Shaun

Just looked on BT's site to find that my local exchange is now FTTC enabled!

Three months ago on their Infinity Site it had been put back from March 2012 to December 2012. It still says December 2012 on their rollout plan.

Well..... just raised the order and it's all gone through (as Samknows states my exchange has partial FTTC on it - so I must be one of the lucky ones).

I've been waiting for this for **** knows how long!!

LostUser

I think FTTC is very promising but I'm sure BT will at some point reach a state whereby the contention ratios mean they are struggling to provide users with full bandwidth at peak hours.

When I left BT Broadband 5+ years ago I could get 4Mbit during the day but in the evenings this dropped to 1Mbit. They were also throttling certain protocols even more. Plus the fair usage policies.

I moved to Be where speeds are a constant 7Mbit (ADSL2+ now), no throttling, no fair usage policy. I get what I pay for.

30Mbit down, 7Mbit up sounds great but I just know BT won't allow me to actually use that. 7Mbit up would be great for accessing data at my house remotely but BT won't want me uploading constantly at 7Mbit, even though they provide that connection.

I'm sure for most people it's not an issue but there are some people that want to get what they pay for and not be hit by FUPs and throttling.

Fingers crossed Be release their FTTC option early next year.

boxst

You just caused me to check and my exchange has gone to March 2012. It was originally December 2011 then December 2012.... so good news!

LostUser: You don't have to use BT as your provider. Excellent companies like Zen will provide your service and shouldn't throttle or have large contention ratios. Having said that, I'm with BE* as well and when I'm downloading a popular title get a constant 1.7mb/s !

Steve

Coffin Dodger

Been on FTTC for a while with PlusNet, good so far Went from 2.5Mbps to 20Mbps.

LostUser

Actually, Zen state for their fibre broadband that they only guarantee 12Mbit or 16Mbit depending on which package you choose. So your sync speed may be 30Mbit but you can't complain if you're only getting 12Mbit. Plus you have a download limit in GBs.

But I prefer that approach. You know what you're getting. You can only download 500Gb and will only get a guaranteed 16Mbit on the top package (£78 per month). BT's package is probably exactly the same, they just don't obviously state that.

http://www.zen.co.uk/home-office/bro...broadband.aspx

boxst

Wow that is expensive. I didn't realise that Zen was so much more. I'm sure I looked last year and it was no where close to that price.

Shaun

Those prices on Zen are unreal!

PlusNet are charging £21.49 pm for 120GB. 10GB on Zen is over £27!

LostUser

Actually I've spoken to Zen about their prices. They say that because of the top-level customer service they give, and the extra training they give their support staff they think they can justify the higher prices. They have one the best ISP for the last 5 years or something.

Actually their tech support is very good, all very highly trained, but I'd hope that I'd never have to speak to them ideally so I wouldn't want to pay much more for that.

boxst

I was with Zen for many years until Be* came to my exchange, and their service was great. I never spoke to their technical staff as everything just worked.

However, those prices are unreal in comparision to the competition.

Steve

Shaun

LOL @ Zen's reasoning. But hey... it must work as they would of adjusted their prices.

PlusNet have been great with regards to any issues I have had. Their support ticket process has always been efficient for me and their forums (where you can post support issues) are always manned by staff and sorted rapidly.

I've gotta be honest... PlusNet had been very good in my personal experience.

boxst

I just noticed that BE* have signed up their first trial member: http://blog.bethere.co.uk/2011/12/be...n-is-live.html for a month ago.

So hopefully BE* will release something in the next few months.

Shaun

Just had this connected today and now have:



Whilst I appreciate this is not as fast as some of your speed freaks, this is a massive increase from my previous 6.5Mb / .36Mb connection before.

Tidgy

chuffin hell, just seen those zen price. If you pay that you must be stupid.

I've had virgin fibre op for 5 years, performance has been exceptional (45mb/s+ always, bromaly 48 or 49mb/s), had a two week period it was down but that was it and they refunded that part of the monthly bill.

£78 for 16+ and 500gb vs £60 for 100mb and unlimited

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

FFS we have only "just" gone to 21CN at work....and despite this its still stuck at 4MB.

I've must have been on 10MB at home for like eight years now.

Tidgy

thast a good result, fttc is fibre to the cabinate then copper cable from what im told, so you must be right next to the cabinate lol

Shaun

The download is good but the upload is gash.... this is a PlusNet thing as the line can do 10Mb UL. PlusNet at looking at "unlocking" the upload speed for it's customers. Not sure why it's been capped.

That's right Fibre To The Cab and then copper to my house. I'm not that close to be honest. It's probably 300+m.

Tidgy

thats def good then.

Adrian F

with 4G on its way you might find BT will be over taken by that

boxst

BT have started to do all the wiring for the March roll-out as I was chatting to an engineer just down the road from my house knee high in cable! Unless Be* release their FTTC product though, I will probably stay with them. I get a good 18mb sync and a download of 1.7mb/s or more on good files.

I don't really trust ISPs like PlusNet and absolutely not BT and can't justify the high price of Zen.

Steve