Cabinet P17 (Pike Road, Stirling) Is now on its spot after BT works end-feb. BT are supposed to be re-visiting from today for a few days. I am hoping this is to connect power and commission the cabinet. Ever hopeful - will be great to watch iPlayer/Netflix without ruddy buffering all the time, and my home-hosted linux box will love the extra upstream.

Those lucky beggars at the north end of Pike road should get close to the 80/20Mbits. I am 1KM away at the south end of Pike road so will likely have half that, but still much much better than the current speeds!

Checking daily for an 'available' status at http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.Teleph...

Nigel

FTTC was installed this morning, took about an hour and a half, went smoothly. Engineer ran and pinned length of cable to where I wanted the data socket. Very tidy job, Openreach FTTC router is very small and is now screwed to wall next to socket.

(The data extension kit is free of charge but must be requested when ordering FTTC otherwise the Engineer may not have enough available on the van so if you want both routers located away from the main socket remember to request the kit!)

I'm in the Dr Campbell Avenue/Richard Quinn Street/Tibbies Loan area -

BT Wholesale checker indicates: Up to 45.6 downstream Up to 8 upstream

Actual Speed 74.8 downstream 16.6 upstream

Currently profiled as line speed 78/20 with Plusnet - Openreach engineer advised line can and should achieve maximum possible speeds, the copper between Cabinet 4 and this estate is very good according to the Engineer.

I'm very impressed so far!

Currently watching BBC HD on demand via Sky HD box, listening to Internet radio, downloading HD video on laptop with no slowdown at all!

Cheers for reporting back. I am very jealous!

How long after cabinet went in was it until you were actually able to order? My cab went in 24th Feb, and roadworksscotland has BT making a return visit this week (only they have not turned up!). I am hoping that this is not indicative of yet more delays getting fibre/power/etc to the cabinet!

Checking the checker daily so I can pounce if/when it finally becomes available!

Liking your speeds! Checker says 34.6down/6up for me, hopefully it will sync a bit higher like you.

Nigel

Had the confirmation email from Openreach about cabinet P22. Won't be upgraded as it is not economically viable due to the low number of users attached to it. Even if everyone registered an interest, looks like it wouldn't be upgraded as there are only approx 100 households attached. I'm well scunnered by this!!! For all those in Cowie not attached to P22, enjoy your new speeds.....I'm well jealous!!!

Hi Nigel,

I think the cabinet was there for quite a few months before it was enabled, it was delayed due to duct blockages. I imagine it won't be that long before your local cabinet it sorted. Once the cabinet is there Openreach are more willing you give you an indication of the approximate go live date they are aiming for. I always got a good response to the NG Enquiries email address. Keep us updated!

Disappointing to hear that. Stirling Council has funds available for "rural broadband" may be an avenue if enough interest they can pay BT to bring FTTC to your cabinet. I know that they were looking at the areas locally which would miss out and although I'm not sure of the speeds you folks get, I thought the minimum speed was to be 2Mb (which I struggled to maintain even off Cabinet 4 which your cabinet runs off)

Here is the contact details of the guy at the Council:

Sandy Frickleton
Business Liaison Executive
Economy, Employment & Youth
Stirling Council
Viewforth
Stirling FK8 2ET
Tel 01786 443403
Fax 01786 443199
E-mail [email protected]

In reply to a post by Kev73:

Had the confirmation email from Openreach about cabinet P22. Won't be upgraded as it is not economically viable due to the low number of users attached to it. Even if everyone registered an interest, looks like it wouldn't be upgraded as there are only approx 100 households attached. I'm well scunnered by this!!! For all those in Cowie not attached to P22, enjoy your new speeds.....I'm well jealous!!!

Got my fibre on Friday. I got the advertised speeds of up to 76mb when connected via ethernet from Home Hub to laptop. Only problem is I use my laptop wirelessly 99.9% of the time in another room and cant use ethernet cable in that room and the download speeds are very disappointing. When running speedchecker the download speeds I get wirelessly are all over the place, the average best I get is about 10mb, I have had as low as 4mb, and once or twice as high as 29mb. I am hoping that this is just because my line is in the "10 day" stablisation period, however even then I have a gut feeling my best speed at the end of the 10 days will be 30mb. I have been poring over the BT forums since Friday, there are a LOT of horror stories there about people experiencing far worse results than me. Now I realise that people tend to only post on these forums when they have a problem, and therefore it means the vast majority are probably happy. However, you might want to bear in mind that if you cannot connect via ethernet cable your download results might be a lot lower than you think. To be fair BT more or less say that in the small print.

New router required!! I used to have the netgear WNDR4500 which gave 150Mbits/sec on 2.4GHz and 210Mbits/sec on 5GHz (room above the router). I have since moved to an Asus RT-N66U which gives similar speeds, but has VPN server functionality (my reason for change). Unfortunately, the wireless at 5GHz on the Asus is flakey (2.4GHz is fine). On the netgear WNDR4500, both wireless frequencies were rock-solid. Range on Asus is better than on Netgear.

Tests done using tripple-stream client with 40MHz channels on 5GHz. (40MHz channels on 2.4GHz is a bit anti-social!!)

Right enough, I don't know if its poss to just swap out a home hub not sure if BT gives you access to the PPPoE login details.

Nigel

For those over the road in Cowie (the have-not's), speak to your neighbors over the road who do have FTTC, and agree to go halves on the cost if they will share.

Something like:

2xPanel Antenna: http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-TL-ANT2409A-Outdoor-...

2xAlfa AWUS036NHR http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alfa-AWUS036NHR-High-Gain-Wi...

2xAlfa R66 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-Wireless-802-11N-AW...

The R66 (with FW update from Alfa) will talk to the high power USB adapter.

The kit can be used to setup a wireless-bridge across the road.

I have the Alfa R66 and AWUS036NHR attached to an antenna on the back of my motorhome. This generally gets me some internet access when in the wilds where there's no 3G. I use BTFON for the most part. Also works well abroad - park near a Macdonalds, and use their wifi from 100+ M away.

I also take the same kit on skiing holidays - generally somewhere to cable-tie the antenna on a balcony, and obtain some wifi from elsewhere, re-broadcasting the signal inside the apartment.

Using those two panel antenna's correctly aligned you should get a reliable 50Mbit link over a couple of hundred M. There is also a larger version of the panel antenna.

Nigel

Edited by veletron (Mon 11-Mar-13 13:22:06)

If you are getting the 76 Meg when using Ethernet then the issue is just that wireless does not go through walls very well