The Phrase Up To (BT)

cmason47

I have recently wondering about my rights as a customer of any Internet firm currently. As there is being fibre optics rolling out up and down the country Internet speeds are being boost. Great News. But as with anything you have to pay for the privilege! Now don't get me wrong I do not mind paying for things, but i find myself annoyed that I am currently paying for UP TO 8MB broadband and currently getting 2MB at most really. Yet BT are now telling me that they can get me super fast up to 40MB broadband!!!!

Now the question I'm really trying to get too. In my eyes BT have the capacity to give me the 8MB that i am currently paying for but are refusing to do so. What are my rights do i really have to pay more broadband speed when i am not getting the speed i am currently paying for?????

Any help would be great I am positive that this cant be right!! And i am sure there are people up and down the country with the same query!

baby_frogmella

"up to 8 meg broadband" means exactly that! UP TO. The reason why not everyone gets the full 8 meg is simply due to the distance between their property and the exchange...the closer you live to the exchange, the higher the speeds....nothing to do with BT, this is just simple physics

However when your exchange gets FTTC'd, then the only thing your speed depends on is the length of copper between your home and the cabinet which is likely to be much, much shorter than your current distance between exchange and home.

penrhyn

In my eyes BT have the capacity to give me the 8MB that i am currently paying for but are refusing to do so.

What technology do you propose that BT deploy to provide you with 8mbps?

As above what you get is dependent on your distance from the exchange, your only alternative is cable.

To quote Mr Scott "You canna change the laws of physics".

Gordon_Hose

BT won't deliver the up to 40Mb over the same infrastructure. If you want up to 40Mb you'll have to move to their Infinity package, which is different to their up to 8Mb internet package.

moonrakerz

baby_frogmella wrote: »

"up to 8 meg broadband" means exactly that! UP TO. The reason why not everyone gets the full 8 meg is simply due to the distance between their property and the exchange...the closer you live to the exchange, the higher the speeds....nothing to do with BT, this is just simple physics

To be REALLY pedantic, no one will get 8mbs, the fastest possible speed for ADSL+ is around 7.2Mb/sec - simple physics !

Some good info here in simple terms...................

http://www.broadband-advisor.co.uk/download-speeds.aspx

kwikbreaks

While it is true that ADSL (there is no such thing as ADSL+) can only deliver a maximum of ~ 7.2Mbps download that site is hopelessly out of date on cable and may well contain other errors.
VM are not "trialling 50Mbps". 100Mbps is already available in many areas and is being rolled out to the rest.

moonrakerz

My point was aimed at copper users - especially those who think that "up to 8 megs" means that they, and everyone else will get just that - not one bit less !
This point must have been raised and answered 8 million times on this site alone

I was going to say that fibre is a whole different thing - but I now see that there is a thread started by someone who is complaining that his "fibre" link has a copper connection to his house, and wants to know if, and who, he can sue !!!

kwikbreaks

I like to point out to those who insist that they should pay less because they only get nMbps and not full whack that in fact they should be paying more because their extra long line is likely to cost more to maintain over time. It never seems to go down well though for some reason.

I can't see any end to the digital divide in the short term either. That is mainly due to people demanding cheap broadband. The margin on some of the deals can't be more than a few quid a year. For at least two years O2 were buying market share by selling at a loss to those smart enough to pick up cashback. Now they seem to be throwing those hard earned customers to their competitors.

baby_frogmella

moonrakerz wrote: »

To be REALLY pedantic, no one will get 8mbs, the fastest possible speed for ADSL+ is around 7.2Mb/sec - simple physics !

Some good info here in simple terms...................

http://www.broadband-advisor.co.uk/download-speeds.aspx

Yes i know there is a difference between sync speeds and real download speeds (due to overheads) but ISPs market their services on sync speeds, NOT on real download speeds, so its only fair to use the same terminology.

bod1467

When I had ADSLMax with Pipex many years ago I used to sync at 8192kbps down, 448kbps up.

Currently with BE (ADSL2+) I sync at 17.3meg down, 1.4meg up.