Estimated speeds on fibre

I'm a BE user who has been pleased with their service for many years. With the impending move to Sky, I'm looking at a move to PlusNet.

The estimated speed of PlusNet fibre on my line is 11Mbps down and 1 Mbps up.

Currently I get 7 Mbps down and 1Mbps up on my ADSL2 BE service. My download speeds have been determined by being a long way from the BT cabinet.

So, the download estimate of 11 Mbps is no surprise, but I don't understand why my upload speed is stuck at 1 Mbps.

Can anybody help?

Thanks

Geoff

An estimated 11Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up for fibre isnt briliant

Is that from the BT checker?

You have said that your ADSL speeds are 7Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up and that "download speeds have been determined by being a long way from the BT cabinet".

ADSL speeds are determined by distance from the exchange, the distance from the CAB is irrelevant.

The distance from the CAB is significant for FTTC though. Do you know where it is and the distance?

Is the estimate from BT or Plusnet? Can you get an estimate from the BT checker BT Checker and post it here?

Is FTTC worth getting at these speeds?

Thanks for your reply Greenslide.
Apologies for my confusion re BT cabinets and BT exchanges. I have been waiting a long time since my Camberley exchange was upgraded to fibre before it was offered to my post code. BT reported that there were no plans for upgrading my line.

Then one day (prompted by the Sky change) I was checking the BT line checker and it reported:
BT Infinity 10.6 Mbps down and 1 Mbps down.
Previously it had been reporting ADSL with 6Mbps down and 1Mbps up. It now reports ADSL at 3.5 - 8.5 Mbps down and 1Mbps up.

I've been trying to find my BT cabinet without success.

On 1 April I sent an enquiry to '[email protected]' to determine availability of fibre services to my telephone number.
On 17 April I received the following reply:

'Cabinet thc19, to which your line is connected, is fibre to the cabinet enabled and showing broadband port availability. Your Communications Provider (CP) is responsible for all aspects of your service including advising on the services they can supply at your address. Please contact your CP for them to check into and advise further'
So, I'm connected to cabinet 'thc 19' but have no idea where that cabinet is!! Any idea how I can find out?

My original posted speed predictions were from PlusNet.
On my current ADSL2+ broadband with BE, I typically get 7.7Mbps down. Typical past BT ADSL predictions have been around 6Mbps.

BT infinity seem to be offering an increase of around (11-6=) 5Mbps down but NO improvement in up speed.

'Is FTTC worth getting at these speeds?' As the approx. 8Mbps from BE came with a change to ADSL2+, I'm afraid that the most likely outcome of a move to Sky will be a decrease of download speed to around 6Mbps, around a 25% decrease.

Thanks for your help,

Geoff

Is the jump from 8 Mbps to a possible 11 Mbps worth it? Only you can decide.

Openreach don't tell people where the cabinet is, but if you use the address checker part on the wholesale checker at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/btavailability.html and find others with cabinet 19 in your area, then it is likely to be close to those lines giving 70 Mbps and faster estimates. In short its do some leg work, or use Google Streetview to find cab 19 (number is stencilled in white paint usually)

The speed estimate suggests a distance of 1.5 km or more to the cabinet, and the upstream suffers so much, because the frequencies are interleaved in blocks, so where as for ADSL2+ the upstream is largely unaffected by distance for VDSL2 this is NOT the case.

Of course the estimate may be wrong, hence the work to find your cabinet and verify the distance, eg. 1km would give speeds around the 24 Mbps mark.

First of all:
greenglide: My apologies for misspelling your name when replying to your helpful response.

MrSaffron: I shall do some more concentrated leg-work and keep my eyes open for cabinet 19 in the very near future. You say 'The speed estimate suggests a distance of 1.5 km or more to the cabinet'. Is that from the exchange to the cabinet, or the cabinet to my location? A quick measure on Google shows 1.5km as the crow flies from the exchange to my home.

Thanks

Geoff

In reply to a post by Formula400:

You say 'The speed estimate suggests a distance of 1.5 km or more to the cabinet'. Is that from the exchange to the cabinet, or the cabinet to my location?

Cabinet to location

You should still be able to edit/correct your previous post containing the misspelling, if you wish to

FAQ > What if I make a mistake in my post?