Difference between BT fibre packages

stulaunch

Does anyone know what the difference is between BT fibre essentials and BT fibre 1? Do they offer better routers with the more expensive fibre 1?
I am below the fastest speed on fibre essentials. So wondering if its worth the extra £3 a month? 
I've read different things when searching on google

[Deleted User]

Nothing except possibly upfront fees and free gift (prepaid gift card) 

iniltous

AFAIK, Fibre Essential is 40Mb ( obviously if this is delivered by FTTC the distance to the cabinet may mean that you won’t get that ) Fibre 1 is 55Mb , and if the distance to the cab means you wouldn’t get 40Mb on Essential  then ( obviously ) you won’t get 55Mb on Fibre 1, if on the other hand the distance is such that speeds in excess of 55Mb are possible , then Fibre Essential will be limited at 40Mb and Fibre 1 will be faster at 55Mb.
Others may confirm, but I think you get a better router with Fibre 1, and possibly a few extras ( more cloud storage, virus protection on more devices ) but those may  be the same anyway, or these extras may be of no interest anyway ,  so apart from the potential extra  15Mb and better router, they are very similar , and if you would get sub 40Mb , no real point in paying extra , even if it’s only a few £

stulaunch

iniltous said:

AFAIK, Fibre Essential is 40Mb ( obviously if this is delivered by FTTC the distance to the cabinet may mean that you won’t get that ) Fibre 1 is 55Mb , and if the distance to the cab means you wouldn’t get 40Mb on Essential  then ( obviously ) you won’t get 55Mb on Fibre 1, if on the other hand the distance is such that speeds in excess of 55Mb are possible , then Fibre Essential will be limited at 40Mb and Fibre 1 will be faster at 55Mb.
Others may confirm, but I think you get a better router with Fibre 1, and possibly a few extras ( more cloud storage, virus protection on more devices ) but those may  be the same anyway, or these extras may be of no interest anyway ,  so apart from the potential extra  15Mb and better router, they are very similar , and if you would get sub 40Mb , no real point in paying extra , even if it’s only a few £

Thanks iniltous. 
I can't seem to find out about whether you get a better router. If you read BT website, it just says smart hub on both. 

JJ_Egan

Both Smart Hubs are very good .

matelodave

I've go two smart hubs, The older one (we've had it for three years) and the newer one and in my opinion the older one is better (although I dont think it works with the Halo disks).

We were sent a new smarthub when I renewed last year (we are on FTTP) and after a couple of weeks I put the old one back as I can set up 2.4g & 5g newteorks with different SSID's.

You can't do that with the later hub and some stuff (like both our laptops, the TV and Sky Q box) couldn't decide which to use and either just revertd to 2.4 or just dropped the connection (there were lots of moans about it on the BT Forum).

The older one is rock solid and we get excellent coverage around our 140m2 bunglaow and out in the garden (even sitting in the caravan)

[Deleted User]

They only issue Smart Hub 2 now - just FTTC and FTTP variants which depend on your connection not speed

If you can't get more than the 'essential' speed, there is virtually no difference between the two packages other than price.

JJ_Egan

Is the FTTP hub not exactly the same ? .

matelodave

It does look the same but it might have different firmware and there was different stuff in the box when it came. Mine didn't have instructions on how to connect it to a phone line, just info on how to connect it to the Optical TNetwork Terminal .

Likewise ther were no filters or phone line connectors, just an ethernet cable so it's likely to be configured differently even if it's effectively the same device.

The older unit didn't have a phone jack for VoIP but the newer one does, although it's got a sticky label over it so I suspect it's not configured for VoIP working and might need an firmware change to enable the VoIP port. The ONT has a phone port but thats not configured either

spenderdave

According to my bill I am on Fibre 2. But it consistently connects at 39.99Mbs which might imply Fibre Essentials.... BT seem to change their fibre plans by the day.

[Deleted User]

matelodave said:

It does look the same but it might have different firmware and there was different stuff in the box when it came. Mine didn't have instructions on how to connect it to a phone line, just info on how to connect it to the Optical TNetwork Terminal .

Likewise ther were no filters or phone line connectors, just an ethernet cable so it's likely to be configured differently even if it's effectively the same device.

The older unit didn't have a phone jack for VoIP but the newer one does, although it's got a sticky label over it so I suspect it's not configured for VoIP working and might need an firmware change to enable the VoIP port. The ONT has a phone port but thats not configured either

The FTTP Smart Hub 2 will work fine with ADSL, FTTC and G.fast if needed so the only negative is loss of one LAN ethernet port substituted for WAN ethernet port for ONT (fibre connection)

The older Smart Hub is no longer supplied by BT.