Which Fibre provider?

Dan-Dan

Hi

I am moving to an area where the broadband is provided by BT, Talk Talk or SKY

BB is fibre, apparently , i know the exchange is in a town 4 miles away so i am guessing it wont be super fast ?

My question is, basically does it matter who provides the BB, i have TT fibre at the minute and although i dont find it too bad it just doesnt seem as fast and reliable as SKY and SKY didnt seem to be as reliable as Infinity , are they not just using the same wires?

Who should i go with?

Thanks

onomatopoeia99

Assuming FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet), then the distance to the exchange doesn't matter, it's the distance to the green box (cabinet) that is important.

What many people, especially the "switch every year to save money" and "ooh look, a shopping voucher" crowd, don't seem to understand is that ISPs are not like gas suppliers, where you get the same gas out of the pipe whoever you buy it from, the service you get varies between them even though it's delivered down the same physical infrastructure for the "final mile" (phone line) to your home. Most of what the ISP does is under their control (backhaul network, interconnect link capacity, external link capacity etc) which is why the quality of service varies between them.

So, as an example, my parents are with Talk talk for ADSL and their "speed" is 16Mbps. When I was on ADSL with a small ISP that has a policy of not being the point of contention in a connection, my "speed" was between 3-4Mbps as I live some considerable way from the exchange and that was all the line would support. When my parents visited me, their first comment on using my computer was "your internet is really fast!", when in fact speed tests on mine came out less than a quarter of the speed of theirs.

Dan-Dan

Thanks

I found a website before that told me if it was FTTC or the other one ? cant recall what the acronym is , do you know what it is?

So in theory then, it is worth paying a little more to be with BT ?

onomatopoeia99

The other one is FTTP (Fibre to the premises, sometimes called Fibre to the home / FTTH)

Whether it's worth paying more for a better service is a subjective judgment - the question is if it's worth it to you. I have no experience as a customer of any of the ISPs you mentioned so am not able to compare the relative quality of the services they provide.

Dan-Dan

Apparently BT dont throttle at peak times?
If that is the case then i would pay more for that service

lee111s

Use the address checker here http://www.dslchecker.bt.com to get an idea of what speeds are available using the Openreach network.

BT Infinity 1 and 2 are totally unlimited. No throttling at all.

Dan-Dan

Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 1 -- 1 to 3.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1 -- 0.75 to 2.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available


Hmm doesnt look good even though i know current vendor said her BB was good

lee111s

What exchange and cabinet number does that checker advise?

Dan-Dan

It doesnt, because i dont have a phone number so had to use the less reliable postcode checker instead?

Dan-Dan

Hmmm, i used address checker instead and got the below, saying cabinet 1

Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

High Low High Low
FTTC Range A (Clean) 67.2 50.9 19.5 13.2 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 55.3 32.4 15.8 6.9 -- Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 1 -- 1 to 3.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1 -- 0.75 to 2.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

kwikbreaks

IF you want to avoid TalkTalk and Sky but save a few pennies over BT then consider Plusnet. I can confirm (because I have a SamKnows box which runs regular tests) that my connection delivers the best performance that the line allows just about anytime.

When you come to doing your pricing don't forget to take into account new customer offers, cashback sites, and any one-off charges. Be wary of taking anything other than an unlimited service - see the monster thread in this board where people got caught out by BT limited download products then are convinced that BT measure usage incorrectly - possibly they do but you still get stuck with excess use charges.