Sky / BT Fibre BB

lisa701

I'm considering moving to Sky or BT Fibre BB in July when my existing O2 contract expires but don't know anyone with fibre as its only recently been installed in my area.

Non-fibre speeds are pretty slow by me - neighbours with Sky get around 2.5 meg and I only ever got 1.5 meg with BT. I've been lucky to get 4 meg from O2 but now they are no longer I'm faced with the choice of going with slower speeds or pay a little extra and sign up for fibre, but thats only if its as good as they portray.

I understand I'm not going to get top speeds due to my location, but surely its going to be better than the poultry 2.5 max thats on offer with standard BB?

Browntoa

I get 79 meg on Fibre to the cabinet (FTC) as opposed to 8 meg before

penrhyn

If you get 4mb now you will continue to get the same with Sky. BT infinity and Sky Fttc are delivered by the same infrastructure so you need to consider the comparative costs. It would be a good idea to post your router line statistics.

almillar

Your current ADSL speed is determined by the distance from the EXCHANGE to your house - along a copper wire.
If you move to fibre (Sky or BT, doesn't matter) your speed will be determined by the distance from your CABINET to your house.
The longer the copper cable, the slower the speed. Fibre, Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) replaces the copper wiring between the exchange and your cabinet with fibre optic cable, which can carry data reliably over FAR bigger distances. Then you've got copper just from the cabinet to your house.
You'll recognise the new Fibre cabinets, they're the big green boxes that have been appearing beside the smaller green boxes.
For an example, I'm about 2 miles from my exchange. I had 3mb ADSL, and when I went to fibre, this is now up to 29mb.
Point being - your ADSL speed doesn't really relate that much to your Fibre speed. The speed is all about the amount of copper involved.

Gordon_Hose

The BT Infinity site will give you an indication of what sort of speeds you can expect.

bryanb

On the same subject. We have fibre to the local cabinet, does that mean everyone fed by that cabinet will see the benefit? Or is the copper from exchange to cabinet still in use for those who haven't upgraded?

bod1467

bryanb wrote: »

On the same subject. We have fibre to the local cabinet, does that mean everyone fed by that cabinet will see the benefit? Or is the copper from exchange to cabinet still in use for those who haven't upgraded?

FTTC is self-explanatory ... it is Fibre (from the exchange) To The Cabinet. The copper part is from the cabinet to your property.

So what'll impact speed is the length and quality of the copper from your property to the cabinet.

Gordon_Hose

If you're on ADSL you'll be served by the existing cabinet that you always have been. No one served by this cabinet will see a benefit of Fibre.

If you move to FTTC you'll be served by the newly installed Fibre cabinet positioned next to the ADSL cabinet.

bryanb

Gordon_Hose wrote: »

If you're on ADSL you'll be served by the existing cabinet that you always have been. No one served by this cabinet will see a benefit of Fibre.

If you move to FTTC you'll be served by the newly installed Fibre cabinet positioned next to the ADSL cabinet.

Thanks Gordon, we're still on ADSL but have noticed an increase in speed since the new cabinet arrived next to the original. It went from around 5 Mb to 10.5Mb. Not complaining, just curious to know if there is an explanation. Could it be less people on the copper?

Gordon_Hose

People may have moved onto FTTC and the contention ratio would have dropped on the bog standard ADSL.

Or it could be that they've upgraded equipment in the exchange.

Hard to tell why you'd get such a jump.

iniltous

bryanb wrote: »

Thanks Gordon, we're still on ADSL but have noticed an increase in speed since the new cabinet arrived next to the original. It went from around 5 Mb to 10.5Mb. Not complaining, just curious to know if there is an explanation. Could it be less people on the copper?

If your speed increased from 5Mb to 10Mb it had nothing to do with the FTTC cabinet or contention or anything like that, it's possible that you were on old legacy adsl kit in the exchange and have been moved onto more modern ADSL2 kit, BT have a rolling programme of recovering the legacy stuff and moving people onto newer kit, but I thought they emailed you in advance of the migration..this assumes that BT or a BT reseller are your ISP