New FTTC Customer

Hi all, after reading these forums and not really finding many people on EE FTTC Broadband, I took the plunge and a week later its all set up.

Just a couple of things, I'd like to point out before I state anymore information that the support I had off EE was great, they understood what I was asking, they were able to help, and if they didn't have the answer they found it out for me and even called me back with updates as to questions I had had.

So heres my experience:

Ordered FTTC on Weds 30th January, Engineer booked for 6th February. Opted for the 76mbps unlimited bundle.
Engineer came yesterday at 11:00am (planned between 8am and 1pm) and installed the openreach modem and linked it to my Brightbox router. Told me the line profile had not been set correctly and was on 40mbps instead of 76mbps. Told me I needed to call EE, I called EE and was told it hadnt been put through correctly, the order was amended on the phone and they told me I might have to wait for 2 working days for it to become active. I thought no problem, got 40mbps so thats a good start.

For this next part to make sense, you need to understand I used to synch at around 7-8mbps on my old connection.
Came home from work to go on the internet to notice I was only getting 8.8mbps down and 512kbps up, line was as steady as a rock so I looked into it in more detail.

Totally forgot about the stabilisation period and the fact that my bRAS profile would not have adjusted yet, so phoned EE just to double check everything was in order on their end. They explained it could take up to 10 days for my line to adjust to its maximum.

Being the avid internet'er I am, I decided to test the connection at regular intervals. I found that my bandwidth was indeed increasing up to my currently set line profile of 40mbps. Upon getting up this morning and checking my internet, my line profile has now been altered to the 76mbps I originally ordered and continues to go up in speed as my bRAS profile adjusts to my new synch speeds.

I'm currently getting 30mbps download stable on my LAN bandwidth meter but every hour or so it jumps up by about 1-2mbps. I've been told my line should be able to handle 59mbps. We shall see

Upload is a little under expected, but it is also on the increase slowly but surely.

Here is a current speed reading: Remember this is 24 hours from install and still within my line stablisation period.



For those interested in latency, my old latency due to interleaving was about 35ms, to bbc.co.uk

Now:

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.95] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.246.95: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=53
Reply from 212.58.246.95: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=53
Reply from 212.58.246.95: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=53
Reply from 212.58.246.95: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 212.58.246.95:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 12ms, Maximum = 13ms, Average = 12ms


By no means is this post a rant, quite the opposite, so far my experience has been fine, all within what EE told me my expectations should be over the coming week or so. If there are any problems, or problems develop I shall update further.

Only 2 things I dislike about FTTC broadband.

1) You cant access the BT Wholesale Modem (unless you follow some hacking guides) So trying to discover your line stats is difficult.

2) I hate wireless, so had to lay a Ethernet cable from my master socket to my bedroom. Don't flame me for not liking wireless, its just a personal preference! Plus I don't have a wireless card in my PC.

Other than that, good experience so far. Hopefully this helps some people interested in placing an order.

In reply to a post by BorgMaster:

Came home from work to go on the internet to notice I was only getting 8.8mbps down and 512kbps up

Surprised at that! Users going on Plusnet FTTC, also handled by BTw, generally report getting near quoted speeds immediately. Whose ADSL were you coming from? FTTC wouldn't remember your old IP Profile.

Just on a matter of terminology:

bRAS Profiles don't apply to FTTC; they were for old 20CN connections. FTTC (& 21 CN WBC) employ BTw's IP Profiles.

It's BT Openreach's FTTC modem, not BTw's.

Was on orange technically speaking, but crossing over to EE.

In regards to your comment relating to the bRAS profiles, that may be true, however its very suspect that I've experienced the incremental increase in speeds rather than all at once, maybe you or someone else can explain that to me? because it seems very much like thats whats happened, only way I can describe it.

The reason for experiencing the delay was because the line profile was not set correctly as part of the order, hence the BTw engineer asking me to call EE to get them to ammend it. Like I say though, all happened quite quickly despite a slight mess up on their part. Cant fault them for how quickly they reacted on it, only how they failed to get it right first time

The incorrect order may have been why the incremental increase has occurred.

Edited by deleted (Thu 07-Feb-13 20:39:47)

Slowly but surely rising still lol.

just keeping this up to date with how my line is gradually increasing

Coming along nicely

At least you've passed the 40 Meg barrier and know you are on the 80 Meg package.

Yep, its good stuff, BT checker shows less, but I guess that might have something to do with me not logging in as test user, and this is also how i checked my line profile:

Download speedachieved during the test was - 40.88 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 12 Mbps-77.43 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 77.43 Mbps



I was predicted 59 mbps, so anything more at this point is a bonus

In reply to a post by BorgMaster:

Yep, its good stuff, BT checker shows less, but I guess that might have something to do with me not logging in as test user, and this is also how i checked my line profile:

Download speedachieved during the test was - 40.88 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 12 Mbps-77.43 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 77.43 Mbps



I was predicted 59 mbps, so anything more at this point is a bonus

What do people expect for the upload speeds as the 2mb shown here seems very low.

Edit:
Just done a quick google and found this. Looks like you should be getting nearer 10Mbs upload

Edited by deleted (Fri 08-Feb-13 15:33:19)

still on the up

this is true, however its till increasing slowly but surely, I dare say once the downstream levels out the upstream will follow suit also