Copper is not glass, are ISPs mass action liable for fibre optic claims?

kwikbreaks

Although, as Spike says, with cable there can be a fair distance that is coax you'll still get the potential speed which you are sold - of course if the VM sales team performs better than the network upgrade team your actual download may be less but mostly you do get what you pay for.

Almost all UK ADSL is really RADSL - rate adaptive - but cable is more akin to the original fixed speed ADSL products that were sold. People moaning that they only get (say) 5Mbps on a 20Mbps package should consider that a few years back the BTw line quality requirements may have limited them to a 512kbps maximum product.

BT will not sell their Infinity product unless they can guarantee 15Mbps. They still sell the same technology of course but under a different brand name - fibre assisted ADSL or some such I think is what I read.

Gordon_Hose

This thread made me *facepalm* big time.

ISP's can't win. If they explained all that they'd be accused of purposely confusing customers. They dumb it down and they get accused of lying about being a fibre provider.

At the end of the day, if you get the speed you're paying for, you have no cause for complaint.

If OFCOM deemed they were mis-selling products because the last 10 feet of cabling was copper, they would have put a stop to it already.

moonrakerz

Gordon_Hose wrote: »

This thread made me *facepalm* big time.

ISP's can't win.

You forgot the usual one:- "my ISP promised me 8, 16, 24, 40 (insert any figure you like) mbs" !! :D

Gordon_Hose

moonrakerz wrote: »

You forgot the usual one:- "my ISP promised me 8, 16, 24, 40 (insert any figure you like) mbs" !! :D

Yeah. I was promised a cup of tea this morning...

It didn't materialise

ollski

Bt estimated my speed at 34.8mb but I just did a speedcheck and i'm only getting 33.8!! (9.4 up and 16ms ping!)

Gordon_Hose

ollski wrote: »

Bt estimated my speed at 34.8mb but I just did a speedcheck and i'm only getting 33.8!! (9.4 up and 16ms ping!)

Must be awful for you!

/sarcasm

Mark_In_Hampshire

spike7451 wrote: »

Not entirely correct there Mark.The fibre optic cable only runs to the Mux/DA which are the two boxes you will see side by side.The street cabinets are arranged in rings & the is only 1 Mux/DA per ring.These can be up to half a mile away from your home & it is there at the MUX/DA that the fibre optic is turned into copper.From the DA,which is the TV/BBand side,it then runs to the DP cabinet & then thru a Magnavox booster to the house or onto the smaller E cabinets.

Thanks - can I quiz you on one technical aspect?

If the fibre can be up to half a mile away, e.g. the connection to the customer's premises is copper co-ax half a mile long, or approximately 0.8km:

Over a similar distance, an ADSL2+ "Up to 24Mbps" service loses about 13% of its headline speed and would only deliver 21Mbps.

That's based on "lab figures" e.g. for a certain gauge of copper, and BT uses different gauges and indeed not all the lines are copper anyway, so it's likely to be a best case scenario.

Now I don't know how many people have telephone lines that are only 0.8km long - I'd guess it's about 1% of users or less. For those 1% of people, an ADSL2+ service could outperform a 20Mbps cable service (from the single perspective of possible max speed, leaving aside contention, shaping etc.).

But, the same cable service could supply 100Mbps over that 0.8km run of co-ax (is that true?)

Why is this? Is it simply that the co-ax is more conductive ("fatter"?) than a telephone line?

Looked at the other way around, why can't ADSL2+ perform at 100Mbps downstream over the same copper run?

kwikbreaks

Why do you use coax instead of mains wire for your TV lead?

Coax is an order of magnitude more immune to noise pickup. There are limits to the power your can put through one pair in a bundle of phone lines without crosstalk screwing up adjacent pairs. If it was necessary (it isn't) the cable could carry 100w or more and another cable next to it wouldn't be affected.

ADSL2+ can only use frequencies up to 2.2MHz. VDSL (BT Infinity) operates up to 12MHz. My cable modem is currently bonded to 4 8MHz wide channels the lowest of which is 443MHz. If you tried to use twisted pair at those frequencies over any substantial distance it would simply radiate most of it away.

iniltous

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

That's why - and I hope this is the case - whenever I describe either cable or BT's "FTTC" service, I and others use the wording "part-fibre network"

As regards the difference in speeds, generally VM street cabinets are very close to the properties with a short copper co-ax run to the home so the headline, advertised speeds are possible. By contrast the BT cabinet could be miles away connected to the home with a narrow gauge copper or aliminium line and so the headline speeds cannot be achieved - BT's part-fibre network cannot by definition hit the headline speeds unless the last bit of copper really is copper, is short, and sufficiently good quality.

So you could say "VM is more fibre-optic than BT" (a greater percentage of the run to the home is fibre) but that's a dangerous path. Either it's fibre-optic, or it isn't. Similarly a watch is either gold, or gold-plated.

The OP is right. Neither are really "fibre-optic broadband", it's stretching the truth just a little too far. But the regulator decided it was OK when VM used it in their advertising, so BT now use it. Believe this may be under review.

When BT upgrades an exchange to FTTC they dont always upgrade all the PCP's (the existing green street cabinets) to FTTC, the ones they dont are the ones that have a large percentage of long 'd' (distribution) side lines..the PCP's they instal FTTC the end users will probably be no more that a few hunderd metres away from the cab, my own area is not FTTC but my cab is about 200m away, and there is a another serving nearby propertys probably about 500m away from that, so no worse than VM....as regards adverts saying 'fibre optc broadband', VM were challenged not in the courts but with the ASA who decided it was ok to use the phrase, therefore its also ok for BT to use the same type of advert,I think its a little pedantic to say its not all fibre so they shouldnt use the term at all.

moonrakerz

ollski wrote: »

Bt estimated my speed at 34.8mb but I just did a speedcheck and i'm only getting 33.8!! (9.4 up and 16ms ping!)

Don't just sit there - sue someone !! :rotfl: