Neighbours get super fast and I don’t?

I’m in the process of buying a terrace house in Hampshire, it’s one of a dozen built in the mid 90s, other properties on the same road and nearby are much older.


I’ve run a check at broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com and it says I’m on fibre 1, max speed of 36mbps, meanwhile all my terrace neighbours, and all the other neighbours on my road in all directions (and slightly further away in very old isolated cottages) are on fibre 2 with max speed of 80mpbs. Openreach fibre FTTC was available in the area from last year apparently, exchange and cabinet number is the same for whole road.

It also says we’re connected to the same exchange and same cabinet, and apart from the speed all other data is the same. Screenshots of mine and neighbours results available HERE

What gives? Shouldn’t I have the same potential speeds as all my neighbours? My house is attached to theirs, and every other property on this road has up to 80mbps. Do you think this could be a database error, or is there something physically wrong with my line?


extra info: I haven’t moved into the property yet so the tests I can run are limited, the current owner performed a speed test for me and so did their immediate neighbours (super fast) and they both came up around 33mbps, I imagine neither of them are paying for a particularly fast internet package as they’re not heavy users, but I am as several members of my household all work from home.

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Oct-20 13:26:08)

In reply to a post by rainbowfountains:

I’m in the process of buying a terrace house in Hampshire, it’s one of a dozen built in the mid 90s, other properties on the same road and nearby are much older.


I’ve run a check at broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com and it says I’m on fibre 1, max speed of 36mbps, meanwhile all my terrace neighbours, and all the other neighbours on my road in all directions (and slightly further away in very old isolated cottages) are on fibre 2 with max speed of 80mpbs.

It also says we’re connected to the same exchange and same cabinet, and apart from the speed all other data is the same.

What gives? Shouldn’t I have the same potential speeds as all my neighbours? My house is attached to theirs, and every other property on this road has up to 80mbps. Do you think this could be a database error, or is there something physically wrong with my line?


extra info: I haven’t moved into the property yet so the tests I can run are limited, the current owner performed a speed test for me and so did their immediate neighbours (super fast) and they both came up around 33mbps, I imagine neither of them are paying for a particularly fast internet package as they’re not heavy users, but I am as several members of my household all work from home.

It’s going to be a glitch in the records most likely.

@Zarjaz Thanks, do you think this will cause problems for me? I tried getting a few broadband quotes with various providers and they’re offering me the lowest package as that’s what’s available for my house according to the glitchy records

Or could be that its the one property served by another cabinet. So many things it could be.

That is the problem - i.e. to avoid mis selling a faster product when you look like you cannot utilise it providers will only offer the slower service.

Ultimately it is something that is best fixed once in the property. It may be your property is correct and the others are wrong, i.e. cabinet is not right outside their houses which the figures at https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Fibre-broadband/Neigh... suggest

Yep.

Which part of Hampshire ? I know the Hampshire/Surrey border area pretty well.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Or could be that its the one property served by another cabinet. So many things it could be.

Exchange and cabinet are definitely the same, I ran a test for mine and neighbours (results above)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

That is the problem - i.e. to avoid mis selling a faster product when you look like you cannot utilise it providers will only offer the slower service.

Ultimately it is something that is best fixed once in the property. It may be your property is correct and the others are wrong, i.e. cabinet is not right outside their houses which the figures at https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Fibre-broadband/Neigh... suggest

Cabinet is apparently 3m up the road. A big tourist venue and factory was added very nearby in 2010s and I think (but not certain) the fibre for the area was upgraded for that.

That’s a lot of wrong properties if that’s the case, not just the terrace neighbours, but the other houses and commercial buildings in the road

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Oct-20 12:55:46)

3 metres or 3 miles ?

While usually that part is correct, there are instances of this being wrong.

when you check the different addresses does it show different cabinet numbers at the top?

The exchange and cabinet are on the line above the table, which you haven't included.

Go back to this checker: https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Look up your property, two next door to you on left or right / front or back and post back results here: Don't put address with door number on it but leave post code and also must including the cabinet number on top of the checker like mine bottom screen with red circle for example:

https://ibb.co/VLY9k2D

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Go back to this checker: https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Look up your property, two next door to you on left or right / front or back and post back results here: Don't put address with door number on it but leave post code and also must including the cabinet number on top of the checker like mine bottom screen with red circle for example:

https://ibb.co/VLY9k2D

Already done this, link in original post. Neighbours all have same cabinet number as me (11) and speeds 80mbps, I’m the only one with 33mpbs but all other details on the report are the same.

I cropped out the top as it had personal details, but the cabinet number was identical on all of them (11), as was the exchange, literally the only difference between mine and my neighbours was the speed.

This is not just the other terrace houses attached to mine, but all the other houses along that road (several miles long) including very old cottages and commercial buildings. I’ve checked neighbours closest to me, and a few other random houses along the same road, same exchange, same cabinet, just my speed that’s different.

House is NOT new, was built in the 90s (terraces), most other houses in the road are hundreds of years old, the community building is next door to me (seperated by a car park) and that was built in the last 10 years. There’s also a major factory and tourist attraction across the road built less than 10 years ago, and the whole area was upgraded to FTTC last year.

On most of the older properties I can see visible phone lines, but nothing on the terraces so I assume it’s underground from when they were built.

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-Oct-20 16:29:45)

Do you have a connection? Do your neighbours? If not then what you are seeing are guesstimates with yours most likely incorrect. It is extremely unlikely that your speeds will be markedly different to those seen by your immediate neighbours despite what you are seeing in those reports.

Given postcode and address can usually tell if speeds are sensible or suspect