BT Wholesale WBC?

yelf

09/11/2008 BT Wholesale WBC has set an enablement date of 30/09/2009 for the exchange.

Can anyone please tell me what this WBC is please? Will I need to do with BT to benefit from it (currently with Sky using ghe BT service).

THanks

jweb2k

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/21cn_overview.php

Up to 24MB. In reality you don't get it, and the WBC date isn't always stuck to. Our exchange WBC was moved back a year and a half, and after enablement still only 8.2 meg where we lived - got to be living close!

yelf

well this has already been delayed a lot so Im hoping this date will happen. Does it mean only BT users will benefit? (Im with Sky but they run on BT)

jweb2k

It doesn't, but don't expect the day it goes live that you'll get an automatic upgrade. Most customers don't notice any difference in BB speeds.

syko29793

this is nothing to get excited about. the WBC is only available in certain areas and the speed increase is non existent. Im in a WBC area and my line stats are 1 meg for adsl or 1meg with adsl max or 1meg with WBC. Currently have adsl2 with o2 and get 3 meg plus.

mrtom21

WBC is basically upgrading your line to support ADSL2+. If you currently get anywhere near 8Mb your line speed is likely to increase the most but if you have speeds of under 3Mb you are likely to see an increase of no more than 2Mb. It is worth a check once the exchange is enabled though mine has increased to 11Mb and BT did this for me at a discount on a 12 month deal.

syko29793

mrtom21 wrote: »

WBC is basically upgrading your line to support ADSL2+. If you currently get anywhere near 8Mb your line speed is likely to increase the most but if you have speeds of under 3Mb you are likely to see an increase of no more than 2Mb. It is worth a check once the exchange is enabled though mine has increased to 11Mb and BT did this for me at a discount on a 12 month deal.

If the line is under 3mb then the increase in speed is likely to be zero.
Its only the people that are getting 5 meg plus that will see an increase and its not that big an increase ( 5 meg to 6 meg or 8 meg to 9 meg)
Dont see why BT are bothering with ADSL2+. should just go whole hog to fibre based broadband

mrtom21

I reckon they are doing it as a quick fire way to try and get peoples' speeds above the 2MB minimum needed by law coming soon. Only issue I have is that it's making the divide between people with crap speed and people with good speeds much bigger.

deeplyblue

Sorry to come into this thread late, but I'm desperately looking for some real information about broadband speeds in properties I'm considering buying. This means that the places such as the Sky site are no help, as they will only tell you about the line you are already using.

I'm getting very despondent about broadband reception in the semi-rural areas we've been looking at e.g. the market town of Hexham. I had thought that Hexham might have cable, but it doesn't go up the Tyne valley at all.

So I'm trying to work out which properties have acceptable ADSL and which don't. The SamKnows site is helpful, but not conclusive (at least 2 places I'm looking at don't appear on the SamKnows maps.).

So I'm trying to find out whether WBC will help, where the answer seems to be "Maybe, but not a lot." However, it may take a just tolerable rate, 3.5 Mbps, to a manageable just a little bit more.

I'm also wondering whether the LLU suppliers might have faster speeds than those relying on BT. Can anyone help? I'm very loath to give my money to the odious Murdoch (either of them), but if Sky can give me - say - 5 Mbps, when BT can only manage a max of 3.5, then I might have to overcome my queasiness about Sky.

One place we're seriously looking at is within the reach of one of the exchanges that used to have a listing for WBC activation, but where it has been postponed without any date. Does anyone know if that means that it will come in the next couple of years, or has BT basically given up on these smaller exchanges?

I'm not an online gamer, but I do want streaming video, and enough bandwidth for video-conferencing from time to time.

db

mdstone

Broadband speeds are primarily based on distance from the exchange, if you are close to an exchange you get good speeds and if you are far away you get low speeds. An upgrade to ADSL2+ is unlikely to improve anything for those who already get poor speeds. Maybe BT need to forcus on adding more exchanges rather than upgrading existing ones.