Views on a new FTTC connection

I've had a ADSL account with Zen for years now, and I've been happy with Zen and its service. The connection has been stable for at least 2 years.

My exchange has just been enabled for FTTC but Zen have told me that there would be 'no advantage' in upgrading to this because of my distance from the cabinet. I'm not sure I believe them (I think they've been ultra cautious) and I'd welcome the views of anyone here who has similar line stats so that ai can make up my mind.

Distance from cabinet 900m (Measured)

DMT Status No Defect
Operational Mode ADSL2+
Upstream 1190
Downstream 17187
SNR Margin(Upstream) 5.7
SNR Margin(Downstream) 2.6
Line Attenuation(Upstream) 13.2
Line Attenuation(Downstream) 28.0

BT's line checker gives:

FTTC range (clean) 27.4 - 19.5
FTTC (impacted) 21.8 11.3

Give these figures I'd expect a d/l in the region og 25mB. Am I correct or is Zen?

Given the BT estimate, I'd expect d/l in the region og 27.4 Mbps.

What is the upstream estimate?

Only if everything is perfect

Your choice and no guarantee that speeds will be at the upper end of the range.

The upstream improvement might be more useful

Well, some improvement (at a risk of course that it might be at the bottom end). If/when Openreach introduce vectoring then it might be a more significant improvement as there would be potential for over 30mbps. I suspect your line is reasonably good for the speed you get and being able to run reliably with a 3dB noise margin. That's not a guarantee, but it indicates there's not much fundamentally wrong and, of course, the VDSL signal will be using part of that line.

As mentioned, upload may be the biggest change. I'd guess at around the 4-5mbps, but upload speed improvements seem to be much more difficult to estimate than download for some reason.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Given the BT estimate, I'd expect d/l in the region og 27.4 Mbps.

What is the upstream estimate?

Sorry, forgot that:

range A: 5.9 -3.9
range B: 5 - 2

Edited by faircot (Sun 11-Jan-15 13:44:34)

NOTE Vectoring does not make a long line perform better, it is there to reduce cross talk, i.e. it combats the interference from other lines rather than a solution for attenuation.

Now if you have a long line and lots of others with VDSL2 in the same bundle you will see a benefit. If you are the only one in that cable bundle then vectoring is likely to bring no benefit.

So you're looking at 3-4 times your current upload. Sounds good to me and a lot better than ADSL from Zen.

Yes, but it should better performance in real life as the estimator includes an allowance for cross-talk. Vectoring ought to enable lines to perform closer to the theoretical performance for the loop. I was basing this on the (limited) trial results I've sen.

This very site published this news item.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6368-vectoring-to...

If the chart is to be believed, at 1,000 metres it shows an improvement of about 6-7mbps. with a potential over 30mbps.

** edit **

I found this thread on the Eircom trial (which has a similar copper to the UK's). At 1km it shows an average of about 38mbps for a 1km line with vectoring enabled,

http://community.plus.net/forum/?topic=133800.msg117...

Now none of this is guaranteed of course, but it may not be so ridiculous. I get a 57mbps sync on a 700m line on a cabinet enabled for about 18 months (I signed up after 6 months). The graph suggests maybe 65-70mbps with vectoring, which is credible.

Edited by deleted (Sun 11-Jan-15 14:27:41)

Problem is I have learnt that if you say should people assume cast iron guarantee that the figure will be met.

See how many moan that an estimate is not spot on.

Once launched even if just to a region we will keep an eye on the overall picture.

In theory vectoring might make my line superfast but not holding my breath