What happened to all the tech stuff?

It's many years since I discovered this excellent site so please forgive the nostalgia. Time was that posts were filled with all sorts of fascinating problems, usually swiftly solved by TBB's willing enthusiasts who shared their body of knowledge. Some of them (eg Bob) even put up informative websites to help solve our frequent problems.

Then came fibre and the tech queries seem to have disappeared apart from those poor folk still stuck on ADSL, and instead the most popular subject (apart from prices of course) seems to be how to decipher the weird squiggles on roads around the cabinets, how soon fibre can be connected, and how even faster speeds can be attained. Is fibre that much more reliable, as I am finding for myself?

I've found that too, but I think you've answered your own question:

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

Is fibre that much more reliable, as I am finding for myself?

Yes

But a decent ISP helps!

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

Is fibre that much more reliable, as I am finding for myself?

Yes

Assuming you mean VDSL, for me, no difference. The problems I had on ADSL all related to wiring issues within a couple of meters of the property which would affect VDSL just as much.

But most ADSLx problems were long solved, and other than new ones inevitably arising in the network aren't likely to recur. Plus most carefully phrased searches on here would throw up the answers.

Similarly with VDSL2 in fact. It is mainly installed onto ADSLx circuits that have already been optimised by residents or Openreach. As a result there have always been fewer problems on it once teething ones in the network and poor modems were largely eliminated. Quite apart from the reduction in copper length involved.

Forums such as this one will have to evolve to mainly discussions of "Which ISP?" and FTTP v 4G/5G. I don't expect 5G to become ubiquitous in the next decade unless its range per mast is vastly increased.

Even the question of poor DSL at holiday lets will go if they all have FTTP.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Even the question of poor DSL at holiday lets will go if they all have FTTP.

The next big buzz around the forum will probably be the widescale rollout of FTTP whenever that happens. FTTPoD of course exists but few can justify the outlay. I only recently joined the FTTC party having decided 14 meg ADSL2+ suited my needs adequately, long after my cab was enabled.

The low marginal extra cost of FTTC finally moved "nice to have" into "worth having".

True. But even that will make it just be a centre for expressions of pleasure.

There could be a rise in VOIP queries I expect, and there isn't much yet about VPNs as those are still a niche market.

I found my Norton IS system (not Norton 360) included one at last renewal. As it seems 360 now does too. I might try it some day, but not sure what for.

I heard Norton promoting their VPN on the radio, it sounded like they were pushing the VPN service primarily for people using public wi-fi.

In reply to a post by billford:

But a decent ISP helps!

Ah yes: the hunt for the elusive decent ISP.

Ma;waremike.

When all you can get is 2-4Mbit every little bit of technical help mattered, as you move to 40-75Mb you do not notice if you lose 5--10Mb so help is not required by as many people. Only those testing their connection regularly notice when they lose some bandwidth and they usually know enough to check what needs checking.

On the higher bandwidth services, ( over 40Mb ) unless users do a speed test, they only notice if there is congestion or contention at the distant end. Except WiFi issues or 4+ people households.

On FTTP and GBit services these are the frequent complaints that files don't load at full speed by those that do not understand the distant servers contend users for their ( frequently less than 1Gb ) bandwidth.

None of these issues require technical input at a user end. So we tend to only get router setup and Wifi issues, usually 2.4 verses 5Gb frequency splits.

Seems like there are many complainers going from 70mbps down to 60mbps and want to know why.

The odd person also wants 300mbps on their VM connection and only get 200mbps.

The phrase "up to" has been banned but that is what everyone pays for.