Moving to fibre - how much benefit?

My son lives in Crayford. He has Plusnet ADSL BB & telephone, and is quite happy but would like it to be faster.

His router (Technicolor) stats are (down / up)
Bandwidth: 5,248 / 448
LA: 47.5 / 28.0
SN margin: 6.3 / 22.0
Output power: 19.9 / 12.5

BB speedtest gives around 3.5Mbps down. 0.3Mbps up.

Kitz shows for a downstream LA of 47 speed of 5.5 to 6.4 Mbps. I suspect that as he is in a -year old new build apartment block the internal cabling is costing him, and there's not much he can do about that realistically.

I ran a Teamviwer session to remote control his PC earlier while we were voice-only Skype'ing and it was slow but quite usable - I think his wife might have also been listening to some music over the web.

His exchange is LSCRAY. Kitz reports the exchange distance as 5701.8 km !!, appx by road 3.1 km. The latter is about right. His cabinet is about 210 metres away (and 200 metres further from the exchange than he is).

The BT checker gives:
FTTC Range A clean: down: high 80 low 66.1 up: high 20, low 20
FFTC Range B impacted: down 80, low 57.2 up: high 20, low 17.9
The ADSL stats from BT are: down - up to 3.5, up - up to 0.5

It would appear, to my untutored eye, that he could get significant improvement, perhaps up 50 or 60 depending on the fibre offering he chooses.

Is my understanding about right?

No reason to not expect speeds in the 60 to 76 Mbps range, so rather than just handling 1xHD stream he'll jump to being able to run several if they want.

Yes. The distance from the exchange is irrelevant for FTTC, only the distance from the cabinet.

The potential nasty, as you suggest, is the internal wiring of the apartment block. That will be pot luck.

I would be having a look inside the master socket at the colours of the wires coming into the master socket from the wall, and the sort of wire it is. Meaning to the A and B terminals behind the test socket. That might give a clue as to what it is, so what its effect may be.

The stats you posted suggest to me that maybe the sync was made during hours of darkness and the stats were taken during daylight. Even if I'm right though he'd only be looking at another 200-300kbps. So something is holding it down.

Have you done a quiet line test? And tried a sync using the test socket? Are there extensions in the apartment?

NO QLT done, no other extensions. I'll not ask him to look at the master socket, it wouldn't be wise.

Going by the DSL uptime (10 days 1:47:06) and the reading was got around 9 pm, suggesting a sync around 7pm 10 days ago, the answer would be yes, in darkness. Though as far as I know their router is left on.

When you say only be looking at another 200-300kbps do you mean 200+ with a daytime re-sync, or 200+ with FTTC?

I should have said that his PC is wireless connected for logistic and wifely reasons; he's aware that is likely to restrict him to some extent on FTTC but would be happy to live with that.

He's talking about another £8 / month for FTTC, does that sound about right (Plusnet)?

Could you remind me of what Plusnet offer on FTTC please, I recall posts about various download/upload speed offerings and am a bit confused as to the current state of play.

Noting the enforced WiFi connection, I saw "Decorative (plastic) Trunking" in a DIY Store two days back.

Some sizes and cross-sections

It would more readily blend with skirting etc, than conventional rectangular trunking, particularly if run the full length of any wall/skirting run, rather than just the minimum length. And possibly "all round" the room for uniformity.

I'm guessing the price you've suggested for FTTC is for standard Unlimited fibre which is 40/2. As he'd be syncing significantly under the maximum speed the line can support it should be reliable.

Yes, I meant +200 or so on ADSLx. FTTC will be much faster, whatever the state of his wiring. Future faults excepted of course.

I hadn't checked prices, but jelv's reply suggests they are looking at the 40/2 product. Few ISPs now offer that - most are 40/10. That is unlikely to matter unless uploading huge amounts or running several HD or higher downloads/streams simultaneously. They don't sound as if they will be doing that. A single HD TV catchup if they have or get a smart TV or Chromecast with browsing and email concurrently will be fine.

Plusnet don't offer 40/10. Only 40/2 and 80/20.

I'm just over 150 metres from my cabinet and get 67mb/s easily using WiFi. Even using the ethernet connection results in maybe about 1mb/s more. The difference is nothing to write home about and hasn't stopped me using WiFI.

I'm also with Plusnet and the difference in pricing for fibre compared to what you get adsl wise is certainly worth paying. I went for the 80/20 (unlimited) package and to me it's been a total game changer. What was around 10gb a month usage is at the moment getting onto 80gb and we haven't even gone a full month yet - I reckon it'll be a good 100gb minimum. As previously mentioned, the distance to the exchange is irrelevant with fibre. Go for it!

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

BB speedtest gives around 3.5Mbps down. 0.3Mbps up.

Correction, my memory was wrong, it's 4.16Mbps down, 0.29Mbps up.

So downstream is somewhat better than I recalled, upstream is essentially the same.

[Replying to the most recent not-mine post for convenience]

I sent my son a plain copy of all the posts in this thread and he's asked me to pass on his appreciation, they'll look more into it in the new year.

Thanks.