TalkTalk Fibre Or Virgin Broadband ? Some guidance please.

I've been suffering for many years with maximum 3-4Mbps because of my location from the exchange & probably some poor cooper wiring running to my house.

I'm presently with O2 for standard BB out of contract & BT for telephone. I'm paying £14.50 & £14 each.

Ideally i would like to keep my telephone line with BT & get faster (20-38Mbp) unlimited broadband to the house. At the same time i want to get best value if i'm to sign up a new 12/18 month contract as we are going into a tougher financial climate. Not really interested in TV package.
I already have enough rubbish to watch on Freeview PVR.

I have considered following options.

1. Join Virgin BB 30mb only @ £17.50 for 3 months than £22.50pcm. Short term savings on 12mnth contract

2. Join Virgin 30mb BB + Tele @ £29.50pcm. 18 months contract. Would need to cancel BT line.

3. Join TalkTalk 38mb BB + Tele. BB £13.50 for 9 months than £16.50. Tele £14.50 or £9.50 pcm if paid in advance. First 12 months pretty good deal with advance line payment. £31pcm after offer period & no advance payment. 12/18month contract ?

I'm leaning towards Talktalk as I'm not happy about the congestion & traffic management that Virgin are said to implement, I hardly know anything about Talktalk fibre. I know i would have never consider joining there copper broadband as i have friends that suffer speed/congestion issues all the time.
I'm hoping fibre will be a little different case.

To help decide i was wondering if people can share there experiences with both providers telephone line & broadband quality.

Does Talk Talk fibre broadband implement traffic management & port blocking like Virgin ?

Up to how much speed can I expect to loose from maximum 38Mb from the cabinet to my house ?

My exchange is Heathrow which is about 3-4 miles away.

Should I be considering some other Fibre provider ? (considered SKY but £34.50 pcm)

OR am i just wasting time over few quid to go for TalkTalk Fibre & instead go Virgin/Sky ?

Have you established that TT fibre is available to you? What does this checker say about your phone number? (Don't post the phone number here).

TalkTalk has traffic management but just peer to peer traffic. No complex time based windows like Virgin Media

if the friends are on the LLU network and same exchange, and issue is actually the exchange congestion rather than any ADSL issues then you would see the same congestion as backhaul network will be a shared medium

Sky is the only one managing to do unlimited with no traffic management.

Fibre is available to from my local exchange - SKYPORT:

"Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a fibre technology with an estimated WBC FTTC Broadband where consumers have received downstream line speed of 62.2Mbps and upstream line speed of 20Mbps."

So what you recommend Roberto - TT or other ?

SKY was on top of my list since summer & I was waiting for them to put some offer on - nothing to date.

In reality I would be even happy with solid unlimited/untrafficed 8Mb at under £15. Thats why i thought TT at £16.50 might do the trick.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

if the friends are on the LLU network and same exchange, and issue is actually the exchange congestion rather than any ADSL issues then you would see the same congestion as backhaul network will be a shared medium

This is not good.. Hopefully someone else on SKYPORT can verify the situation with there Fibre.

In reply to a post by archy121:

SKY was on top of my list since summer & I was waiting for them to put some offer on - nothing to date.

Quidco.com.

£80

EXCLUSIVE RATE EXPIRES IN 2 DAYS

for Standalone Broadband Unlimited/Fibre Unlimited without TV + Talk Weekend

But Sky take your line off BT like TT do.

Is there any way i can find out the distance from my house to the fibre cabinet as this will ultimately determine the final speeds. Maybe another deciding factor when comparing against Virgin.

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre/checker.php

May confirm which cabinet you are connected to, and then it is a case of finding the ones within the area and matching the P number against the stencil on it. You can use google streetview if you don't want to go walking the streets, but often difficult to read the cab numbers or they may not be visible

thanks MrSaffron. That did the job nicely.

Approx 100-125M straight flying distance from cabinet, Not too bad i'm guessing.

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Dec-12 00:43:27)

Its wilbbly wobbly drunken walking distance that matters