Fibre, actual benefit?

mgfvvc

I'm on ADSL and get 15Mbps down. We use iplayer on a smart TV and a Humax box and we have a child who spends too much time on YouTube. Mostly it all works well, occasionally there are complaints that iplayer has stuck, with a red spinning circle, but that's rare.

Fibre is due to be installed in 4 months and my contract runs out in 6 months. Realistically, will I see any significant benefit from upgrading? I think I might see an occasional faster download, but not enough difference to be worth paying extra for.

buglawton

Fibre just reduces the length of ancient twisted pair copper wire coming to your house. The last x00 meters is still your old wires. You appear to already live quite close to the exchange so only a marginal improvement maybe.
Fibre is a bit of a trades description exaggeration. It ought to be called: Improved ADSL.

Carrot007

buglawton wrote: »

Fibre just reduces the length of ancient twisted pair copper wire coming to your house. The last x00 meters is still your old wires. You appear to already live quite close to the exchange so only a marginal improvement maybe.
Fibre is a bit of a trades description exaggeration. It ought to be called: Improved ADSL.

They could be getting FTTP, they did not say.

Assuming FTTC. The speed now depends on the distance between you and the cabinet, the exchange is no longer relevant. Assuming you get around 40 down then you will see a big improvement and things will be smoother. Also you are going to get a better upload speed which does help as ADSL ones are ridiculously low! (communication is both ways so often the up can be the lmiter if lot's of things are going on).

DoaM

On ADSL (2+) I used to get anywhere between 16meg and 22meg down (depending on how keenly I tuned the SNR ... 16meg was a consistently achievable speed without any drop outs) and 1.3meg up. On FTTC I get 33meg down and 5meg up.

It sounds like you would get at least the same as me (I still have a reasonable line length to the fibre cabinet due to how the line is routed), if not even better.

EssexExile

I like the fact that when the landline goes down the internet stays on. I haven't had the fibre go down.

mgfvvc

Carrot007 wrote: »

They could be getting FTTP, they did not say.

Assuming FTTC. The speed now depends on the distance between you and the cabinet, the exchange is no longer relevant. Assuming you get around 40 down then you will see a big improvement and things will be smoother. Also you are going to get a better upload speed which does help as ADSL ones are ridiculously low! (communication is both ways so often the up can be the lmiter if lot's of things are going on).

It would be FTTC and I am sure the peak speeds would be noticeably faster. That wasn't what I was asking.

The question is would I see any significant benefit from the improved peak speed. Given that we are unlikely to using more than 3 video streams at any one time, alongside web browsing and email, I don't see that increasing our available bandwidth from 15Mbps to 40Mbps will provide much practical benefit. Am I wrong?

[Deleted User]

mgfvvc wrote: »

I'm on ADSL and get 15Mbps down. We use iplayer on a smart TV and a Humax box and we have a child who spends too much time on YouTube. Mostly it all works well, occasionally there are complaints that iplayer has stuck, with a red spinning circle, but that's rare.

Fibre is due to be installed in 4 months and my contract runs out in 6 months. Realistically, will I see any significant benefit from upgrading? I think I might see an occasional faster download, but not enough difference to be worth paying extra for.

Given your usage it's not a case of seeing faster downloads but having a smoother uninterrupted streaming experience. 3 HD streams running concurrently will use up all of your capacity and will be the reason you get the occasional loading symbol on iPlayer.

Fibre will give you plenty of headroom.

newatc

My speed went from 8mb to 38mbs when introducing fibre, You soon get used to the new speed and perhaps don't appreciate it but what I continue to appreciate highly is the stability of fibre over adsl. Downtime is largely now a thing of the past.

System

buglawton wrote: »

Fibre just reduces the length of ancient twisted pair copper wire coming to your house. The last x00 meters is still your old wires. You appear to already live quite close to the exchange so only a marginal improvement maybe.
Fibre is a bit of a trades description exaggeration. It ought to be called: Improved ADSL.

Utter rubbish. It will be at least a doubling of speed or up to 5 times the speed depending on whether they go for a 38mbps or 76mbps package.

System

mgfvvc wrote: »

I don't see that increasing our available bandwidth from 15Mbps to 40Mbps will provide much practical benefit. Am I wrong?

Well you appear to be bandwidth limited so increasing it will sort the problem when more than one person is online at the same time. Also if you get a 4K TV you won't be streaming 4K content from Netflix on 15mbit ADSL..

Stompa

Having switched from 6Mbps ADSL to 48Mbps fibre a couple of days ago, I can see virtually no difference. It seems to me it's really only worthwhile when you have multiple simultaneous users.