reply to a post by busterboy:

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

500Mb is still available over the phone. About £47.99 they were offering it to me.

That's good to know. Thanks for sharing that AyeUp.

PS123 Nice to read posts like this, Thanks for letting us know and sharing you're experience.

thanks busterboy

In reply to a post by dect:

Thanks for sharing your experience.

You're welcome!

Quick update.

Things weren’t as rosy as first seems. Got a bill for FTTC from old provider. Called them to find out that BT did not place a cease order for the line.

So existing provider put cease order into action but hinted that it should have been BT’s responsibility to put the cease order through.

Apparently, I am not the first customer where this has happened and I won’t be the last.

Be aware if you are thinking of moving from FTTC to FTTP, make sure your new provider puts a CEASE order through to old provider unless you want FTTC to continue.

I'm confused.

Was it a migration or not?

If it wasn't a migration then it's your responsibility to cancel the old service.

If it was a migration, how can your FTTC continue without a phone number attached to it?

Had something similar.

Brownfield site, with copper/FTTC (approx 10Mbps) and now FTTP also.
Migrated from Voda FTTC to BT FTTP.

Bt took over the copper line for voice service and faffed with FTTP install (circa 12 weeks)
All the while this was going on, still had VDSL sync on the copper line from Voda.

Only slight difference to the OP, is that Voda had seen the migration and stopped all billing, but the VDSL never got ceased. I had a hard time convincing them there was an issue, but got there in the end.

I went from Plusnet FTTC to BT FTTP and BT put in the instruction to take over the phone line. That in turn cancelled the FTTC service.

It disconnected before 6am and then the engineer turned up later that day and connected up FTTP.

Maybe in your case it was an error?

Apart from an upload issue, all good.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/9686055666.png

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

I'm confused.

Was it a migration or not?

If it wasn't a migration then it's your responsibility to cancel the old service.

If it was a migration, how can your FTTC continue without a phone number attached to it?

It was supposed to be a migration as far as I understood it. Perhaps it was because I ordered it online? The voice line transferred okay but the internet was kept on.

In reply to a post by oldskool:

I went from Plusnet FTTC to BT FTTP and BT put in the instruction to take over the phone line. That in turn cancelled the FTTC service.

It disconnected before 6am and then the engineer turned up later that day and connected up FTTP.

Maybe in your case it was an error?

Apart from an upload issue, all good.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/9686055666.png

My old provider was PN and BT put the request to transfer the voice line but something somewhere went wrong.

PN mentioned that they put a cease order through when I called them but hinted that it was BT to blame for not telling them. I still haven’t got to the bottom of where it which side wronged, pas had a long wait to get through to BT so I hung up.

As the saying goes. I will try to get to the bottom of this.

Quick update following my Full Fibre install a few months ago.

Had an email from BT on 17 July mentioning that my product would receive a free upgrade to Halo 1. There was nothing that I had to do and it would happen automatically. Email mentioned that there would be no change in the price I paid and that I would not be entering into a new contract so that the length of the existing contract would remain as is.

In the midst of this, my modem seemed to pick up the 50Mbps speed cap bug. Quick call to BT Fibre Support team and they acknowledged that it was a known issue with the Full Fibre 500 and 910 packages and that a temporary fix would be for a manual line shaping request to be sent to another team. In the meantime, a new modem was sent out as the existing SH2 may have been faulty. So all good, line was "reshaped" so that my upload speed would be 73Mbps. Was advised by the adviser that the free upgrade to Halo 1 will happen automatically and certainly by the next billing period. So I waited.

Then just yesterday, I called BT as I was experiencing the 50Mbps speed cap issue again (following a factory reset of the new SH2 router). Conversation was going well until the adviser started throwing the T&C's at me. "Oh but your upload speed is above 10Mbps, which is what we guarantee so there is no issue."

I had to point out that I was happily receiving near enough 500 down and 73 up and that it was the modem's software that was restricting the upload speed to 50Mbps. Therefore, throwing me the T&C's that they were meeting their minimum speed guarantee was not the point of my call. The adviser kept banging on about meeting the minimum speed guarantee until I mentioned that it was BT's faulty equipment supplied to me that prevented the upload speed in reaching the maximum potential and that I would be inclined to contact OfCom about it.

What irritates me is that BT are providing a full fibre connection but only guaranteeing 250Mbps download and 10Mbps upload on a 500/73 package. I can understand the minimum speed guarantee if the connection was not FTTP but surely they should be guaranteeing a minimum download and upload speed of at least 80-90% of the paid-for speed. What is the point of paying £49.99 a month for a 500/73 package to then have the T&C's thrown at you just because the upload speed has been capped at 50Mbps due to BT's SH2 firmware issue?

I also spoke about the free upgrade to Halo 1. So the customer service representative tried to apply a "fix", which was basically upgrading my package to Full Fibre 500 Halo 1, despite telling me that I would not be entering into a new contract. An hour later, I received an email from BT thanking me for upgrading to Halo 1 with a message telling me that my new 24 month contract would start from the next day i.e. I had been recontracted. Calling BT the following day, the adviser first tried to offer me some credit, which would not have been enough to cover the extra 2 1/4 months that my contract had been extended, so then mentioned that they had put a note on the system that I could leave at the end of the original contract date penalty free. Whilst not happy with the way BT are operating, I have my doubts when it comes to the end of the original contract date and I expect there are going to be more shenanigans on BT's part to get it resolved. So anyone on Full Fibre is offered a Halo 1 free upgrade, be warned!!! Some things are too good to be true.

Whilst my initial experience of the install was good, it seems like things on BT's side are not going smoothly. I hope BT manage to roll out the new SH2 firmware soon to fix the speed capping issue, tell their customer support agents to stop using the minimum speed guarantee as a "get out clause" and to actually listen to the customer and take responsibility on solving their issue.

If you want that kind of guaranteed throughput you need a leased line or a more business focused product.
You won't get that kind of guarantee on most residential broadband packages.

BT''s minimum guarantee to you is actually higher than what OpenReach guarantee them.

FTTP is still a contended service, shared amongst other users both locally between neighbours and the backhaul to the wider internet.

It would not be possible to guarantee 80-90% of the headline rate as if everyone on your PON took a high tier package the speeds could very easily drop below that.

OpenReach FTTP is 2.4Gb/s down and 1.2Gb/s up shared between up to 32 properties.

Have a look at what a 1gig or 0.5gig leased line costs and you might see the value in BT's minimum guarantee.

Thanks for letting us know PS123, should they ring other users with this "Free upgrade" we know what to expect.

Will be a big fat no in my case.

If you want a higher minimum speed guarantee then upgrade to Fibre 900, which has a guarantee of 450 Mbps. Otherwise there’s no way on God’s earth, BT (or any other residential CP) will guarantee you 80-90% of line speeds at all times. Like it or not, you are sharing the service with other users.

First of all the sh2 is a modem router, when on fttp it is in router mode. There is nothing to stop you from buying a decent third party router..

The rt ac 86u from asus is one, that will provide with the speed that you require. As john83 said, fttp is a contended service, and i would go further, contention exists in some form all over the place on the net.