Process for getting broadband when I move home

bigpat

Never heard of the wholesale checker before but here's a screenshot of what I got from it.

It seems to say that "FTTP on Demand" is available, but that FTTP is not. I don't know the difference between the two except I'd guess that on demand is expensive. 

Regardless, do these numbers below look OK to you? Should it support things like zoom calls and Netflix streaming without too much trouble? The vendor doesn't live in the property I'm buying, but he used to rent it out as a holiday let and as far as he knows the broadband supports streaming. He never had any complaints.

littleboo

Those speeds are fine, you must be close to the cabinet. Netflix suggest 5 Mbps for HD and 15 Mbps for UHD

bigpat

Thank you, that's good to know! I just checked Google street view and I think I'm about 150 metres from a cabinet.

HaroldWren5

bigpat said:

Never heard of the wholesale checker before but here's a screenshot of what I got from it.

It seems to say that "FTTP on Demand" is available, but that FTTP is not. I don't know the difference between the two except I'd guess that on demand is expensive. 

Regardless, do these numbers below look OK to you? Should it support things like zoom calls and Netflix streaming without too much trouble? The vendor doesn't live in the property I'm buying, but he used to rent it out as a holiday let and as far as he knows the broadband supports streaming. He never had any complaints.

Yes, that's the one. So right now, FTTP is not available. It's tricky to tell when it would become available as sometimes it can be quite quick, or it might take some time. 

The speeds may not be as consistent because it's FTTC broadband, and note it does say "up to". However, you can try the speed and the stated speeds for VDSL broadband packages should be all right for streaming in HD on Netflix etc, and for browsing/working. The alternative would be to go for a 4G mobile broadband service (speeds vary on average between 30-80Mbps). 

Try to keep contracts as short as possible so that when FTTP does become available, you have the best negotiating power to change provider if necessary and seek the best price as soon as possible. I'd avoid a 24 month contract if possible for instance and opt for a 12, or 18 month contract if you can. 

You should be able to get FTTC broadband from most of the Openreach based broadband suppliers. 

Note also that the bandwidth is for the whole household. So that recommended figure for a Netflix stream is per stream. Each device ideally needs that so if you have multiple people working/watching via the internet, you'd multiple that number accordingly to work out what you'd need if everyone was doing things all at once.