Switching from FTTP to FTTC (?) and possibly back again

Hello,

I’m nearing the end of my M125 Fibre broadband contract with Virgin and am anticipating a big bill increase as we will no longer be “new customers”. My energy provider (Shell) are offering 6 months free broadband on a deal with them. Based on my limited knowledge, the speed available is much slower than what we have currently but is still fibre optic and should meet our needs (I believe this would be moving from FTTP to FTTC but I could be wrong). My postcode is FK2 0DJ, if this helps to check.

My friend mentioned there could be a potential cabling issue in moving from Virgin to another provider (and possibly back again after the Shell deal finishes!) Can you advise?

Thanks!

Any cabling issues would depend on what is at the property at the moment. If you have a BT master socket then likely there would be no issue in getting FTTC, as long as the cabinet has spare capacity.

If you don't have a master socket, one would need to be installed and connected back to the exchange.

The Virgin termination point would remain, it just wouldn't be active.

If FTTP were to be available (not Virgin), then that would require the fibre being run into the property and terminated.

Moving between services should be easy, assuming all the infrastructure is already in place.

What Andy said above plus...

If you are unsure of what Openreach based services are available at your property, do an address based search using the BT Wholesale broadband availability checker tool here.

This will determine if you have FTTC based service, FTTP based service or indeed just ADSL2 based service at your property and what speed you are able/likley to receive.

Good luck.

Thank you both for your responses. To my knowledge, there isn’t a BT socket (I’ve never come across one in this house). I’ve attached a copy of the BT search results; is the top line the FTTC information I need? If so, I think that all looks good.

Thanks

BT results

Yes the top two rows are predicted FTTC (VDSL) speeds. Even better it looks like the cabinet has spare capacity, so get your order in.