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

Hmmmm.

There speaks our expert?

"wilbbly"?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Hmmmm.

There speaks our expert?

"wilbbly"?

It must be early Festive Christmas spirit ! HoHo Ho

I think i will go with TT.

Foremost because its the cheapest 12month deal at £26.50pcm if i pay advance Tele line.
Worst case scenario I'm hoping the 38Mb will degrade to around 20Mbp with my distance being under 125m away from cabinet. 200m wibbly wobbly distance after a bottle of rum ? Going to try that out

No time related traffic management is another bonus as i would be using the BB more in the daytime.

I wanted the line for occasional p2p and it now seems all ISP's are taking measures to lock down on that with some form of traffic management. Times have changed. Possibly Sky is the exception but the fact they locked down on Newzbin will prompt more possible changes. Also QUIDCO discount is no guarantee.

I really can't see any major advantages between any of the Fibre broadband players any more.
Well assuming they are all able to keep there network running smoothly nearly all the time. My main remaining concern about TT.

And who needs 30Mb+ today ? What are people doing with this speed now that p2p is pretty much locked down. I'm really puzzled about this actually. I don't think there is even a 1080P HD audio film streaming service that could take advantage of such speeds. Beats me.

It's good for families / students with say 6+ people using the connection at once.

It means there's no slowdown for anybody on the network.

For 1 user it's an overkill.

Shouldn't degrade at all on the 40Mbps product. It should only be if you were on the 80Mbps one you might get that happeneing.

You do realise that BT and Plusnet are up to 80Mbps? (Their 40Mbps ones have 40GB allowance). Your estimate is 62Mbps. Is there an allowance/FUP on your TT product, or is it unlimited?

Guessed as much.

Well I have placed my order & go live date is 18th Dec. & already a little unsure about my decision after having read a few TT threads.

I will use next few days to decide if i need to pull out.

Any more feedback/advice would be appreciated.

It is unlimited downloads, free install, free support number & 12 months contract.

Currently paying more & getting 3-4Mb only. TT offer is too enticing.

I have singed up & got 18th Dec as go live but flicking through some TT forum threads is making me question my decision. If a user is not able to get TT support to help him get streaming LoveFilm smoothly on Fibre than i'm concerned. More so when TT Op comes into thread & tells him to join support queue rather than taking on the matter & ensuring its resolved with minimum negative impact.

Well i have got couple of days to dig deeper into TT issues & decide if i need to back out before BT line goes. Lot of pain if i change mind within cooling period.

At the price, something has to give.

You said you only use P2P occasionally. Have you any idea how much you actually use? Plusnet traffic management is 8pm-10pm and that's all, restricted to 2Mbps in that period if they need to. 250GB peak, unlimited off-peak.

Hi there, looks like your sorted but here is the TalkTalk fibre checker

Talktalk fibre is an 18month contract, their traffic shaping is only non encrypted p2p, so if that's your thing just use encrypted p2p which is default on most clients right now. No ports are blocked or general traffic restrictions or limits.

I've found them to be reliable but I'd check out their members forum for any support stuff before calling them.

Yes i made a mistake in quoting 18months instead of 12months. 12 months might have been for Non Fibre.

I'm definitely keeping an eye on the TT forum on here as well as on TT's support.

Do you know if they throttle VPN traffic as i will require occasional use of that ?

Is your experience based on Fibre install or standard broadband ?

Post deleted by archy121

I probably don't need more than 40Gb in reality but i would like to keep my options open in case of future needs.
I want to be least clamped down for duration of 18 month contract.

I used to have fibre and desperately want it back in the new house... This month apparently but it keeps slipping!

VPN is fine on TalkTalk, I use it when working from home

Naigle

If they did it would be listed on the KPI sheet