In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Seems to be happening since a lot of the FTTP installs and sales reps going round trying to get people to sign up (particularly Virgin).

I posted about my Aunt who was convinced she needs FTTP over FTTC despite living alone and only using WhatsApp and Netflix streaming occasionally. If its happened within my small family circle, im sure its happened across the UK.

I believe i saw another poster on here too from another ISP sales rep who used underhand sales tactics about the copper cables getting removed in their area so they need to upgrade to FTTP

Opportunism, and you'd have been very upset at what the cable companies did when they first built out to areas. Gentlemen suited and booted as was the way back then.

If you would show me where this was specifically mentioned in the original post, which could be summarised as a statement that they neither want or need the higher speeds so at best no-one else should and at worst they're mugs that'd be appreciated.

I might be mistaken as I began to lose both consciousness and sanity having seen the original poster bang on about these things so many times across various websites, complete with the references to their really rather tragically small world as typical of everyone that I had to tap out.

To be clear: if everyone took the lowest possible tier that they could get by with that tier would go up in price. The pricing relies on people using a fraction of the capacity available to them and falls apart if usage is too heavy. That model breaks the alternatives are higher prices across the board or a standing charge and pay per gigabyte.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by Rhynchelma:

You'll be lucky, in my experience, if game update servers will give you 900Mbps or anything near to that.

I notice with steam that a lot of time it don't even get to 500Mb/s. so getting 1Gb/s would be almost impossible,


Not that I am a big games player, and a lot of my games are older ones, but when I had a hard drive problem a couple of months ago, i had to reinstall all the games, only now and again it would burst to the full speed of what my broadband is capable off

I get 2.5 Gbit/s on both machines I use regularly. Steam decompresses as it downloads. Your bottleneck is your ISP or your PC, not Steam.

Agreed, if you're not seeing 800Mbps+ from Steam then take a look at what your CPU usage looks like, as well as your storage. If you're trying to download and uncompress 100GB of files onto a low end SSD it's likely you'll fill the cache and see a throughput hit.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Can you quantify what "making use of broadband" actually means? if I need to max it out a couple of times a month does that count as making use of it? do I need to be maxing it out every minute of the day to qualify? Is there a definition of how one should make use of their broadband?

I know you think few if not anyone needs more than 36Mbps (probably just so happens to be the exact amount you had on FTTC) but people out here don't necessarily use broadband the exact same way you do fella.

It is nice having the extra speed if you need it, I have found it useful myself and while paying £24 a month for it was fine, I may as well have it since it was the same price as what I was paying Plusnet for FTTC speed. When the contract ended, and it went back up to £35 more or less, I had to decide if I wanted to stay on 500Mb.s or drop to 150. In the end I decided to stay where I am as the price difference between full price of 150 and full price of 500 is only a fiver a month, I waste more than that a month down the toilet when I go out for a few pints.
If I was in a different situation then yes I would have dropped to 150.

Anyway, as for people using full advantage, I wonder how many people who have even 100Mb/s ever tops it out? Maybe a few years ago when more people had computers, downloaded files, redone their OS now and again, oh how the extra speed would have been useful when I used to sort out people's computers
Gamers may do if they download a lot and maybe need the bandwidth if they play cloud based games, not sure if they really need super-duper high speed.
But gamers are a different thing, we are talking about say someone like my next door neighbour or my brother, those that do very little with their broadband. My next door neighbour connects their phones onto it and have a tablet and that is it, even their sky don't use it as such because they use the dish.
I am not saying their Sky boxes don't use the broadband for some things, but normal TV watching is via the dish. Only two of them next door.

My brother, has a computer, has a couple of tables and laptops, but he can only use one at a time normally, but I doubt very much if he comes close to maxing out his FTTC connection, never mind a high speed FTTP connection. I am going up there later to sort out his computer/printer, so will try and sort out some streaming services, like Iplayer, ITVX and other stuff on his TV so he can make better use of his TV and broadband.

Oh yeah, someone at work asked me a couple of weeks ago about Zzoomm and what it was like, as their Talk Talk contract is coming to the end, found out all they use their broadband for to connect their phones too, what a waste.

I think if you are paying for something then make the most of it, that is why I got rid of Netflix as I was not making use of it.

I say 36Mb/s because it is more or less what everyone I know on FTTC gets, with a couple of exceptions and they don't come anywhere close to maxing out that and most never will.
The majority of people I chat to are around my age or even older, all they want is maybe something to stream a bit of TV, listen to some music and maybe browse the net and use some apps on their phone.
again, there are exceptions, my other brother who is 70 while I doubt will use the 500Mb/s FTTP to it full potential will give it a good go.


At the end of the day it is up to people and have no problem with people buying what they want, just seems to be a waste and if they can save a bit of money, then go to a slower speed.

Not for me to tell people what to do or spend their money, even if some people here think I do. I just think it is a shame that some people pay for stuff they don't use and could save money by dropping. If money is no object, then fine. If money was no object I would go for the fastest I could go for, maybe, then again maybe not.
Saying that, my partner is fine money wise, and she has just dropped from 1Gbs to the lowest she can go.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Exactly. People buy things all the time whose performance is greater than they will ever need. For example, cars. Most are capable of doing well in excess of 70 m.p.h., but this would only be of use if you regularly use the autobahn (which I suspect few British drivers do). It does mean that you have some capacity in reserve. The same is true of broadband - you normally may only need 36Mbs but if some temporary problem halves that speed your connection might not meet your requirements. So it's sensible to buy something with a little extra capacity. Again, some are happy to wait a hour or more for large downloads - others want them immediately.

My bête noire would be Netflix, Prime, Apple TV, etc. Many spend more on such streaming services than on the connection. To me that's a waste of money (I can't keep up with what's available for free let alone paying for another "57 Channels and Nothing on"). But I've no reason, or right, to condemn others for (IMO) wasting their money in this way.

I agree with you about streaming, I had Netflix, Amazon and Disney. I dropped Netflix, still have Amazon and Disney+. I am using Amazon, watching a couple of things on there, but then I don't watch normal TV, so not spending money on the T.V licence. But then I know people who spend, 50 or more a month on Sky, crazy amounts, but up to them at the end of the day.
TIt does annoy me when people say, I can't afford to pay my rent or bills, but they still pay their £50 or more on sly and 30 odd quid on their mobile phones a month.
I know if they are in a contract they can't get out, but once they get out of the contract they can drop the services. If I was in the situation of not being able to pay bills, I would look at what can I drop. Not that i pay out much these days to things I can drop.
Mobile phone is a fiver, and I pay out for Disney and Amazon Prime. I meet some friends on a Wednesday normally for a coffee, used to go to Spoons, buy once and get refills, but we stopped going there, our Morrisons are now doing the buy once, free refills thing. Not great coffee, but is fine. We do go into town now and again to a local coffee bar.
Now and again I go out for a few pints.
But if I was struggling, I would drop all of that, apart from maybe the coffee.

Oh yeah, I also do buy coffee beans on a subscription, that cost me a bit a month, but again if money was a problem, I would go for something cheaper.

If people are working, they can spend their money on what they want, as long as it is legal, it is the lazy ones that have no intention of working and get money of the state and seem to live the life of Riley that annoys me. Disabled people and those on pension, I have no problem with

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Seems to be happening since a lot of the FTTP installs and sales reps going round trying to get people to sign up (particularly Virgin).

I posted about my Aunt who was convinced she needs FTTP over FTTC despite living alone and only using WhatsApp and Netflix streaming occasionally. If its happened within my small family circle, im sure its happened across the UK.

I believe i saw another poster on here too from another ISP sales rep who used underhand sales tactics about the copper cables getting removed in their area so they need to upgrade to FTTP

The last time I had a sales rep was for Sky and that was about 10 years ago or more. I thought Zzoomm would have sent people around to be honest, it is a way to get more customers, but they don't seem to have.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

I get 2.5 Gbit/s on both machines I use regularly. Steam decompresses as it downloads. Your bottleneck is your ISP or your PC, not Steam.

Could be the PC, it is getting on now and the drive the games are on is not the fastest drive around, I got it more for it's size than speed, it is a Crucial BX500 2TB, I needed space and the drive was under £80 on offer, so for a 2TB SSD it seemed to be ok and still is for me, it is. Sata and not NVMe.

Nothing wrong with my broadband


It is crazy that not so long ago we were happy with ADSL and spinny drives, and now we are saying that maybe SSd is not fast enough


I expect at some point I will have to update the PC, the board is getting on and starting to fail in different places and even a modern AMD R5 is more powerful than my R7 1700 these days. Maybe next year, I am in no rush. I will then get a larger NVMe drive with a decent cache.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Agreed, if you're not seeing 800Mbps+ from Steam then take a look at what your CPU usage looks like, as well as your storage. If you're trying to download and uncompress 100GB of files onto a low end SSD it's likely you'll fill the cache and see a throughput hit.

As I said above, I would not be surprised if it was not my drive, but then I don't play that many games and the ones I have are pretty old.

"I also do buy coffee beans on a subscription, that cost me a bit a month"

What is wrong with instant, it is probably much cheaper?

So the irony of this whole thread is, this fella zyborg47 creates a thread complaining that people have a faster package than they actually need then admits to having a faster package than he needs!! to be clear more than 13 times faster than he needs and paying extra for something he doesn't need which he complained other people were doing.

You couldn't make it up.

Is this the point that I remind him he only needs 36Mbps? 😎🤣 No, I don't think I can be bothered with all the guff that will come back at me 🤣