FTTP Options & Advice please

Madmel

After 2 years of broken promises, Openreach has finally installed the fibres for FTTP. I live in a rural area with a very limited mobile phone service and <2Mbps download speed so it's really exciting!

I've been doing some research this morning and have some questions and I would really appreciate honest answers.
Is 40mbps ok for streaming? Mostly it's just me and DH here but we have 2 DDs at uni. Would we be better with 80 or even 100+?

Are Vodafone ok to deal with? They were a rip-off with their mobile phone contracts so I am wary.
Are ID.net any good?

Finally, if there are any "don't touch with a bargepole" companies, please let me know. Many thanks

[Deleted User]

My tuppence worth. Based on previous experience, I can recommend AAISP; Aquiss; IDNet and Zen. Most broadband faults are related to the copper and aluminium line between the cabinet and your home. Clearly, FTTP does not use existing wiring as it is fibre all the way so the risks of faults is small.

I am currently on a 57Mbps FTTC connection which is more than adequate for 4K HDR streaming; however, our Close is expecting to go FTTP live soon (unless numerous Openreach engineers just like to look into the ducts in our street for fun) and I am considering going for a 160/30 connection with either my existing ISP (AAISP) for the same price as I am paying now, or for a 330Mbps connection with Aquiss. I know that AAISP is very good at managing contention at their end of the line but I have no recent experience of the others in my list. Both AAISP and Aquiss have 12 month initial contracts but the factor that I am weighing up at the moment is whether a £200 difference in the first year costs swings the pendulum towards Aquiss (Aquiss doesn’t charge a set up fee and the first 4 months charge is reduced by 50%). My heart says stay with AAISP but my more sensible head suggests that I should look at cheaper alternatives.

Finally, Sky FTTP is getting some reasonable reviews but I am not keen to get too intertwined into the Sky infrastructure?

Rodders53

We have 30Mbit/s FTTC and it's adequate for the two of us and occasional visits from family inc grandchildren.  I've had Vodafone FTTC for a time and they weren't easy to convince of a fault.

NB Voda FTTP options are 100, 500 and 900 (depending on location).  Lower 40/80 speed offerings will almost certainly be copper cable FTTC.

Youngest son has gone with them for FTTP and seems over the moon with the speed he now gets.

BT Openreach have FTTP in parts of the Village (a new build estate) and have been installing stuff in our ducts and along the poles in our lane.  But no sign of anything on the availability checker so far.  So I'd not hold your breath while waiting for things to go live.

Madmel

Thanks both. For some unfathomable reason, I cannot get onto the BT website. They think I have an account with them, even though I haven't had one for over 15 years. However, Openreach emailed with a list of providers and checking some websites, it would seem that we are indeed live. I am not a huge Vodafone fan and I also have an issue with Sky.

AAISP does look good. I have also read excellent reviews of Cuckoo but they are more expensive again. Maybe it really is a matter of you get what you pay for; Cuckoo offers a rolling contract which looks appealing but then has a connection charge.

Please do keep the recommendations and warnings coming. It really is helpful.

Fidden

Madmel said:

After 2 years of broken promises, Openreach has finally installed the fibres for FTTP. I live in a rural area with a very limited mobile phone service and <2Mbps download speed so it's really exciting!

I've been doing some research this morning and have some questions and I would really appreciate honest answers.
Is 40mbps ok for streaming? Mostly it's just me and DH here but we have 2 DDs at uni. Would we be better with 80 or even 100+?

Are Vodafone ok to deal with? They were a rip-off with their mobile phone contracts so I am wary.
Are ID.net any good?

Finally, if there are any "don't touch with a bargepole" companies, please let me know. Many thanks

I also came from a very slow connection to FTTP last September.  A number of people asked me for advice before they took out their packages; most have plumped for the 100Mbps option.  If streaming is your prime usage, then Netflix recommends 25Mbps per 4K TV.  If you assume everyone in the house is doing that at the same time and then you shouldn't get into difficulties.

Some things to bear in mind though, Facebook and some web sites won't be much faster to load than on your old connection.  This is because their server can't serve data at the new download speed available to you.  If you're downloading large files or games, then you will really appreciate the faster speeds.  Some ISPs offer you a lifetime price, so consider that when looking at your options although prices do generally get lower over time with various offers (black friday etc) and a healthy market with lots of competition.

Don't touch with a barge pole for me would be TalkTalk (shocking customer service) and BT aren't much better.  Look at the MSE recommendations on their poll a while back; Cuckoo and Zen came out top, plus Zen has been advertising their Which? recommendation recently, if that helps.

littleboo

Cuckoo do get good reviews. A couple of points to note, they are only 18 months old and with presumably a relatively small customer base, will be interesting to see how they fare if/when thing scale up. They are also "just" a reseller, they use the Talk Talk network and don't have infrastructure of their own. That may or may not be an issue for you.

[Deleted User]

littleboo said:

Cuckoo do get good reviews. A couple of points to note, they are only 18 months old and with presumably a relatively small customer base, will be interesting to see how they fare if/when thing scale up. They are also "just" a reseller, they use the Talk Talk network and don't have infrastructure of their own. That may or may not be an issue for you.

You need to check which supplier offers the backhaul. For example, it looks likely that my exchange will go FTTP live with BT backhaul which means that I will not be able to use an ISP that uses TalkTalk backhaul. From my local press, TalkTalk backhaul will be offered when FutureFibre which is also about to start work in my Shropshire town goes live.

By way of further clarity, AAISP doesn't offer unlimited broadband which puts many people off. Their argument is that they do not want to attract customers that use torrents. Their basic data package is 500GB a month; however, they do offer 5TB for £10 a month more. They also carry forward 50% of any used data to the following month: it follows that if I spend £10 more in December when the grand kids come to stay (those were the days) then I am sorted for most of the next year; eg, say 5.2 TB in December and use 1TB, then  in February I get 500MB plus 50% of 4.2TB et seq. AAISP also offers to regrade your FTTP speed (up or down) for £12 without it impacting on the original 12 month contract.

HaroldWren5

Madmel said:

After 2 years of broken promises, Openreach has finally installed the fibres for FTTP. I live in a rural area with a very limited mobile phone service and <2Mbps download speed so it's really exciting!

I've been doing some research this morning and have some questions and I would really appreciate honest answers.
Is 40mbps ok for streaming? Mostly it's just me and DH here but we have 2 DDs at uni. Would we be better with 80 or even 100+?

Are Vodafone ok to deal with? They were a rip-off with their mobile phone contracts so I am wary.
Are ID.net any good?

Finally, if there are any "don't touch with a bargepole" companies, please let me know. Many thanks

1. First and foremost, congratulations on getting FTTP, it's super! It'll be a revolutionary change versus the service you had, so that's great. 

2. The packages tend to be better value for money like for like when it comes to speed and go all the way up to 900Mbps generally speaking. It all hinges on what you need the internet for and how many people and devices would be using a lot of "bandwidth" all at once. The higher the speed, then generally speaking the more things that can be done all at once. 

3. It's personal preference, but I would personally say go for at least 100Mbps. Another recommendation, go for the shortest contract possible and fixed pricing if you can. The wholesale FTTP price has dropped over time. You can see how the BT price for instance has dropped considerably over a 18 month period (with more competitors also entering the market too in the last 6-8 months in particular). Someone in a 2 year contract with BT from back then for 900Mbps for example would have been signed up for around £85 a month and had to undergo price increases each year including this March/April!

4. There are some like Giganet, Cuckoo and a few others who fix prices for 12 months, some do 30 day contracts as well. Cuckoo does not charge a connection charge if you sign up for a 12 month contract. Indeed, if you take their pricing it would work out cheaper than BT since the price remains fixed. All use the same Openreach based FTTP line. You're effectively choosing between customer service, pricing and flexibility. TalkTalk do 18 month contracts as do Sky. BT and Vodafone are 24 month contracts. 

5. As for Vodafone, there has been a bit of an issue with their Openreach rollout. For reasons only known to them, certain addresses despite showing up as "Available" all the way up to Gigabit speeds on the Openreach Wholesale checker and other Broadband providers offering all packages, Vodafone sometimes only show those addresses with limited speeds. In general their customer service is not much better than BT (infamous customer service), but for certain packages they might be cheaper. Vodafone tended to be best for those in CityFibre FTTP areas. And they give a slight (small) discount for Mobile customers. 

6. Definitely enjoy your new FTTP. It's a game changer and you'll notice the difference in reliability and speed immediately and never look back! So yes, I guess go for at least 100Mbps on FTTP on the shortest contract you're comfortable with (thus taking advantage of flexibility) and aim for a company with good customer service. Having flexibility means you can take advantage of any "special offer" that comes sooner. And as mentioned the wholesale price is coming down for Broadband given the rollout and competition. Openreach even recently offered a discount to ISPs. Only some of them pass it on to us as can be seen in their relative pricing versus each other!

Neil49

The latest Which review of the major broadband providers ranks them as follows.

Zen
Vodafone (much improved over the last year) 
Hyperoptic
Now (a bit slow) 
Plusnet (a bit slow) 
BT 
EE (a bit slowl

After that the ratings go down, with the wooden spoon going to John Lewis which is ranked bottom by a long way as "one to avoid" 

I'm with BT with fttp to a new build property. Over the last 3 years the service has been faultless and I'm getting a constant 72mb connection. I'm thinking of switching to Vodafone in a few months time when my contract ends unless BT come up with a really good deal to make me stay (unlikely). 

Hope this helps. 

Madmel

Plusnet only do FTTC, confirmed on a live chat last weekend. I suspect EE and Now are the same. There is no cabinet, the fibre is on overhead poles coming directly into the property.

Thanks again to everyone who has commented. It really is helpful.

One final consideration: we have 2 phone lines into our property with 2 broadband accounts. Obviously we won't need that but we would like to keep our phone numbers as we do get a little bit of business via them. Can this be done via fibre or would we have to change our number? I know we would need different handsets. Again, many thanks in advance.

400ixl

You could port the number to a SIP provider like SIPGate and then use a VOIP app on a mobile for those calls. Will be cheaper than keeping a second line.