Does the Fibre provider actually matter for performance?

I'm moving house, so I'm in the market for a new provider.

I'm currently with Vivaciti, and I have zero complaints. I mean zero, they're amazing. Been with them for ~6 years.

My issue is, can I do better? or can I go cheaper? Is there actually much difference between providers.

When I move, I'll be working from home a great deal. So, I'll be using video conferencing, VOIP (like skype for business etc.) regularly during the day. This in addition to general evening usage of Streaming, Gaming and downloading. I'll also need a static ip, and an IPv6 range.

I'm techy by trade (not just a normal techy, I've been doing infrastructure for many years), so I'm not in need of any tech support. Having a 9-5 support line for issues with the provider is more than enough for me.

My question then is, what sort of difference does it make going to different underlying provider? I know vivaciti is an Entanet reseller, I seem to recall their being another one called Obit?

I'm looking at either staying with Vivaciti, pulse8 looks good, or possibly going mainstream with Sky/TalkTalk?

Any insights would be helpful.

All depends on how each provider is picking up the GEA data feed and how they get that to the wider Internet

So in terms of connection speed no major differences, but things like peak time performance that you experience can vary

Thanks,

So is it still (what I've read is called) the backhaul provider (TT Business, Entanet, etc.) that is the biggest diferentiator when it comes to peak performance? or is can the reseller have an impact?

Both backhaul and reseller can have an impact, e.g. a backhaul provider may have lots of capacity, but if your reseller is buying the cheapest service quality you may not get the best bit of the cherry at peak times.

Alas its like predicting how long to drive from Manchester to Glasgow on 14th November, i.e. until you try it you cannot be sure, and past performance is no guarantee of ongoing performance

And whether it will be quicker by motorway or A-roads.

I would say yes - a friend was on a BT 'dis-interested' fibre contract at 12 down. He went to Sky at 2/3 of the price with better phone and other packages when BT would do nothing to improve things and got 17 down. Same line, same exchange. You could say it is down the installed kit of Sky, but then they actually better the performance of those providing the broadband they are re-selling!

I have used sky BT and Talktalk and they were all almost identical to me.

Sky had the most downtime (network related) and had congestion for a couple of months.

All providers ultimately were / are very similar but CS varies massively.

I have BT and Talktalk active now and they are equally as good as one another, although I had to change the default Talktalk router, I just got an older model on eBay for £25 which was known to be totally stable.

FTTC has nothing to do with Sky exchange equipment, and they are not reselling BT FTTC.

I pay Talktalk £17.60 a month for fibre optic, that includes the line rental. I have an uptime of 82 days right now, no slowdowns ever and no drop outs ever. For the price it's an absolute steal.

I know if it goes horribly wrong and there's a complex line fault then I will spend hours trying to resolve the issues speaking with India. For me at that price I accept the poor CS.

I have downloaded well over 1Tb in a month on Talktalk without any slowdown or issues.

If CS really matters to you then pay extra. If all you want is a connection then yes Talktalk is providing me something as good as every other ISP I have used right now.

If you know your line is fairly stable I'd take the risk and go mass market where you can save a good deal.

In reply to a post by MartinJT:

I'm currently with Vivaciti, and I have zero complaints. I mean zero, they're amazing. Been with them for ~6 years.

If you've been very satisfied with Vivaciti, then stick with them at your new address if they can provide the same service using the same backhaul. Better the devil......