fibre optic broadband possibilities?

pigeonpie

Our line's just been fibre optic enabled. I don't think I can face 18 months with BT. I've had so much trouble with them during the past year - just too stressful and imho an awful company.

what are my options as a private user to get fibre optic broadband from someone else? My current ISP has a longish waiting list and businesses seem to be taking preference. Does O2 or someone like that offer this?
I would probably need my master socket moved as well as it's in a stupid place and not near any electrical socket.

I suppose I need to keep a BT line as we have Sky+. I don't really want Sky bb as dealing with them isn't my first choice either

penrhyn

Virgin is your only other option, assuming you are in a cable area.
BT are working with other ISPs but I guess they would have to upgrade their exchange equipment before they could offer an upgraded service.

oneandonlyboy

Don't forget that BT are only installing fibre to the green street cabinets not to home as of yet. Virgin has started to rollout fibre to home at a cost of £45 per month as a stand alone or £35 with a package.

kwikbreaks

oneandonlyboy wrote: »

Virgin has started to rollout fibre to home at a cost of £45 per month as a stand alone or £35 with a package.

The Virgin fibre stops at a street cabinet too (and not necessarily the nearest even). After that it's coax. This isn't a new service it's been around for about 10 years now delivered over the older cable TV network with a range of prices according to speed. What they have done is announce a new 100Mbps product which will start to be available from December.

OP - are you saying that BT have rolled out their Infinity product in your area? If so other ISPs may be able to offer it but as it's all new territory I don't know for sure.

If you do get the new BT product you'll be getting a new internal connector anyway.

deklan99

Some ISPs offering FTTC over BT's network:
Vivaciti
Idnet
Zen
ADSL24

more out there.

pigeonpie

Yes we are being offered BT Infinity. Our current bb speed is 3mbps maximum download and 0.4 upload. Fastest it's ever gone is 4.5meg download with ethernet at some ungodly hour.
We want Sky Sports so think Virgin will be too expensive for broadband and SS add on

eamon

From a technical point of view the coax cable and the associated connectors used by Virgin Media is extremely high spec stuff. From what I recall the coax is rated at 1ghz though what that means is beyond me but my former colleagues did tell me that it wasn't much below the ability of optical fibre cable. What I do know is that Virgin are able to do a huge amount of work by upgrading hardware both at the headend/IT centre and at street cabinet level. I do know of some Virgin customers (commercial & consumers) that had fibre delivered to their premises in the late 90's.

Virgin and the ADSL providers are still crippled though by having a contested service.

penrhyn

eamon wrote: »

From a technical point of view the coax cable and the associated connectors used by Virgin Media is extremely high spec stuff. From what I recall the coax is rated at 1ghz though what that means is beyond me but my former colleagues did tell me that it wasn't much below the ability of optical fibre cable. What I do know is that Virgin are able to do a huge amount of work by upgrading hardware both at the headend/IT centre and at street cabinet level. I do know of some Virgin customers (commercial & consumers) that had fibre delivered to their premises in the late 90's.

Virgin and the ADSL providers are still crippled though by having a contested service.

Your friend is seriously misinformed, for all practical purposes the bandwidth of a monomode optical cable is infinite.

pigeonpie

deklan99 wrote: »

Some ISPs offering FTTC over BT's network:
Vivaciti
Idnet
Zen
ADSL24

more out there.

May be a choice between Zen and ID Net. I know about the former and am impressed with their CS and tech support. Any views on idnet in terms of tech support and CS (for personal users, not business)? I tend to need tech support as am not tech savvy.
I've thought about it and life is too short to deal with BT. Terrible CS and just not worth it.

deklan99

Maybe have a good look through this thread - http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre.html and come to your own conclusions, otherwise another option is Xilo/Uno, best ISP I've ever had who have just dipped their toes into fibre as well.

pigeonpie

My internet usage is mostly during day time ie peak hours. This seems to be a crucial factor in deciding who to go with as many of them seem to cap usage during the day?