'Superfast Broadband' described

Why do BT (and many other providers) dishonestly describe FTTC as 'Superfast' when it patently does not fit any such definition? My own line is rated by BT as having predicted speeds between 5-15Mbps (FTTC), alongside the description "Great news, Superfast fibre is in your area".

I do get up to 12 Mbps on a good day, but nowhere near the official definition of 'Superfast', i.e 24Mbps or above.

FTTC is "superfast" in the vast majority of cases, a relatively small percentage of lines, like yours, fall below the threshold. Your area almost certainly does have superfast - your area is more than just your house so others in "your area" will almost certainly get superfast speeds.

Unfortunately their website probably isn't setup to cater for the relatively low number of circumstances where FTTC doesn't run above 24Mbps. Given the very high percentage of people who do get superfast on FTTC I doubt very much anyone is going to take providers to task over this.

Thanks ian72, now I know! My neighbours and I are 'orphans', being near our county border, but on the exchange of the neighbouring county, so we are on nobody's scheme for Superfast, let alone FTTP, unlike people much further up the road who are on the local exchange. Such is life!

Do you get less than 10Mb? If so then there is hope for you when the USO kicks in. Have you checked other options like 4G?

Thanks for the info. I usually get 11 - 12 Mbps, which is not bad, but only 4 - 5 at peak times, which is roughly what my immediate neighbour gets all the time, coincidentally on the same ISP, so I don�t know why mine is better than his!

Does the sync speed change at peak times? If not, who is your current provider as that suggests network congestion is kicking in and slowing you down? You could find moving to a different ISP would give you more consistent speeds at all times of the day.

In reply to a post by DAT:

Thanks for the info. I usually get 11 - 12 Mbps, which is not bad, but only 4 - 5 at peak times, which is roughly what my immediate neighbour gets all the time, coincidentally on the same ISP, so I don�t know why mine is better than his!

If your throughput speed varies by that amount something is wrong.

Would you mind telling us your ISP, in case they have a history of peak-time congestion. Also there is a possibility your phone wiring at home is sub-optimal and your neighbour's worse.

Snap!

You need to have a word with BT about your exchange capacity if your throughput drops by half in the evening. Especially with you having a low sync in the first place.

That essentially means those getting full 80Mb may also drop to 4-5Mb at peak, and that isn't the norm.

At the moment it isn't confirmed that BT are the ISP - for clarity they need to speak to their ISP but it is quite likely ISP network rather than exchange capacity that is the issue.

I see the person is in West Sussex so it is possible that Kijoma might supply a wireless service.