In reply to a post by mlpstudios:

Question - the upload figure on BT wholesale says up to 220Mbps and I'm getting 100Mbps. I know that Zen said I would only get 100Mbps but I would like to know WHY I can only get 100Mbps when the line is rated for 220Mbps?

Is this a cap that Zen put in place or Openreach? Is it a hardware or software thing?

It’s a limit on your Zen plan. The line is capable of more - but Zen don’t offer that package and even if they did the cost would make your eyes water.

It's cheaper to buy 2x 900Mbps packages than trying to get the 220Mbps upload one, assuming whatever offsite backup service the OP is subscribed to can use more than one TCP connection (they will) then bonding will work really well.

Edited by jpm (Thu 09-Feb-23 22:13:48)

In reply to a post by mlpstudios:

Question - the upload figure on BT wholesale says up to 220Mbps and I'm getting 100Mbps. I know that Zen said I would only get 100Mbps but I would like to know WHY I can only get 100Mbps when the line is rated for 220Mbps?

Is this a cap that Zen put in place or Openreach? Is it a hardware or software thing?

Openreach currently offer 17 bandwidth profiles, each with a maximum and committed rates for downstream and upstream traffic - see https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/content/dam/cpp... Table 1.

Communication providers will typically only offer a subset of these to customers - whilst the maximum offered is 1000/220 this and the 500/165 profile both have a much greater setup and rental price so most providers do not offer services based on them.

Zen will be using the 1000/115 profile and knock a bit off the numbers to account for ethernet, PPPoE and IP framing/encapsulation overheads - 1460 bytes of TCP payload data uses 1526 bytes for transmission.

In reply to a post by mlpstudios:

p.s. the tool Siraj used to join the fibre strands together was pretty friggin cool

Pretty sure Openreach are now using UCLswift clad-aligning “all in one” splicers. They automate and take out a lot of manual steps in the cut, strip, cleave, splice, heat process.

The OP could treat themselves to one ….

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/354173647123?mkcid=16&mke...

That's a lot of machine for the money

That's excatly what it was, although it was a bit rubbish at stripping the coating off the fibre!

In reply to a post by tdw42:

Openreach currently offer 17 bandwidth profiles, each with a maximum and committed rates for downstream and upstream traffic - see https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/content/dam/cpp... Table 1.

Thank you tdw42, that's really interesting. So, can anyone also tell me why the BT Wholesale Speedtest can 'see' the maximum speed of the line (up and down) when the 'real world' speeds are capped?

Just for my own interest.
Many thanks.

In reply to a post by jpm:

That's a lot of machine for the money

That fleabay one’s a bit of a ripoff.

You can get their core-aligning version K33 from the trade for around £3K. The clad-aligning ones they give to the guys doing drop connections are a bit cheaper.

The gold standard though still is Sumitomo and Fujikura in this space.

In reply to a post by mlpstudios:

In reply to a post by tdw42:

Openreach currently offer 17 bandwidth profiles, each with a maximum and committed rates for downstream and upstream traffic - see https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/content/dam/cpp... Table 1.

Thank you tdw42, that's really interesting. So, can anyone also tell me why the BT Wholesale Speedtest can 'see' the maximum speed of the line (up and down) when the 'real world' speeds are capped?

Just for my own interest.
Many thanks.

BT Wholesale checker just list the maximum possible FTTP tier/package that could be available to an ISP.

No necessarily the packages offered by the dozens of service provider on Openreach.

As previously pointed out there are only a handful of providers that will sell 1000/220 as the audience for it is niche due to the cost.