Would fibre be worth it?

dezza

Currently coming up to the end of our Sky Broadband contract, with a normal download speed of 3.5 - 4meg.

I've been looking at fibre deals and in our area, the max speed is around 22meg.

So far the speed for us has been adequate, with rare buffering on Youtube and gaming being generally fine (not a big gamer anyway). However, in the coming months we're hoping to use our smart TV a bit more and possibly subscribe to a service such as Netflix, to fill the gap not having Sky TV will create.

I was wondering if our speed on copper ADSL will be sufficient for this sort of usage? There's still a reasonable price difference for fibre so would like to feel as if the extra cost would be actually worth it.

Thanks for any advice.

kwikbreaks

Wait. If you get issues then is the time to upgrade.

If you plan to be running multiple concurrent streams or streaming + something else then 4Mbps probably won't be adequate so just upgrade in advance.

forgotmyname

I had similar speeds due to be a fair distance from the exchange. But my local box is a lot closer. I was given an estimate of 68MB. I actually get 73MB.

The engineer that installed the box said its actually over 80 but capped by the provider.

dezza

Thanks for the replies. After doing some local asking around it seems the estimated speeds we've been given are a bit lower than people's actual speed - might be due to their provider or other factors though.

LazyTyper

dezza wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. After doing some local asking around it seems the estimated speeds we've been given are a bit lower than people's actual speed - might be due to their provider or other factors though.

I should point out that as more people on the same cabinet get Fibre broadband then the estimated speeds will prove to be true. This is just due to cross-talk.

If you are planning on watching Netflix, then you need at least 5 Mbps for their HD content.

dezza

LazyTyper wrote: »

I should point out that as more people on the same cabinet get Fibre broadband then the estimated speeds will prove to be true. This is just due to cross-talk.

If you are planning on watching Netflix, then you need at least 5 Mbps for their HD content.

Thanks, I'd be happy with the estimated speeds in any case - far quicker than the 3.5mbps we receive now.

I didn't realise Netflix had speed requirements for HD - doesn't look like non-fibre would work out too great then

skea56

We currently have fibre optic but now at the end of our contract I am considering downgrading back to ordinary broadband. I haven't seen any difference in speed between the two, and in fact the last few months have noticed pages slowish to load.
We don't download movies or music or anything like that so therefore are not making the use of the fibre as we should. I'd rather just stick with unlimited broadband and save a few pounds.

But thats just us, maybe if you make more use out of it than we did you should go for fibre

sk56

Towbar

Download Speeds both advertised and estimated are strong contenders to win the 'Booker Prize'. I paid Virgin Media for 30 mb fibre optic which was then upgraded to 60. I managed 12.6 ONCE. Some of the time my speed was 8.3, and most of the time it slowed to a crawl. The service crashed frequently at odd times, my emails crashed regularly on Friday mornings, and Virgin media technicians were as much use as a tissue paper teapot.
I switched to Sky and for a year my speed has varied between 10.2 and 14.7 .

kwikbreaks

In the vast majority of areas VM cable delivers the speed it is sold at. Were you testing over WiFi by any chance?

suse*

I have used netflix, lovefilm (now amazon), nowtv and iplayer etc find for years with 1.9meg from sky as well as using my laptop at the same time. So unless you have a lot of people in your house all streaming different content at the same time you might not need fiber.

littlereddevil

I don't notice any difference in speed with BT infinity but before I had infinity I couldn't watch catchup or anything on my tv