BT vs Sky in Rural Area - which to go for?

BT Wholesale checker states that i can get up to 38mb fibre - but know that this is erroneous as my in-laws closer to the exchange have already had the service refused!

This is a new build house around 4miles from the exchange. According to the Northern Ireland Direct Website, the area should be able to receive 24meg+ from April 2015.

However, i still have to make do with standard 1meg broadband til then. As there is no phone line in, i am using an address checker, sky estimate 0.2-0.7mbps, BT 1mbps.

There is a decent saving with Sky - but what would you advise as being the more stable/quicker etc in this situation? I don;t actually mind paying more if i am going to get a slightly better speed... Plus, when fiber becomes available, i will probably still be within the 12month contract so therefore the upgrade to a quicker product will have to be with the same ISP.

Any advice would be mightily appreciated!

T1979

Do you mean this BT Wholesale checker? Whether or not, please could you use the Address option there, (not the pure postcode one), and post the table it gives plus the line above the table but of course with the address edited out.

The distance from the exchange is irrelevant for FTTC, so your in-laws' experience may not matter.

Go with BT.

Nothing against SKY, but least with BT they have some form of tie in with Openreach.

Thanks. Here goes...

Address -------, MAGHERAFELT CO L'DERRY, BT45 7-- on Exchange DRAPERSTOWN is served by Cabinet 7
Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

High Low High Low
FTTC Range A (Clean) 37 28.3 7.7 6.1 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 29.9 15.6 7.7 4.3 -- Available

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 1 -- 1 to 3.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1 -- 0.75 to 2.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Do you mean this BT Wholesale checker? Whether or not, please could you use the Address option there, (not the pure postcode one), and post the table it gives plus the line above the table but of course with the address edited out.

The distance from the exchange is irrelevant for FTTC, so your in-laws' experience may not matter.

Hopefully BT don't have that much of a tie in or it goes against the regulations. Sky/BT Retail should have the same access to Openreach.

As far as which is better for speed it is swings and roundabouts. If the OP wants to get max speed then probably neither would be the best and neither are known for being able to spend much time with a user tweaking their connection. To get that sort of potential probably want to be with AAISP or Zen or similar.

In reply to a post by tates1979:

FTTC Range A (Clean) 37 28.3 7.7 6.1 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 29.9 15.6 7.7 4.3 -- Available

Yes, that confirms you can get fibre now between 15-37 Meg.

Your in-laws' situation has no bearing on it.

Yes, but this is their phone line checker and the engineer came to supply infinity and said the best they could get is/was 2.5mb! It's just that I want to order an install so I can have something working for the end of the month. Apparently if I order infinity and they can't supply then I will have to start the order process all over agin for regular BT broadband...

Telephone Number 02879------- on Exchange ------- is served by Cabinet 7
Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

High Low High Low
FTTC Range A (Clean) 80 80 20 20 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80 69.7 20 17.9 -- Available

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 1 -- 1 to 3.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1 -- 0.75 to 2.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available
BET Up to 2 -- -- Available

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by tates1979:

FTTC Range A (Clean) 37 28.3 7.7 6.1 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 29.9 15.6 7.7 4.3 -- Available

Yes, that confirms you can get fibre now between 15-37 Meg.

Your in-laws' situation has no bearing on it.

Do you know where Cabinet 7 is, and whether or not there is an FTTC cabinet by it?

It could just be that there is a problem specific to your in-laws, or a cruddy engineer from a contractor. BT wouldn't process the order if they didn't believe it is available. What did BT say afterwards?

It might even have been that the initial line cards in the cabinet were all in use at the time, and that it has been upgraded since.

As a connection seems to be vital in the timescale then if you are really nervous go for ADSL2+ and submit an upgrade order as soon as that is live. I'm fairly sure Plusnet will let you do that, you would have to ask BT and Sky. I think TalkTalk do it by default. I'm sure there is a recent thread, but can't find it .

Thanks for advice - think that is the best route.

Yep, cabinet 7 is approx 2.5m away, FTTC cabinet there (green one?).

BT just said "unfortunately it doesn't look like we're able to supply it". That was it.

They had 2 goes at supplying it.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Do you know where Cabinet 7 is, and whether or not there is an FTTC cabinet by it?

It could just be that there is a problem specific to your in-laws, or a cruddy engineer from a contractor. BT wouldn't process the order if they didn't believe it is available. What did BT say afterwards?

It might even have been that the initial line cards in the cabinet were all in use at the time, and that it has been upgraded since.

As a connection seems to be vital in the timescale then if you are really nervous go for ADSL2+ and submit an upgrade order as soon as that is live. I'm fairly sure Plusnet will let you do that, you would have to ask BT and Sky. I think TalkTalk do it by default. I'm sure there is a recent thread, but can't find it .

If you can supply address details and phone number to [email protected] we can look at the issue and if cabinet is really so far away get the online checker corrected