Infinity and Unlimited available from the same Cabinet

Copper cables run overhead a distance of 1300 metres from my property to a cabinet located in the nearby village - the exchange being a further 10 metres away. The cabinet and its sibling are listed by Openreach as Live for FTTC and properties geographically close to this cabinet can currently buy Infinity Broadband, as one would expect. But my copper connection terminates at the same box yet all I can purchase from BT is Unlimited Broadband at a price of £20 per month. I don't really have a problem with this as my HH4 consistently delivers >15 mbps but there is a move by some locals to campaign for "Superfast Broadband" across the parish. I am trying to understand how much cost and disruption this would entail and whether the end result merits the effort given that I can live happily with 15 mbps. Reading other posts it sounds as though I could get marginally more throughput from the existing copper by upgrading my router, so firstly I welcome any comments from the community on that question. Secondly, is it generally the case that BT offers differentiated packages for connections to the same cabinet, i.e. Infinity if you are close, but only Unlimited if you are more than a certain distance away?

I don't know the exact figures, but the FTTC (VDSL2) signal degrades much more rapidly than ADSL2+ which is what the "Unlimited Broadband" is.

Your speed for 1300 metres to the cabinet plus from there to the exchange sounds fine. But once you go over 1000 metres from the cabinet on FTTC things get very dodgy. Distance is the main determinant of speed, but things like the quality of the actual copper line from the cabinet to you are also important. If there are stretches of aluminium instead of copper then that really knocks it.

If you look at this graph you get the idea. There are other graphs a bit different but not a lot.

But! The important thing affecting you is that BT (Consumer/Retail) will only offer Infinity if they can be pretty sure you will get 15Mbps or more on it. They do not offer Infinity if the estimated speed is below 15Mbps.

As far as I know all other ISPs do offer FTTC well below 15Mbps. Some as low as 5Mbps in the past though I don't know now. "Infinity" is just BT Retail's name for their over 15Mbps FTTC product.

If you put your phone number into this checker, what do the VDSL A and B lines say?

BT do actually offer FTTC below 15Mbps, they just don't call it Infinity. IIRC it is something like "Faster broadband with fibre". But as I said, you may find Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk and many smaller ISPs are happy to supply.

RobertoS, thank you very much for your reply. The check you suggested shows both WBC ADSL 2+ and WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M as follows: Downstream Line Rate = "Up to 11" and Downstream Range = "9.5 to 12.5". There's no data for VDSL A or B Lines for my property.

However for the village shop, connected to the same cab but only 30m away, it says VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 80 20 20 Available and VDSL Range B (impacted) 80 60 20 17.3 Available. I notice that their figures for ADSL 2+ are significantly better too at 19.5 to 23 mbps.

In my position would you say it was worth experimenting with a different router in pursuit of a few more mbps across the ADSL 2+? If so, any recommendations ?

:Thanks again.

Before experimenting with another router and its probable cost, ensure your line is "clean" by carrying out the Quiet Line Test, dialling 17070 and following through.

There is no charge for this.

Having selected Option 2 (BT), listen for at least a minute, about 5 QLT announcements.

Given your rural situation and long length, also try the QLT under adverse weather conditions.

Can you confirm what mode of broadband your modem is connecting at? Unlimited Broadband is more in line with the description of an ADSL2+ service, than the slower than 15 Mbps service (that is still FTTC) but not called Infinity.

If the village shop is only 30 metres from you and getting those estimates, either there is another cabinet in the village or the estimate is wrong.

I read it as the shop is only 30m from the cabinet not 30m from the OP.

Did consider that, but want to double check this is what was meant.

To add to the questions from two other posters, I'm wondering if you and the shop really are on the same cabinet. If perhaps you are on a direct line to the exchange. Where did you get the info about the same cabinet?

On the line above the estimates table in the results of the test I linked you to, does it give the same exchange and cabinet number for you and the shop?

Sorry, my mistake. Looking more closely at the results I see now that there are at least 5 cabinets: Cabinets 1, 2 and 3 plus Cabinets E1 and E2. I am on E1, the ones that I can see getting Infinity are on Cabinets 1 or 3. They're using VDSL whilst I am on ADSL 2+. All the cabs are connected to the same exchange. Clearly some significant infrastructure is needed before people like me can get VDSL so it just comes down to the one remaining question....

To answer the above, the line test is pretty quiet, all I can hear is some steady low-amplitude white-noise. I am getting 15mbps+ using Home Hub 4 on ADSL 2+ over a distance of 1300 metres. Should I just be happy with this?

What exchange is this?

E numbered cabinets are usually those which have been used to convert people from Exchange only lines to All in one cabinets from what I gather.

It's possible that the work isn't yet completed on the all in one?

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Oct-16 12:08:25)