Fastest Broadband recommendations?

skellington

What would people recommend to a residential house, as the fastest and most reliable Broadband provider?

We are currently with BT and locked in, but just looking to see if its beneficial to move anyway?
Started a new job working from home, and with the pandemic may need to download / upload large files, video calls etc, so looking at the fastest broadband avaialable

Looked at the usual Talk Talk (which I don't rate), 02, Virgin, and BT, who say we are stuck at like 35mbps, which isn't even that fast, as others on the same tarriff are getting 50mbps? (this maybe down to location)?

With BT they say that Superfast isn't ready just yet, but as this is a work thing needed, are there any other good, fast reliable BB deals that we could look at?

I see that some advertise speeds up to 900mb!? and also saw that Google are now looking at fast Broadband to homes (not sure if its out there yet?)

Any recommendations would be great, thank you.

neilmcl

You don't need huge speeds to work from home, I have done everything you want to do in less than 10Mb/s in the past.

Use the following BT Wholesale address checker to see what's available to you.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

Also, are you in a Virgin Media cable area?

littleboo

You don't need massive bandwidth for video calls. How big are the large files and how much of the days is spent exchanging files? Upload will be the biggest limitation. Don't be seduced by high headline figures which you may not need

skellington

Thank you both, but I use Music and Video files which are probably the biggest media to send, so the fastest speed (and it maybe paid for by the company) would be beneficial!

Even if these huge files send in half the time, then it would be good

Neil_Jones

skellington said:

What would people recommend to a residential house, as the fastest and most reliable Broadband provider?

We are currently with BT and locked in, but just looking to see if its beneficial to move anyway?
Started a new job working from home, and with the pandemic may need to download / upload large files, video calls etc, so looking at the fastest broadband avaialable

Looked at the usual Talk Talk (which I don't rate), 02, Virgin, and BT, who say we are stuck at like 35mbps, which isn't even that fast, as others on the same tarriff are getting 50mbps? (this maybe down to location)?

With BT they say that Superfast isn't ready just yet, but as this is a work thing needed, are there any other good, fast reliable BB deals that we could look at?

I see that some advertise speeds up to 900mb!? and also saw that Google are now looking at fast Broadband to homes (not sure if its out there yet?)

Any recommendations would be great, thank you.

A lot depends on what your line supports.  If your line doesn't support more than 35Mbps its pointless paying for up to 63Mbps if there is no reasonable chance the line will support that speed over the life of the contract.

You do not not need massive download speeds for work from home purposes or video calls.  35Mbps is more than enough.

QrizB

skellington said:

Looked at the usual Talk Talk (which I don't rate), 02, Virgin, and BT, who say we are stuck at like 35mbps, which isn't even that fast, as others on the same tarriff are getting 50mbps? (this maybe down to location)?

Any recommendations would be great, thank you.

All those providers (except Virgin, if you are on their cable network, but from what you've written you probably aren't) use the same physical wires and equipment to connect you. They will all offer the same speeds, which is the speed the equipment is capable of. Faster speeds will require the equipment to be upgraded.
Someone recently asked about FTTP (see this thread) which would almost certainly be quicker if it's available in your area, but (again, according to that thread) installation is £10-40k. How deep are your employer's pockets? (I suspect that if they were happy to pay for FTTP they would have told you themselves, rather than you having to ask randos on the internet!)

matelodave

There are two major provider of internet infrastructure - Open reach who supply most of the country and are the carriers for nearly all the internet service providers (BT, SKY, TalkTalk and most of the rest) so if you are on the maximum speed that your ISP can provide then it's pretty unlikely that anyone els can do any better as they are all using the same network..

Generally the max you can get on an ADSL/ FTTC connection (depending on the distance from the cabinet and other factors is around 76mbit/s) unless optical fibre to the premisise is available (FTTP) where some supplier can provide up to 900mbit/s

Try the broadband checker to see whats available at your address, because just changing supplier may give you a worse service than the one you've already got unless FTTP is avaialable in your street

Virgin have their own network and, if you can get service from them where you live, they may be able to provide a faster service.

JJ_Egan

Reads as OP needs a business connection with service level agreements .

iniltous

As already said, if you are only able to chose from providers that use Openreach FTTC as the network provider , and your individual line is limited by its length to the fibre cabinet , then all providers will provide almost identical speeds, after all it’s the same line, same FTTC equipment etc, there may be slight throughput differences, but when it comes to sync speed, don’t be mislead by ‘average’ speed figures ISP have to quote, the wholesale checker link will give an indication of the probable speed to your location, if it’s pretty much in line with what you get , then that’s it , if it’s below, you may have a fault that can be rectified and your speed will improve as a consequence 
If OR FTTP is available then much faster speeds will be available, some comparison sites may show if alternatives to Openreach are available 

onomatopoeia99

A&A will let you bond multiple FTTC lines to increase the maximum throughput.  You'll need a router capable for handling bonded lines, e.g. an FB2900 (£660) or you could use pfsense in a virtual machine if you're good with the IT aspects and configuring PPPoE etc. required to set that up. 

I question whether you actually need more than the 35mbps your line appears to support though.

unforeseen

I question whether you actually need more than the 35mbps your line appears to support though.

It's probably the upload speed that will be the limiting factor. On a line capable of 35mbps upload is probably around the 7-8mbps mark. 
If OP is uploading large files that may be a problem.