Part Fibre Part Cable or 3 Broadband

clingwood

Hi All

I'm with Utility Warehouse at the moment and my contract is coming to an end.

I was going to go with Virgin but they said they'd have to dig the road up etc.

Is it possible to have part fibre part cable or is going through 3 5g hub, anyone got ideas to who should I go with.

iniltous

If you are with UW presumably that’s with part fibre part (copper pair ) cable it’s called FTTC , fibre to the cabinet so presumably your question is it possible to have part fibre part cable doesn’t refer to what you currently have , if you mean can Virgin cobble together some sort of fibre/cable , then that’s what their 30 years old DOCSIS system is , it’s fibre to the VM cabinets and copper cable to the home , (very similar really to Openreach FTTC ) if you mean can VM cobble together parts of this DOCSIS system and part of their brand new FTTP system, then No.

Did your property never have Virgin ‘cable’ installed in the past and it’s only recently become available and that’s not via DOCSIS (the cables installed 30 years ago ) but a new FTTP network , often supplied by Nexfibre , and that’s why excavation is needed ?

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6671584/part-fibre-part-cable-or-3-broadband

What does the BT wholesale checker say is available via the Openreach network? Click on the Address Checker and put your postcode in and then select your address. Post a screenshot of the result.

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

clingwood

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82027216#Comment_82027216

No a virgin fibre/cable has never been at my property. It is a open reach BT.

clingwood

Thanks is this what you need??

iniltous

OK , FTTP from Openreach based providers is available but the survey notes shows that your address has ‘UG congested duct’ , so it quite likely that excavation may be needed to get any new optical cables to your house through thus congested duct.

Virgin Nexfibre can use something called PIA (physical infrastructure access) whereby they leech onto Openreach ducts , poles, jointboxes and put their own optical cables in , this may be why they also said excavation needed , either because they know they will excavate because there is no existing Virgin cable ducts and are going to build their own ducted network, or perhaps because they intend to use Openreach ducts via PIA but can see that the Openreach duct is congested .

If no excavation is the priority then realistically all you can do is stay with UW on an out of contract basis , as even if you stayed with UW but wanted a new contract deal , they may insist on Openreach FTTP being installed, and Openreach will need to fix the congested duct .

clingwood

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82027734#Comment_82027734

Thank you that is interesting! Would you recommend the 3 5g hub broadband as a stand alone option (you can probably tell I know nothing about all of this!)

flaneurs_lobster

The Three 5G broadband service (as is the case with any service delivered over mobile data) is entirely dependent on the quality of the broadband signal at the location of the router.

Do you get a solid mobile signal from one of the main providers?

Mobile data can provide a perfectly decent broadband service but may have limitations when compared with a fixed solution. What's the nature of your internet usage? Bit of browsing or several UHD TVs and multiple online gaming consoles?

iniltous

Going to a mobile option and dumping the ‘landline’ option , regardless of that being Virgin , or Openreach or anyone else , seems to work for some and not for others , I’d look to do a test run by getting a cheap preloaded data sim from whoever has the best network coverage in your location (Vodafone, EE , O2 ) and see if it works acceptably , Netflix , browsing, emails etc ,

FYI , it will be 4G or even 5G , but those that say it works fine for them because where they live has good mobile coverage , presumably get by by using their phone as a hotspot and connecting their other devices to the phone , or they buy a ‘MiFi’ device to put the data sim into , the other thing to check is what an unlimited data sim costs , if it’s the same or more than what you currently pay I personally wouldn’t bother , if it’s much cheaper than your UW FTTC (which according to the checker is a decent 80Mb speed ) then maybe worth considering it may even be faster , but if you have no speed related issues that may be irrelevant, the problem sometimes with mobile is it can be great then be rubbish then great again depending on the demand others are placing on the network.