What internet speeds can we expect to see in a few years time?

martin57

Hi folks,


Been on Fibre broadband with talktalk for past year and a half, overall fairly satisfied, little down time, download speed usually 36 mbps or thereabouts. I do realise that its Bt openreach optic cable to nearest cabinet, so effectively its openreach that's running it.


I have noticed these past few evenings speed has dropped to 25 mbps or so, take it that a lot more people in area have signed up to fibre, and streaming a lot hence the drop in speed.


1 Just wondering with fibre, how bad can congestion really get? could fibre broadband become virtually unusable as I found sometimes with old dsl with talktalk, due to congestion?


2 I know that no one can know for sure but how fast do you think FTTC such as I have got will be in a few years time, and if a great increase in download speed mean that congestion is less likely to occur?


Thanks for any info.
Martin57

worried_jim

I believe I will be getting close to 300mbps by years end with Virgin. Get close to 150 mbps at present. Currently downloading movies in the time it takes to do a lap of the house and put the kettle on.

agrinnall

FTTC will always be limited by the copper connection between the cabinet and the house, so I'd be surprised if it matches Virgin's current FTTH speeds, let alone the 300 Mbps that jim mentions. I'd expect 1 Gbps speeds from FTTH in some locations before too long.

ChiefGrasscutter

You can already on FTTH altnet's like Gigaclear - if you are lucky enough to be in their area.
The ONT/router/equipment at either end is fully 1Gpbs capable.
Its only up to you what package you choose as to what your fibre is capped at.
Most go for the 50/50 service ie 50 Mbps symmetrical both download and upload.
Their higher packages are 100/100, 200/200 and the 1000/1000.
and of course being full FTTP everyone gets the full speed - but then you do pay a fair sum for it!

kwikbreaks

With any luck I'll be able to actually get a connection without using an external antenna here in my holiday caravan in Norfolk.

Back home I can choose between cable and FTTC, After finding cable headline speeds can take a serious nosedive in some areas for months on end until VM get off their bacsides and fix the congestion I moved back to copper but FTTC this time around which seems to have bypassed the length of string my old ADSL connection ran on which pushed me to cable in the first place.

Local pipe on cable is currently 8x50Mbps downstream channels. Upstream is significantly less at 2x18Mbps. To increase the channels would require the modems to be replaced so unless they choose to do that I don't see much headline speed increase in the immediate future. Capacity problems can be address by reducing the number of modems on each set of channels. As FTTC is likely to top out at 100Mbps until there is a technology advance I don't see much pressure on VM to go higher than they can now - especially as many still don't get the top speeds due to line lengths which doesn't impact cable.

Truth be told for current applications there is little need for speeds above ADSL capability so long as the line is short enough to get close to 16Mbps. If it can't then FTTC should provide that apart from rural areas which are likely to still be left in the digital backwaters unless there is some serious subsidy money on offer or groups get together and provide their own solutions.

John_Gray

Virgin are already testing 200 Mbps and 300 Mbps at some lucky people's homes.

And read about G.Fast at 330 Mbps to trial in three parts of the UK.

Iain_L

A doubling to 1 meg would be nice. Living away from a city does have it's drawbacks.

agrinnall

Iain_L wrote: »

A doubling to 1 meg would be nice. Living away from a city does have it's drawbacks.

Indeed, moving house from glen to city meant going from under 0.5 meg to over 15.

I was told recently, by someone who probably does know about these things, that there is a plan in rural Scotland for mobile companies to bypass 3G completely and move straight to 4G, so if you do have a mobile signal on your mountain you may eventually get a decent speed through that route.

kwikbreaks

John_Gray wrote: »

Virgin are already testing 200 Mbps and 300 Mbps at some lucky people's homes.

The current infrastructure could already deliver that but avoiding congestion if many customers actually used those speeds over sustained periods would be the trick. As massive congestion is already a feature of some areas (mine when I left them for one) it would be something that would actually put me off returning.

IMO the only reliable way to deliver high speeds is with FTTP but then the costs really mount up and as i said earlier I really don't see the need for most people.