Regarding fibre speeds

Hi i currently get under a sync speed of normally around 1mb sometimes less, the BT engineers are all finished working int he area i live in and i have a big ass green box at the end of my path.

So when it becomes available to order will it still matter how far the exchange is or just this box?

thanks!

also do you have to go with BT for fibre?!

In reply to a post by saece1:

So when it becomes available to order will it still matter how far the exchange is or just this box?

Just the box.

also do you have to go with BT for fibre?!

No. There are several ISPs that offer FTTC services.

http://www.robertos.me.uk/html/isps_offering_fttc.html

I was getting 3mb prior to FTTC and now get 26mb. Think it is distance from exchange not the box but not 100% sure. Above all else I find FTTC 1 million % more stable than old ADSL.

I have 2 x FTTC lines to my house., Old ADSL's, that I upgraded. One is with ADSL24 and one with Vivaciti.

Can't say one is better than the other as I never (touching wood) get issues so they just take money every month. Where I live I can only get BT so I assume both are using Openreach anyway in the background.

In reply to a post by doleawg:

Think it is distance from exchange not the box but not 100% sure.

You are one hundred percent wrong

The whole point of FTTC is to move the equipment that used to be in the exchange out to the street cabinet so that it is closer to the property using it. The distance from house to exchange or even cabinet to exchange is irrelevant. What matters is the length (and quality) of cable between property and cabinet.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

No. There are several ISPs that offer FTTC services.

http://www.robertos.me.uk/html/isps_offering_fttc.html

I should clarify that the cabinet, equipment inside it and the connection back to the serving exchange are all owned and operated by a division of BT called 'Openreach' so in that sense the answer to your question is 'no'. However Openreach don't sell internet services so you have to go with a different company. There are several ISPs that all use the Openreach FTTC network as shown in that spreadsheet.

There's unlikely to be any difference in the connection speed but peak time congestion, usage allowances, static IP availability and customer service vary. As does price

Edited by Andrue (Tue 01-May-12 09:09:48)

Also that list I give should now really be headed "Early adopters", as I expect a huge number of smaller ones are now available as well.

In reply to a post by saece1:

Hi i currently get under a sync speed of normally around 1mb sometimes less, the BT engineers are all finished working int he area i live in and i have a big ass green box at the end of my path.

So when it becomes available to order will it still matter how far the exchange is or just this box?

thanks!

also do you have to go with BT for fibre?!

You might find my explanation of how FTTC works a useful read .

Re the BT question, you may be a bit confused by the answers so far. To try to clarify those, I think you mean BT (Retail) Broadband, i.e. Infinity, to which the answer is clearly "No".

The confusion arises because the service between you and the exchange, via the cabinet, is entirely provided by Openreach, which is a BT Group company, just like BT Retail and BT Wholesale are. That service is called Generic Ethernet Access, (GEA), and your connection is handed over to other companies at the exchange.

Only three companies take the feed from GEA. Those are BT Wholesale, TalkTalk and recently Sky. (Which I do need to add to my list). All FTTC-supplying ISPs other than TT and Sky use the BT Wholesale GEA links, just like they do with the existing ADSL and ADSL2+ products.

You have possibly also been confused, (many of us would say deliberately misled), by the BT Retail broadband advertising campaign - "Superfast Broadband. Infinity - only from BT". Infinity is just their brand name for it, so of course it is only from them. Underneath it is Openreach GEA supplied by many.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You have possibly also been confused, (many of us would say deliberately misled), by the BT Retail broadband advertising campaign - "Superfast Broadband. Infinity - only from BT". Infinity is just their brand name for it, so of course it is only from them. Underneath it is Openreach GEA supplied by many.

And a very effective campaign it's been as well. I noticed that in the official Be forums when they finally came clean about their plans for FTTC. Most people were just referring to FTTC as 'BT Infinity' and only a few of us kept pointing out that there were other choices. I'm not convinced we got the point across although to be fair to BT their pricing is very good anyway.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

... although to be fair to BT their pricing is very good anyway.

predatory.