Interesting timing.
Today, I downgraded from Infinity 1 to ADSL2+. My obvious initial concern was what would it be like doing all the stuff I used to do on Fibre.
Last week while still on fibre, I ran a test to fire up as many streaming devices as I could.
2*nowTvs
1*Iplayer
1*remote plex HD Stream
Youtube.
Thats about as much as I could muster at once, and it didn't skip a beat. No buffering or anything. I was quite impressed. It was total overkill for a normal scenario, but a good test.

So, today came, fibre went, then ADSL went live again. Time to re-run the test
2*NowTv,
1 IPlayer,
YoutubeHD
1 * remote plex HD

Guess what, didn't miss a beat! Now I'm super impressed and saving in the region of £25 per month. Not out of the woods yet as obviously upload speeds are where the real impact is by a factor of 10, but as with most users, its download speeds that count the most. Once I get my server back up, I'll run some tests streaming out to test, but I suspect this is where I will notice a difference.

My initial speeds are approx 9Mbps and I'm hoping that will improve once I can tinker with SNR figures.

My reasoning for switching back to ADSL2+ was and still is a temporary stop gap until my new ISP goes live with a new fibre product and I was interested to see if I could cope with ADSL2+ speeds, and initial impressions seem to suggest I can. This could be difficult to justify upgrading again when the time comes!

Interesting - again!

When I was on ADSL, I was getting around 17 Mbps, more than enough for my relatively limited use - for example, it is rarely that I watch a video etc.

I delayed about 3 months before upgrading to a 40/10 contract, a combination of it only being £1 per month more; and that at the time, I was unaware of how low upgrade rates were, both locally and nationally, so effectively wanted to ensure that I had VDSL connections available, should I wish or have need for faster.

--------------

Regarding your return to ADSL, it seems to have been very easy and quick, which technically I would expect - aside from exchange and D-slam alterations, it looks as though locally, the links from PCP to FTTC and back would have to be cut and neatly stowed; followed by reconnecting the E & D sides directly within the PCP - and probably a change of modem/router if the existing pair were not designed to handle ADSL.

It is interesting but only if you have a fast ADSL2 line in the first place. I used to be quite happy on even 6mb/s, way back in 2009. Moved to this area, back in 2011 and the speed was 1.4mb/s max. Totally impracticable for the modern age. I quite frequently would get up and go make a coffee. It really was that bad. Worse was having to pay BT a fair wad of cash (£30) each month for a capped service. TV streaming was a BIG no. Even Skype would frequently complain about the line being too slow for voice only call.

Fast forward to today (Fibre arrive back last October) .Yes, Plusnets Fibre is costing me another £14 a month extra (£45 unlimited) but I no longer get emails (as I used to get from BT) saying you've nearly used up your 10gb for the month. We have been up to using over 250gb a month at times. And the wait, what wait? Most pages load so fast sometimes one can fail to notice the change if they are very similar in layout. As for downloads. I no longer care how big a file size it is. 200mb takes seconds. Having been in the slow lane, I know what I'd rather have any day.

Edited by 69bertie (Fri 17-Jun-16 17:16:50)

The main reason I upgraded to FTTC was because I could. The geek in me insisted on getting the best I could. Truth is I could get by on 40/10 easily and even ADSL would probably be okay. The main difference I've noticed is that I now have a 100% reliable connection. ADSL wasn't bad but I'd get two or three drops a month. Now it's more like two or three a year and even then they are probably service outages rather than my line.

Even back in the days of dial-up, over 1,284 Metres from the exchange, I generally got about 48K Bauds, occasionally up to around 54K Bauds.

Much to the chagrin of the computer shop owner in the High Street, about 350 Metres to the exchange, who got apparently about 36K Bauds there; and lucky to see just over 30K Bauds at his home in a different town.

And I remember the days of 110 Baud and 300 Baud - then 1200 Baud being a revelation and revolution.

I wonder how many on the forum have used Acoustic Couplers for general purposes or the 1200/75 modems for the GPO Text System?

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

I wonder how many on the forum have used Acoustic Couplers for general purposes or the 1200/75 modems for the GPO Text System?

Certainly used acoustic couplers. And I remember using the 100(?)baud Termiprinter.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

I wonder how many on the forum have used Acoustic Couplers for general purposes or the 1200/75 modems for the GPO Text System?

Certainly used acoustic couplers. And I remember using the 100(?)baud Termiprinter.

<Yorkshire> Luxury!
I remember when I were t'lad maintaining 50 baud ERP 7 telex machines.
</Yorkshire>

When we were developing comms software c.1967 the S/W team were in London (Hartree House above Whiteleys in Bayswater), the H/W team in Staffordshire (Kidsgrove for those who know it).

For local testing we used a paper tape reader with a long tape loop as a pseudo comms line. When we wanted to connect to the H/W we had to phone the Kidsgrove switchboard, a manual plug switch, ask for the extension and the operator would put us through. Trouble is she'd listen in to the line after a few minutes and just hear crackles and buzzes so assumed the call had ended and 'pulled the plug'!

If I remember correctly, the ICL Termiprinter, with magnetic reluctance keying.

We had a former "touch typist" who frequently unintentionally broke the cores; and we had to wet the nylon carpet tiles to avoid electro-static problems.