Plusnet sales should be able to give an estimate of "up to" vdsl speeds since they may use this checker (or similar) https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html if you give them your phone number

He's already on FTTC, with BT. Any estimate is likely to be wrong, in either direction.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 25-Oct-13 14:24:07)

I had contacted Plusnet yesterday as online checker indicated I could receive FTTC (yes currently on FTTC with BT) but could not give me an estimate speed. I contacted Plusnet CS and they too had difficulty giving an estimated speed, initial test did not give them a result. After holding for a while the Plusnet CS came back with an estimated speed of 24mps. I don't believe I will get anywhere near this as the best I get at the moment is 11mps on BT FTTC. I wont be disappointed getting half the 24mps estimate but the whole enquiry is to ensure I don't end up significantly below 11mps down and 1mps up.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

He's already on FTTC, with BT. Any estimate is likely to be wrong, in either direction.

How are those FTTC speed estimates arrived at, is it based solely on the line length to the cabinet?

Nobody knows. Some magic calculation within Openreach it seems. Don't forget they were all revised hugely downwards only a few months ago.

Suffice to say that if you've had FTTC for a while and haven't complained about it being wildly under-performing, then the connection speed you have isn't going to change if you migrate. Other than whatever normally happens with a re-sync.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Nobody knows. Some magic calculation within Openreach it seems. Don't forget they were all revised hugely downwards only a few months ago.

Suffice to say that if you've had FTTC for a while and haven't complained about it being wildly under-performing, then the connection speed you have isn't going to change if you migrate. Other than whatever normally happens with a re-sync.

Don't think I want fibre just yet in order to test estimates against actuals on an 18 month or 12 month contract...it will be interesting to see what my close neighbours get though assuming their modems or modem/routers are installed properly

Edited by 4M2 (Fri 25-Oct-13 16:06:57)

I went from BT ADSL to BT FTTC because at the time FTTC (with 40gig cap) was cheaper than ADSL. Also promised large speeds that didn't happen in the real world but as I increased from 6mps down and 0.4 up to 11mps down and 1mps up I was happy enough.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Suffice to say that if you've had FTTC for a while and haven't complained about it being wildly under-performing, then the connection speed you have isn't going to change if you migrate

@RobertoS - I did originally complain to BT and they sent out an engineer. He thought my speed was quite astonishing compared to how far from the cabinet I am. 'He said'... he had installed FTTC for others( in different areas)about as far from the cabinet as me who couldn't get a usable speed.

Edited by deleted (Fri 25-Oct-13 15:18:07)

I did originally complain to BT and they sent out an engineer. He thought my speed was quite astonishing compared to how far from the cabinet I am. 'He said'... he had installed FTTC for others( in different areas)about as far from the cabinet as me who couldn't get a usable speed.

Which is fair enough. The estimate was very wrong, and at point you could no doubt have cancelled because of it. But understandably, you wouldn't want to.

Similarly, if you order online from PlusNet and it shows that 24Mbps figure during the process, that will be junk in the BT Wholesale database. Your connection speed will be as now.

Note this Quidco page. Cashback occasionally fails, but costs you nothing even if it does. The Fibre one is the £20 , and line rental has to be added to those figures which are for the FTTC only. TopCashBack give £39.90, so that looks better, assuming the £12.99 for 9 months on PlusNet's site applies if you go that way.

In reply to a post by Speedchaser:

I went from BT ADSL to BT FTTC because at the time FTTC (with 40gig cap) was cheaper than ADSL. Also promised large speeds that didn't happen in the real world but as I increased from 6mps down and 0.4 up to 11mps down and 1mps up I was happy enough.

Actually if it was ADSL MAX then 6Mbps down and 0.4Mbps up (throughputs?) wasn't too bad

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Similarly, if you order online from PlusNet and it shows that 24Mbps figure during the process, that will be junk in the BT Wholesale database. Your connection speed will be as now.

So if I understand this correct your saying if I switch to Plusnet and they are able to deliver a faster service (for whatever reason) as they use BT Wholesale my speed will be kept at the slower current 11mps? And I assume from your assertion that if I were to report a slow speed to Plusnet they would contact BT Wholesale who would simply relay to Plusnet that 11mps is as fast as I will ever get?

Edited by deleted (Fri 25-Oct-13 22:52:28)