What does Average speed actually mean?

Mister_G

silverdov3 wrote: »

On all ADSL : 1 or "up to" 1

FTTP (on demand) 330 ; this is quite meaninless in my case as there is no chance Openreach would lay the fibre the distance required whithout my paying for it. £££££

As one BT engineer said to me - "you chose to live here". Yes I replied but BT said that I would get 17mb. He didn't answer.....

So are there no "VDSL" lines of data?

If they are quoting FTTP availability then this would normally mean that the cabinet is fibre enabled.

silverdov3

The cabinet is fibre enabled - they have fibre at the top of the lane 3/4 mile away - but with only 4 consumers where I live it's just not economically feasible to run fibre 3/4 mile underground through fields.

As you must be aware this is the issue with the final 5% of consumers that will probably never get fibre. 4G/5G mobile may be an option but will be expensive to use. Just think of 1 Microsoft update + 1 IOS update and 1 Android update and bang goes your monthly allowance. As I have multiple PCs and Apples running you may be able to sense my frustration.

iniltous

I suspect that in the same way you didn't appreciate the 'average' speed in the adverts wasn't in any way related to your individual line ( just a country wide average of all BT customers on a particular product) it's likely that you also didn't appreciate what the 'upto 17Mb' meant either...you would have been given an individual speed estimate for your line , it's highly unlikely that BT said you will get 17Mb, if the speed estimate for your address is 1Mb,it's much more likely that seeing 17Mb in the advert , you assumed that is what you would get.

silverdov3

iniltous - having working in IT all my working life I do understand what up to 17mb means, but unfortunately believed what I was told by BT. I did not see an advert, I got the speed estimate off the BT website (in 2014). In fact, only 6 months ago another BT sales person tried to sell me the 17mb package, even though I kept telling him that the most I would get was 2mb down an ADSL line. He said he had checked the availability and I was wrong and that I could get fibre.
This is what the BT site currently says:

"You can get speeds up to 3.5Mb with our Broadband Unlimited, and you can get BT TV."

Perhaps BT should have spent money on getting up to speed on fibre instead of spending money becomming a content provider.

iniltous

silverdov3 wrote: »

iniltous - having working in IT all my working life I do understand what up to 17mb means, but unfortunately believed what I was told by BT. I did not see an advert, I got the speed estimate off the BT website (in 2014). In fact, only 6 months ago another BT sales person tried to sell me the 17mb package, even though I kept telling him that the most I would get was 2mb down an ADSL line. He said he had checked the availability and I was wrong and that I could get fibre.
This is what the BT site currently says:

"You can get speeds up to 3.5Mb with our Broadband Unlimited, and you can get BT TV."

Perhaps BT should have spent money on getting up to speed on fibre instead of spending money becomming a content provider.

I'm a little confused , why would a BT sales person try to sell you something you already had (an upto 17Mb package delivering 1-3Mb because of the 5km distance to the exchange) or were you on an upto 8Mb ADSL Max , and your exchange was only recently upgraded to 21CN ADSL2+ (six months ago) even if it were, when my exchange was done, my line was moved from upto 8 to upto 24Mb ( the theoretical max of ADSL2+ ) without them calling me, or me calling them, it's an automatic upgrade, you don't have to request it or agree to it taking place.

If you are 1.5km from a fibre enabled cab, as already stated , a speed of 15-20Mb is entirely possible, a 5km line (in total , home to cab and cab to exchange ) will only be 1-3Mb, so why haven't you upgraded to VDSL/FTTC , unless there is a waiting list , then if your line is delivered via that copper cab ( as opposed to an EO line direct from the exchange ) then the option of FTTC should be available, and as you state that FTTPod is available , that indicates an NGA aggregation node is available and that suggests FTTC should be available to you.

Perhaps you could post the results from entering your BT phone number here
https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/

onomatopoeia99

silverdov3 wrote: »

The cabinet is fibre enabled - they have fibre at the top of the lane 3/4 mile away - but with only 4 consumers where I live it's just not economically feasible to run fibre 3/4 mile underground through fields.

If the cabinet is fibre enabled and others connected to the cabinet have it, then there is no need to run fibre through fields to serve your property. The fibre is already at the cabinet, that is what fibre to the cabinet means. The last bit, from the cabinet to your house comes down your normal phone line, just as it does for the "people at the top of the lane".

Where do you get the idea they need to run fibre from the cabinet across fields to you from?

littleboo

FTTP is used quite extensively in Cornwall because if you have a few dispersed properties, FTTC doesn’t make sense because 1) there aren’t enough properties to make an FTTC cab economically viable and 2) the properties are too distant from the cab to benefit from VDSL anyway.
So I’m wondering I’d the choice here is either ADSL or FTTP, but perhaps the OP hasn’t been included in the FTTP deployment.