Urgently need advice RE:need faster connection

cooners

I'm in the process of buying a house.
When I looked at the broadband speed when we first viewed it BT showed we could get 67mb/s, the Rightmove as says 67mb/s and the estate agent quoted 67mb/s. Everyone else was showing only 7mb/s.
I decided it didn't matter as we would just go with BT.
I've just looked again and the option has been completely removed as had the halo 3 package that was there before and BT is now only offering 7mb/s as well
Does anyone know why this would happen because I spend a lot of time gaming and watching HD and UHD TV and would be misserable on 7mb/s broadband.
I'm considering pulling out of the house sale but my girlfriend is now in tears, my Mum (who my girlfriend called) is calling me childish.
Is there any chance this could just be a mistake on the websites 
Oddly compare the market says I can get 67mb/s from everyone

Mickey666

cooners said:

I'm in the process of buying a house.
When I looked at the broadband speed when we first viewed it BT showed we could get 67mb/s, the Rightmove as says 67mb/s and the estate agent quoted 67mb/s. Everyone else was showing only 7mb/s.
I decided it didn't matter as we would just go with BT.
I've just looked again and the option has been completely removed as had the halo 3 package that was there before and BT is now only offering 7mb/s as well
Does anyone know why this would happen because I spend a lot of time gaming and watching HD and UHD TV and would be misserable on 7mb/s broadband.
I'm considering pulling out of the house sale but my girlfriend is now in tears, my Mum (who my girlfriend called) is calling me childish.
Is there any chance this could just be a mistake on the websites 
Oddly compare the market says I can get 67mb/s from everyone

Of course there's a chance, but how will anyone on this forum be able to quantify that chance?  And even if they do say 'yes, it's 99% likely the website is wrong', are you really going to buy a house on the basis of a random persons' say-so?

Why not ask the sellers what speed they get?

Neil_Jones

I would argue the broadband speed is not the be all and end all of everything.  Investigate mobile broadband options.  Remember houses were sold between people long before the telephone was a thing never mind squeezing internet down it.  If you're seriously going to reject a house just because the broadband's estimated (key word) speed is a bit crap, I suspect you may be missing the bigger picture.  You can always knock UHD/HD content down to SD for the time being and put up with gaming lag.  Course if you get faster internet through the mobile network, problem may solve itself.

The Halo3 thing I believe requires FTTC at a minimum and you get an upgrade to FTTP (if I understand the blurb correctly) when it becomes available.  It may well be that the line has been unbundled, I always remember when I was last with TalkTalk every other provider said they couldn't supply me, later found out it was because of unbundling.  Moved back to Plusnet, all these providers then decided yes we can take you after all.  So a lot may depend on the state of the existing line, but yes ask the sellers what they get internet speed wise.  Of course it could just be that the local cabinet filled up between your first look and your most recent which may be why the option has dropped off.  Always a possibility.

cooners

The seller doesn't live in the area. They are one of those we buy any house type companies.
I've checked on samknows and that says FTTC & FTTP should be available, all the compare sites say fiber should be available as does Ofcom but when I check with any of the ISP's all they will offer is copper broadband even though BT offered fiber & Halo 3 a couple of weeks ago.
I just wondered if anyone had come across this before because we love the house but this feels like a deal breaker to me but I'm worried if I don't find a way around it then it might end up as a relationship breaker!!!   

molerat

Maybe the local cabinet for FTTC is full.

What do you get here ? https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

elsien

cooners said:

The seller doesn't live in the area. They are one of those we buy any house type companies.
I've checked on samknows and that says FTTC & FTTP should be available, all the compare sites say fiber should be available as does Ofcom but when I check with any of the ISP's all they will offer is copper broadband even though BT offered fiber & Halo 3 a couple of weeks ago.
I just wondered if anyone had come across this before because we love the house but this feels like a deal breaker to me but I'm worried if I don't find a way around it then it might end up as a relationship breaker!!!   

Putting internet speed for gaming ahead of everything else - can’t see why that would be an issue. 

cooners

molerat said:

Maybe the local cabinet for FTTC is full.

What do you get here ? https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

It says WBC FTTC Waiting List but doesn't say how long the waiting list is.
However I found a site called CodeLook which says the cabinet is being expanded by August 2021, would that solve the issue. I could put up with it for a few months.

BTW it's not all about gaming it's the general way we both live our lives. We don't watch a lot of normal TV, it's all netflix, Disney+ and amazon prime. I have to have teams meetings for work and my girlfriend is living on zoom.
I also run a VPN server and a Plex media server from the house. Having slow broadband would fundamentally alter the way we lived and not for the better

matelodave

The waiting list could be just one or 50 so you dont know how long it will be. If BT are contemplating FTTP then a planned expansion to the cabinet may get cancelled in favour of the FTTP rollout. In the end you won't really know until you move and find out what is available at the time you move in. Even if an FTTC line becomes available you might miss out on the very day that you decide to move.

If this is such a deal-breaker then you better start looking for somewhere else to live, but even then there's no guarantee that you'll get a decent connection.

iniltous

There is a chance , if the house you are purchasing has FTTC , then when the current occupant cancels their service, the port will become spare, and potentially you could get it , obviously this is assuming you would be the ‘waiter’ that grabs the port before anyone else.
Its not a waiting list in the sense that you join it at the end of the queue , and the first waiter is in pole position, it seems to be the first provider to issue an order as soon as a slot opens up gets it, not necessarily the company on the list the longest.
I would check with the sellers what type of broadband  they have ( if any ) and what they are doing as far as cancelling their service if they have it.
Post the return from the DSL checker site

AstonSmith

cooners said:

[...] BT offered fiber & Halo 3 a couple of weeks ago.

If it has only been a few weeks, then there's probably only one or two households on the waiting list.

On 7Mbps, you can watch HD video streams. You might want to download game patches overnight due to their enormous size these days. Latency will typically be around 30ms.

Also don't discount @Neil_Jones 's suggestion of mobile Internet options. If there's a good 4G signal, you might find that a great stopgap until the cabinet is expanded.

cooners

Cheers guys.
The mobile signal is terrible because it's on a valley (there's not even a Freeview signal!!!) so 4G won't be an option.
I think I'm just going to risk it given they have upgraded the other cabinets in the area lately I believe they'll do this one too.
If they don't hopefully FTTP won't be far off and I'll just have to put up with it for a little while and just hope I don't get stuck at a rubbish speed forever