London Isle of Dogs E14 - Does FTTC really work?

I'm trying to help out some friends who live in the Isle of Dogs area of London E14. Despite being in the shadow of Canary Wharf, this is a notorious broadband NotSpot, Any form of ADSL is woefully slow and very unreliable no matter who provides it. This down to the distance to the Poplar Exchange and the poor quality of the Openreach cabling to get there.

So I am wondering if FTTC would be any better given that there should be less copper and less joints involved?

I've checked the numbers on the BT Wholesale checker here, please see the screenshots below.

The "Up to" downstream line rates quoted for ADSL quoted agree with the best rates currently achieved. However the reality is that the actual rate is significantly lower most of the time. But what about FTTC?

As well as a PlusNet change to fibre I'm also considering the Vodafone Unlimited Fibre 38 offer with free line rental, which is supposed to be available albeit an 18 month commitment. Even if the fibre speed is impaired, if the reliability is there it would be a major improvement.

Any thoughts? All help appreciated.

[IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/20rpo2w.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i64.tinypic.com/2qaiq04.jpg[/IMG]

Its the case where one could suggest most people do find VDSL2 better than ADSL2+ reliability/estimate wise, but until you try an individual line you don't know if you are one of those with poor speeds.

The good news about Vodafone is that when you verbally or by chat place an order, you should be able to get then to confirm that you can cancel without penalty during the first 30 days - if you want.

The bad news is that their router does not work very well because of poor firmware. To use your own router, you have to get Vodafone to tell you the connection userid and password. Doing this is problematic as mentioned in this long thread on the Vodafone forum

Enceladus

With those 2 line estimates it is highly likely that the performance will be much better than ADSL of any flavour!

The lowest estimate for impacted VDSL is 44 down :14.7 up

Get one of your friends to order with a supplier and record the estimate given. Then wait for the provision and do a speed test from this site using a wired device.

The speed will depend on the package taken Plusnet will restrict the upstream to 2Mb and the VF package you mentioned will give up to 38Mb downstream. Other suppier packages could give over 70Mb Down : upto 20Mb up.

Another estimate is find how close cab 16 is to your friends houses. It is likely to be in the immediate streets. anything under 400m is very likely to give the speeds of the estimates.