In reply to a post by smouty:

I get <7ms on FTTC.
I have switched to Stadia over Xbox for gaming and for a streaming service it is as responsive as playing natively on a PC or console.

Another subscription service. I had a look at Stadia, don't look enough on there for many games player, £9 a month is a fair bit and the problem is you lose them when you stop paying.
too many subscriptions, I am thinking of dropping netflix next year, so just Disney+ and Prime.

Post deleted by smouty - double post

Edited by smouty (Tue 17-Aug-21 08:29:12)

Another subscription service. I had a look at Stadia, don't look enough on there for many games player, £9 a month is a fair bit and the problem is you lose them when you stop paying.
too many subscriptions, I am thinking of dropping netflix next year, so just Disney+ and Prime.

You couldn’t be more wrong and this is a common misconception.
You do not need to subscribe at all to play the games you own or are free to play such as Destiny 2.
Even games you buy when subscribed at a massive discount you keep without any restrictions if you cancel.

You do not even require any hardware.

Of course FTTP is better than FTTC. It's faster, has lower latency and far more reliable.

There'll always be a group of people, usually much older people, that'll not be able to tell the difference. Think back to elderly people prefering black and white TV's over colour, for years after they released etc.

Eventually FTTC will be turned off, so even those prefering inferior technology will be forced to move on.

Not ageist then 😉

And there is a lot of people who just look at the numbers and think more is better irrespective whether it will make any difference to them, similarly with reliability if you current line is stable and reliable adding an extra level of reliable won't make much difference.

On the subject of reliability though my FTTC line was more reliable than the power over the last few years - one big loss going with FTTP is loss of phone lines when the power is out, back in 2013 I was in a area where a storm took out the power for a day or so, that knocked out the virgin box fairly quickly and the local mobile networks were gone within a few hours so if there is an emergency you need to call for help then something about being up a creek sans paddle comes to mind.

Note that with FTTP there are no powered street cabinets (unlike Virgin); your fibre path is passive all the way to the headend exchange, which is usually one of the larger exchanges rather than a small local exchange, and it will have good power backup.

Therefore, the only thing which matters is the power at your house for the ONT and router. You can solve this yourself with battery backup, or even a diesel generator, depending on what level of paranoia you wish.

Looks like Virgin are going to go above and beyond the OFCom proposal of back-up for an hour in the event of a power outage. According to the BBC News web-site (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58233420), Virgin will be offering a battery backup to give 24 hours standby and 1 hour talk time to vulnerable customers and those who do not have reliable mobile phone access.

Doesn't help if you normally have reliable mobile coverage but the outage has taken the mast down but it is a step beyond the regulatory proposals.

In reply to a post by smouty:

You couldn’t be more wrong and this is a common misconception.
You do not need to subscribe at all to play the games you own or are free to play such as Destiny 2.
Even games you buy when subscribed at a massive discount you keep without any restrictions if you cancel.

You do not even require any hardware.

So what is the subscription for? The way it is on their website makes it look like you have to subscribe.

As for no hardware, I am pretty sure you would need some hardware, unless you are going to play the games with your mind.


It is still not something I would use, this sort of thing was tried once before and failed, Amazon has a lot of money to put behind this, but even Amazon will only chuck so much at it if it doesn't start making a profit.
I am not saying it won't do well, just that it have been tried before, people seem to prefer the xboxes and PlayStations, oh yeah and switches.

That is only true with OR FTTP. Many of the altnets (e.g. Gigaclear) use distribution cabinets that are powered. Although the cabinets have backup batteries, my area has lengthy power outages several times a year that are likely to be longer than the battery will run the cab.