BT infinity query

givememoney

We keep getting letters from BT telling us we should update to Infinity. This will cost us no more they tell us.

My query is this and sorry if it sounds daft. We have a hub and wifi at the moment. What are they going to do to instal infinity. More wires around the house? Drilling into walls? Or do they just flick a switch.

I do notice logging on is taking in age now, is this delibrate to get us to transfer?

Any suggestions would be helpful

Peter999_2

If it is genuinely not costing any more then you really want to switch to it.

An engineer will come to your house, possibly replace the master socket and then install a BT OpenReach modem which in turn connects to the home hub. He will then leave your house and go to the BT cabinet on the road that you are connected to. This takes about 20 minutes.

He will then come back, run a few tests and that's it.

You will only get extra wires if your master socket is not where you want it to be - he would be able to extend it somewhere more convenient.

To give you a clue about the speed, my parents went from 5Mb to 76Mb when they were done. Everything works so much faster, espcially things like iplayer.

macman

What is your current speed? What speed do you need?
www.speedtest.net
It will certainly cost you more after the end of the promotional discount period, or end of the minimum term.

vulcanpilot

We have just (today) had Infinity 2 installed. What a difference to our old ADSL service!!

We were with Thus/Demon and have been since pretty much 'the internet' has been available, initially on dialup, then ISDN, then ADSL of various flavours but the very best speed that we could achieve with ADSL was just over 7Mbps. On Infinity, we are just sub 77Mbps down and 16Mbps up.

The install took no more than 30 mins, although I spent a while chatting about mutual interests with the Openreach chap. We had an 8am to 1pm slot booked and he was with us at 8:15. Tested cabling, did the work in the cab and came back with the VDSL modem. He ran his speed checks, was happy and cleared off.

The 'only' issue is the BT Home Hub ... it's not a great bit of kit and I intend to replace with my Airport Extreme once the 10 day training period is over. Probably OK for most home users though and a doddle to setup.

Based on my experience I'd say do the speed checks on the BT.com site to see if you will get a good speed, and if you will get well over ADSL speeds then go for it.

lee111s

Don't worry about the 10 days malarky - it's not really relevant to FTTC. Along with the fact that the 10 days is only ever in relation to the sync speed (which is handled by the Openreach modem) you're fine to change the home hub for the airport extreme as it won't knock the circuit out of sync, you'll simply log out of the Radius server and log back in when the new kit is connected.

Toxteth_OGrady

vulcanpilot wrote: »

The 'only' issue is the BT Home Hub ... it's not a great bit of kit and I intend to replace with my Airport Extreme once the 10 day training period is over. Probably OK for most home users though and a doddle to setup.

The 10 day training period on fibre is a myth and in any case you can change your router without powering down the Openreach modem so the point is moot.

You could affect your line speed if you were to frequently power off the modem in the first 2 days but you won't if you just swap out the router.

Fibre DLM is a different beast to ADSL DLM. Here's how Openreach describe it:

Dynamic Line Management


Dynamic Line Management (DLM) is employed in GEA-FTTC. DLM constantly

manages lines to maintain a target stability. It does this for as long as the product

exists.

At provision, the line is put on wide open profiles, allowing downstream line speeds

of up to 40Mbit/s, and upstream line speeds of up to 2Mbit/s or 10Mbit/s depending

on the upstream product option selected.

On the first day of operation, DLM will intervene if severe instability is detected.

Otherwise, DLM will wait until the day after provision before intervening, provided

that the line has been trained up for at least 15 minutes during the preceding day.

If DLM intervenes it will set a capped profile with a maximum rate and a minimum

rate, where the minimum rate is set at approximately half of the maximum rate. The

purpose of the minimum rate is to ensure that the line does not train at a rate which is

significantly below the level the line should be able to achieve. If this happened, then

the line is likely to remain at a very low rate till a re-train is forced by the user

powering off the Active NTE.

Note that the upstream throughput is also constrained on the DSLAM to the upstream

Note: that pre-dates 80/20 but remains a correct functional description of fibre dynamic line management.

VisionMan

Hi givememoney,

The offer is genuine. Go for it. Because Infinity rocks! And to keep your discounts, all you will have to do is ring them just before your renewal is due. And it's BT that told me that.

Bargain!

And your not the only one either. See previous thread here -

Free upgrade to BT Infinity

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4401889

vulcanpilot

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

...and in any case you can change your router without powering down the Openreach modem so the point is moot.

Yes, I know that, however in reality in my setup it's all too easy to knock out the power to the VDSL modem whilst swapping cables around, hence why I'm intending to leave it alone...

My network 'cab' has 3x RAID NAS, an Apple Time Capsule, a gigabit switch and some other kit. I'd have preferred the VDSL modem to have been mounted on the wall near the NTE but that would have made things more messy and not 'UPS-able'

Toxteth_OGrady

vulcanpilot wrote: »

Yes, I know that, however in reality in my setup it's all too easy to knock out the power to the VDSL modem whilst swapping cables around, hence why I'm intending to leave it alone...

Ok but only 2 days not 10.

givememoney

macman wrote: »

What is your current speed? What speed do you need?
www.speedtest.net
It will certainly cost you more after the end of the promotional discount period, or end of the minimum term.

The letter catogorically (sic) states it will not cost anymore than we pay now.

macman

givememoney wrote: »

The letter catogorically (sic) states it will not cost anymore than we pay now.

Yes, but for what period? And what is the new minimum term (normally 18m on an Infinity tariff)?