Any point in trying fibre at my distance?

Hi all.

I've just had another look at the bt availability checker and its now telling me i can get fibre at my address even though its been available in my area for a year now. A copy and paste of the availability below.

As you can see, it states that i will get faster speeds using adsl products but I've never taken the availability checker for granted as i'm currently getting 8-10 mbps with adsl 2+
I was going to give it a go but the family wont be to happy with no internet or slow internet. I'm around 3km from the exchange maybe 2.9km from the cabinet, that's a guesstimate. I've had a look at the vdsl distance chart and shows a possibility of around 8mbps. Anyone here tried fibre at long distance? any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks

Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

WBC FTTC Availibility Date

WBC SOGEA Availibility Date

High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 2.1 0.7 1.2 0.8 -- Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 1.3 0.3 1.1 0.5 -- Available --
ADSL Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 2.5 -- 1 to 4 Available --
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 2.5 Up to 0.5 1 to 4 Available --
ADSL Max Up to 2 -- 1 to 3.5 Available --
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available --
Other Offerings

Availability Date

VDSL Multicast -- -- -- Available --
ADSL Multicast -- -- -- Available --

At 2.9km you are going to be a lot slower than your existing 8-10 Mbps so DONT DO IT.

Ok MrSaffron. Thanks for the tip.

Hi there
Im 1.2 Miles from our "local cabinet" and signed up to Fttc last year, all the speed tests taken by me and my ISP showed 9Mbps or there abouts, ADSL max is all that is available otherwise and that was giving me 2Mbps on a good day with a following wind. When they switched me to the Fttc connection, the best speed I could get was 3.2Mbps sooo be warned, the drop off over any distance seems to be quite severe and also depends on the quality of your "last mile" of copper too. Imo I would suggest staying put.

Edited by deleted (Mon 03-Oct-16 16:48:59)

Thanks for the reply. I plan too. I've had a few openreach engineers in the past say the line is great. With my distance and my current speed a couple were surprised i was getting said speeds. Ya know the saying, curiosity killed the cat. I'll stick with adsl and hope for LR-VDSL to become a thing.

Im so hoping for that too or GFast or or or a tin can wi a bit o' string!

You should also carry out the Quiet Line Test etc, to ensure you are getting the most out of ADSL

It would also be good preparation for the Long Range FTTC if it becomes available.

Its surprising the the drop off is quick. Moved house within same close - line length about 200 meters longer - gone from 72Mbps to 48Mbps (also its a impacted line to I believe as only 1Mbps above min)

Sorry to bring this post back up, didn't want to create a new one.

I've just had a look at the bt availability checker and its now showing higher speeds for adsl products. Not sure if its a mistake? My speed hasn't changed whatsoever so my guess is its a mistake. I'm currently with sky and the bt website is telling me i'll get those speeds stated below. What im asking is do mistakes happen on the availability checker?


Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

WBC FTTC Availibility Date

WBC SOGEA Availibility Date

High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 2.1 0.7 1.2 0.8 -- Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 1.3 0.3 1.1 0.5 -- Available --
ADSL Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date


WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 15 -- 8.5 to 18.5 Available --
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 15 Up to 1.5 8.5 to 18.5 Available --
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available --
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available --
Other Offerings

Availability Date

VDSL Multicast -- -- -- Available --
ADSL Multicast -- -- -- Available --

BT have now brought their ADSL2+ (21CN) service to your exchange hence why the checker has been updated. In theory you should get more or less get the same speeds on ADSL2+ irrespective of provider. However it's possible your current service with Sky mIght be slowed down due to line/wiring/equipment issues, post your full router stats and we'll have a better idea and advise you further.

Thanks for the response. Bt have had those services available for years on the checker. The only thing that has changed is the speed increase on the adsl services, if you have a look at my previous post you can see what the speeds used to be. I think i just want to believe bt can give me faster broadband, probably not though.

Sky llu below/ADSL 2+ as you probably figured.


Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8800 kbps 799 kbps
Line Attenuation 43.5 dB 24.2 dB
Noise Margin 7.0 dB 14.14 dB

43dB attenuation if you are around 3.5 to 4km of cable from the exchange is about right for ADSL2+ giving 8 to 9 Mbps. No way would I expect 18 Mbps.

So yes they are being over optimistic in my view on the ADSL2+

Have you ever had sky manually adjust your line speeds?

The upstream is not typical of Sky DLM but is one of the fixed upstream values which CS set when manually adjusting the line speed.

Not to my knowledge. Though i've had countless problems over the past year with my line so they may have tweaked it without me knowing.

Yeah the calculations didn't seems right. Shame really, had my hopes up. I hope they don't calculate this uso thing using the availability checker as i don't want them thinking i'm receiving 10 or more at this address.

In reply to a post by woodmass14:

Yeah the calculations didn't seems right. Shame really, had my hopes up. I hope they don't calculate this uso thing using the availability checker as i don't want them thinking i'm receiving 10 or more at this address.

They will probably revise the figure after a couple of weeks I would have thought.

When we had our fibre cabinet installed, the checker claimed we could get 80/20 no problem at all. This wasn't even optimistic, but rather just plain wrong, as we're about 1500m from the cabinet. As it happens, the line got installed and we got 18/4, although several months later this dropped to 15/1.

After a few weeks of the line being active, BT did revise their figures to a more realistic 20/2.5.

I assumed bt got those estimates by running a line test. Couldn't say for sure but its odd that they throw in any random speed figure when in reality its impossible to get those sort of speeds. I'll give it some time to see if it sorts itself out.

Can only run accurate tests for the different technologies by hanging the appropriate modem off the end of the line, i.e. visit 29 million homes. There system is based on estimates from records and some other measurement methods, but are not foolproof.