Is it true?

Hi all

I currently get download speeds circa 26Mb/s. It is nothing to do with the provider as far as I know, the area has fibre to the box but copper to the house. I have been told that if Openreach install a digital line to my house, that would allow me to get to download speeds minimum 40Mb/s. Is this true or just a sales pitch?

No. But if Fibre to The Premises is available you can get much faster.

Thanks for responding, why is it not true?

There is no such thing. It's either copper (like you have now) or fibre.

https://www.openreach.com/upgrading-the-UK-to-digita...

(Edit: This post was drafted and posted while the earlier replies to the OP took place).

If your source means if Openreach (or any other such as CityFibre) install a fibre link to your house (FTTP) then yes it is true in that the connection speed would be exactly as advertised in both directions. Whereas your current FTTC connection speed depends on the length and quality of the copper (sometimes aluminium) between you and the cabinet, as I expect you know.

The actual throughput speed you get is still subject to a small amount of overheads and the individual provider's capacity at the exchange plus other factors, but most of the time is not an issue. On the 40/10 product I would expect almost full speed on a speed test. Also on the higher 900Mbps products.

An extreme case of course would be if I had an internet server in my house with my website on it. The throughput speed you got if you visited my site would be limited by my upload connection speed and how many others were accessing it at the same time .

Edited by pluralist (Mon 24-Jan-22 14:18:22)

Just using you broadband to carry a phone service. It doesn't change your line physically so won't give you a faster connection.

You will need to expand on what you have specifically been told about a ‘digital line’ from the FTTC cabinet to your house….

There may be some confusion, as a regular residential (or even business) FTTC connection using the existing copper pair from your house to the cabinet uses VDSL2 technology (note the D in the acronym stands for digital 😉). This *IS* very much a digital line - although it is an imperfect digital line - because of the generally imperfect nature of the physical connection. That is, it will be limited by the laws of physics in relation to the length of the circuit which primarily influence the signal attenuation (loss) which in turn places a cap on the overall throughput of the connection.

Further reductions in throughput of your connection are generally caused by line noise (crosstalk) from other neighbours FTTC connections to the same cabinet. The imperfect nature of the unshielded copper pairs in bundles of cables, means that alien crosstalk from other services impinges on the ‘clear’ signal carrying capability of your circuit. This is known as the SNR or signal to noise ratio of the line. A very busy cabinet at busy times of the day or week, will often suffer poorer throughout on individual circuit because of this.

Another provider may promise you better throughput - which in some cases they may achieve because their ‘backhaul’ connectivity from the local loop is perhaps less congested than your incumbent provider. However this must be tempered by the fact that in reality your copper connection as explained above will generally not significantly be able to be improved. Perhaps provisioning another copper pair or using another existing cable pair may help, but there’s no guarantees.

Treat any such claims in general of large performance improvements with a healthy degree of skepticism. Ask specifically how they will better the performance.

Thanks Pheasant. I will get more detail and post again, but from the call I think this was being spoken about: https://www.openreach.com/upgrading-the-UK-to-digita...

Well that's an entirely different matter altogether.

The link above is about the imminent retirement of PSTN / effectively dial-tone down the copper line from the exchange.

By the end of 2025 PSTN will cease to exist as we know it now. It will be replaced by 'over the top' voice over IP connections that require an underlying broadband service to function. Thus if there is no existing broadband on the copper pair - just a straightforward voice line - then in future the voice provider will need to provision a 'light' broadband service to carry the voice.

That won't necessarily be anything to do with getting a better broadband connection (over copper at least).

Edited by Pheasant (Mon 24-Jan-22 14:05:33)