Upgrading to BT Infinity

techno79

I've been on various ADSL 'upto 8Mbps' broadband packages with various providers and have consistently gotten a maximum speed of 3 to 4Mbps. I have just seen BT's marketing details for their Infinity packages which promise speeds of up to 40Mbps. I'm not sure what changes in the technology with the Infinity packages but is there anything that does change that would allow me to reach higher speeds?

I went through the sign-up process for the Infinity package and it estimated my maximum download speed would be 32.2Mbps (great, I can live with that). However, it then said my typical download speed would be 1 to 3.5Mbps. This is much lower than what I currently get. I'm not prepared to pay for a premium service to get lower, same or slightly higher speeds than what I get at the moment (currently pay about £7 a month).

A friend has told me that BT is rolling out fibre to home. Is this what Infinity is? I've tried to get in touch with BT but they've been quite unhelpful and very unresponsive.

Any guidance or help would be greatly appreciated.

diamonds

Infinity is FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) = fibre to the exchange then to cabinet in the street so the copper wire between there and your home is the defining issue, check https://www.samknows.com for info on your exchange and
how far away you are from it

also https://www.speedtester.bt.com

post results of both and im sure we can help

iniltous

Are you sure the lower figure wasnt the 'upload' speed which is better than ADSL upload speeds, as already mentioned, the distance from your PCP (green street cabinet) back to the exchange is not an issue with Infinity,as that part of the system is 'fibre',the variable is the distance from the PCP to your home, the closer to the PCP the better, but in most cases the distance from the PCP isnt going to be more than a few hunderd metres (at worst), most posters on here and similar forums seem to get in excess of the estimated speed
BT have a few trial areas of FTTH (upto 100Mb/s) but there isnt a general consumer offering for that and isnt likely to be for quite a while, as FTTH is a lot more expensive to provide.

societys_child

When you do the speed check on the infinity site it gives you two speeds ....

The first is your Infinity speed (32Mb)

the lower second speed is what they say you should expect if you took their normal adsl . . (not the infinity service)

read the screen carefully . .

seen_the_light_2

Hi Techno 79

I have had BT infinity for 3 weeks now and its FANTASTIC. Previously my speed was 0.5 , now im getting 36 , woth the lowest its been dropping to 16 for an hour or so, but I wouldnt have known this had i not checked the speed. the second figure shown will as mentioned in a previous post be the upload speed. Infinity is only a few pounds more than my previous BT broadband package.

Additionally, the supefast speed allowed us to have the BT Vision tv package, which im finding superb also, as I did away with Sky 2 years ago due to cost; yes there aren't quite as many chanels as Sky, but there more than enough for us and the TV replay/catch up is superb.

Dont delay, order Infinity and you will definately notice a huge difference.

regards

STL

techno79

I'll give the speed checks a go when I get back home. But I thought I'd post a picture of the page from BT giving me the speed.

The first speed value is of my estimated maximum download.
Second is of my typical actual speed (I'm assuming this refers to my download).
Third is of my maximum upload speed.

Please let me know if anyone can add any further clarification to this.

john1973_2

i wouldnt worry, the checker isnt very accurate and tends to under estimate speeds, im on an infinity trial as it said id get 7mb, i get 16mb as im 1060 metres from the green cabinet and my line is made of alluminium not copper!!. Still a lot better than the 2-3 i was getting on adsl2.

I know people who were told they would get 14mb, they get 27mb etc.

With an estimate of 32 , id say you will get 38-40 :j

iniltous

The screen shot you have pasted has 2 M's, 3.5 M Mbps, so that isnt the 3.5Mb/s you would see on a slower product, but what moron in BT marketing though, thought it would be a good idea to have an estimate in one form, Mbps then on the same page also have a figure in another format MMbp, when refering to the same thing !!!, ...the 3.5M Mbps is what most (sensible people) would quote as approx 35Mb/s, the page does show an asterix (*), this may explain the reason for displaying the info in this confusing way...no doubt its to do with bits and bytes, 1 byte being 8 bits,

Mark64uk

I'm on Plusnets FTTC i went from under 1 meg to around 16 which is a bit of an improvement i'm miles away from the green cab as the engineer said that i was connected at 40 meg at my cab but due to line length i only get 16 well worth the switch.

techno79

It all looks promising and something that may be worth upgrading to. I finally heard back from BT who said "The 1Mbit/s - 3.5Mbit/s figures seem to be for ADSL2 broadband i.e. not BT Infinity; you can disregard these figures." I think someone at BT is definitely a moron for publishing a web page with such confusing figures. One the units are different, I've never even heard of xM Mbps. Secondly, that line doesn't even mention that it is in relation to ADSL2 connection. Thirdly, that line is wildly out of context being sandwiched between upload/download estimate speeds for Infinity. Thanks for all the replies and help.

techno79

john1973 wrote: »

my line is made of alluminium not copper!!. With an estimate of 32 , id say you will get 38-40 :j

Are you in the Milton Keynes are by any chance? MK is plagued with cheap and poor quality aluminium lines. Luckily I still get a respectable 3 to 4Mbps but I know many people near me get such poor speeds.

If I get 32Mbps then I will be happy. Anything more and I will be chuffed to bits.