Northern Ireland to have best broadband in Europe

slugger09

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/363124/northern-ireland-to-have-best-broadband-in-europe

Very interesting read, I've searched 3 exchanges, my address, my parents address and work address and no signs or plans for fibre.

Search your own exchange http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

thetope

have a look at http://www.fasterbroadbandni.com/ (click the purple "find more about the cabinet rollout" button further down the page)

(courtesy of poster Sandlake on the BT infinity thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2787204 )

much better site than even BT's own racetoinfinity one

butterflymum

We can only hope for cheaper broadband eventually too, especially for those in Rural exchange areas who have no access to LLU rates from their providers. My own monthly premium was bumped up in pastyear, for no improved service, from £9.99pm to £17.99pm, just because BT started charging my provider more. Very frustrating...and, I believe, the price increase passed on to Joe Public was higher than the actual price increase to the provider.

chunter

Our local town in Mid Ulster just got the fast broadband and I've just applied for the free upgrade with my provider F2S. It get's updated on 8th December.
I should be able to tell you then whether it makes a substantial difference, (apart from maybe having an incompatible router!)

slugger09

Is this for fibre or just upping the speed of regular broadband? I already get 5mb IPStream but its crap at peak times, if its not for fibre everyone is just gonna have the same issue anyway higher speed during the day when your at work but awful in the evenings.

Brogie

got a card through the letterbox at the weekend

Lisburn, its here, superfast fibre optic broadband
Experience the world of BT Infinity

from £7.49 for first 3 months.

no mention of what speeds that price aplies to. Card also states download speeds of up to 40mb

Money_Grabber13579

But does it just apply to BT? And also, if I currently get around 3 Meg on an 8 Meg line, will this speed it up until it reaches the 8 Meg cap? Or will there be no difference?

blueberrypie

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

But does it just apply to BT? And also, if I currently get around 3 Meg on an 8 Meg line, will this speed it up until it reaches the 8 Meg cap? Or will there be no difference?

A couple of other ISPs are also doing it - Virgin, I think, and definitely Plusnet (though theirs is a trial, so not being promoted heavily, but it's worth checking). The speed on your line right now isn't relevant - we're a fair distance from the exchange and could only get a 1mb service before (and were getting download speeds of about a quarter of that!) - but with FTTC, we're getting a download speed of up to 39mb - yes, you read that right! Admittedly that's when we're sitting right next to the new socket, with a wired connection, but even so, it's a huge difference from what we had before.

almillar

This still depends on your distance from the exchange. Also according to that site, my cabinet was due to change on 31st October, but now says 31st January....

blueberrypie

almillar wrote: »

This still depends on your distance from the exchange. Also according to that site, my cabinet was due to change on 31st October, but now says 31st January....

Distance to the exchange doesn't matter with FTTC - what matters is the distance to the cabinet. As most people live a lot closer to their nearest cabinet than their nearest exchange, most people will see an improvement in speed if they switch to FTTC. For those who already get good speeds on ADSL, it won't matter too much - but for those who, like us, are about 5 km from their exchange, there's a real benefit.

almillar

Sorry, yes, fibre from the exchange to the cabinet is this rollout, then from the cabinet to your home is plain old copper. Is there a way to find out which CABINET you're connected to then? I know what exchange I'm on, and from the website above I can see 4 cabinets on it, but is it safe to assume that the one geographically nearest is the one I'm connected to?
Currently on 3.5mbps with O2, BT Infinity says I can't have it yet (even though my exchange is enabled) and they predict 1.5mbps.