Fibre/Broadband suppliers

[Good shot?]

1 hour ago, captainhastings said:

Told the mrs this morning I thought it was the plesiochronous doppler buffer causing issues

Highly probable...😊

[udderlyoffroad]

On 24/02/2021 at 14:34, Good shot? said:

Highly probable...😊

Whereas I’m having issues with wind....Everytime the wind picks up, my internet connection drops out.  Ancient, oxidised pieces of copper, dangling from poles is really not the way to carry data in 2021, even in rural locations...

[Doc Holliday]

As always, gents (and any ladies that may have been present), such a wealth of knowledge on here and good to see opinions, regardless of how polarised or in line they may be, put across with such conviction and passion. 

[udderlyoffroad]

Thought I'd poke those fond of uttering 'holy thread revival batman' and 'gordon bennett' and resurrect this thread.

Just had an email from Openreach to say I can get 'proper' fibre - FTTP in their language - as of June in my little corner of Somerset.

So, any ISP recommendations for FTTP?

 

[discobob]

7 minutes ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Thought I'd poke those fond of uttering 'holy thread revival batman' and 'gordon bennett' and resurrect this thread.

Just had an email from Openreach to say I can get 'proper' fibre - FTTP in their language - as of June in my little corner of Somerset.

So, any ISP recommendations for FTTP?

 

I'm jealous - we have the dangling cable from phones to our property - and the lane we live on will have 0 chance of FTTP - A neighbour was thinking about starlink

[udderlyoffroad]

10 minutes ago, discobob said:

I'm jealous - we have the dangling cable from phones to our property - and the lane we live on will have 0 chance of FTTP - A neighbour was thinking about starlink

Don't be....

a) It's not in the bag yet, believe it when I see it

b) It will still be dangling from a pole, albeit in fibre...

c) Our little village (pop 1400ish) only thing going for it, fibre wise, is that a main road runs through it, presumably also carrying a reasonably beefy fibre link between 2 conurbations.

d) We're 'down a lane' too

So all I can say is register your interest with Openreach.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, I am with shell using broadband only £17.99 pcm

[Cosmicblue]

BT are dangling fibre from telegraph poles these days as there is a big push to end the use of copper wires - so FTTP right to your address is the way it will be for everyone eventually.   I have a mate who lives in a tiny village a few miles outside of Rugby, Warwickshire who has fibre broadband via a pole opposite his house and gets well over 900 mb/s.

[TOPGUN749]

I have Vodafone fast fibre2,and a sim only mobile 7mb/ 1000 mins+ unl texts. Am paying £22 for the broadband and £11 for the phone.Seems to be below the average price these days.

[ditchman]

im a brain dead oldie and i have an EE mini hub.....£10 quid a month i watch loads of u-tube shooting and making stuff ...on the net all day..........and still only use 1/2 my alloted mega bite's....................

[udderlyoffroad]

1 hour ago, Cosmicblue said:

so FTTP right to your address is the way it will be for everyone eventually.

Agreed, and maybe I am being unwise for being an "early" adopter, but it's also 2023.  At my previous address the service would cut out in high winds, due to oxidised copper connections somewhere on a pole.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, I am with shell using broadband only £17.99 pcm

 

1 hour ago, TOPGUN749 said:

I have Vodafone fast fibre2,and a sim only mobile 7mb/ 1000 mins+ unl texts. Am paying £22 for the broadband and £11 for the phone.Seems to be below the average price these days.

Both of those products are FTTC, not FTTP.

[Miserableolgit]

Interesting discussion.

Our place is along a private farm track serviced by ancient and obsolete copper cabling from the nearest exchange some miles away. From a public lane the buried cabling serves three agricultural properties situated along the track, ours being the first. As an aside the obsolete bit was mentioned by an Openreach engineer who was doing some work on the pole opposite ours when our phone and broadband went u/s a few years ago, the guy said this particular cable was obsolete when he started 30 years ago.

We were with Plusnet for broadband and landline for some years but found them lacking so switched to BT which of course was still lacking, despite umpteen adjustments to up and download they admitted that the service would hardly meet their stated minimums and that there were no current plans to run fibre cabling out here although they were hoping to get this done at some point in the nearish future, perhaps. In the meantime we were stuck with a dire service that would fail in high winds or heavy rain, unable to maintain enough oomph to take part in a Zoom meeting and often not able to stream much of anything. A company called County Broadband has been busy in the area laying ducting and leaving coils of fibre cabling on poles ready to run this down to the cabinet in the nearest village. I signed up to their proposed service some three years ago but as they failed to deliver a fibre service into my property within their stated two years I considered them in breach of contract which I duly terminated.

We were hardly using the landline these days and since the addition of new antennas in the area our O2 mobile phone signal has greatly improved we decided could live without the landline and just use our mobiles instead. We borrowed a sim router from my son who lives in the middle of a nearby town and had just gone to full fibre, bought an unlimited data sim @ something like thirty quid a month and trialed that for our broadband access. The difference between the old copper cable BT / Openreach service and this router was like comparing chalk and cheese with speeds at least three times greater [although still small beer compared to many]. We have line of sight high ground to high ground to the nearest 02 antenna a couple of miles away. We will have to stick with this until the Gods decide to run fibre out here.

[semi-auto]

Our broadband connection dropped to 0 on Saturday, and as a result I fet obliged to telephone Plusnet, who after various investigations told me that not only was our connection rated as very good, but that I was receiving 9.5mbps. I told him (it was a him) that according to the speedtest I had just done, it was 0 to 4.5mbps. He told me that he could not account for the equipment at my end and that as far as Plusnet was concerned the speed was 9.5. I added that when fibre was initially installed the speed was around 17 mbps. He was unable to provide any reason why it had dropped. I have been with Plusnet for many years and am reluctant to switch, but Gigaclear appear an attractive alternative.

[udderlyoffroad]

1 hour ago, semi-auto said:

but that I was receiving 9.5mbps. I told him (it was a him) that according to the speedtest I had just done, it was 0 to 4.5mbps. He told me that he could not account for the equipment at my end

Were you doing it on your phone?  Or other portable device over Wifi?  In which case, as has been pointed out, the tests are completely null and void.

You need to perform the test using a computer or other device connected to your router via an ethernet cable to get any meaningful data.

On 19/05/2023 at 19:20, Miserableolgit said:

We borrowed a sim router from my son who lives in the middle of a nearby town and had just gone to full fibre, bought an unlimited data sim @ something like thirty quid a month and trialed that for our broadband access. The difference between the old copper cable BT / Openreach service and this router was like comparing chalk and cheese with speeds at least three times greater [although still small beer compared to many]. We have line of sight high ground to high ground to the nearest 02 antenna a couple of miles away. We will have to stick with this until the Gods decide to run fibre out here.

Interesting MOG.  I have seen a couple of videos on youtube of US (in particular) people in rural settings constructing all sorts of towers to get the antenna for their cellular router up as high as possible.  Seems to work, as presumably they're uploading said youtube videos using the equipment they've just made a video about!

Still no-one has yet mentioned any experience of using an ISP offering 'proper' FTTP?  I would guess/hope that as its largely irrelevant who you go with, as you have (as much as possible at the consumer level anyway) a direct connection to the internet. 

[Miserableolgit]

3 hours ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Were you doing it on your phone?  Or other portable device over Wifi?  In which case, as has been pointed out, the tests are completely null and void.

You need to perform the test using a computer or other device connected to your router via an ethernet cable to get any meaningful data.

Interesting MOG.  I have seen a couple of videos on youtube of US (in particular) people in rural settings constructing all sorts of towers to get the antenna for their cellular router up as high as possible.  Seems to work, as presumably they're uploading said youtube videos using the equipment they've just made a video about!

Still no-one has yet mentioned any experience of using an ISP offering 'proper' FTTP?  I would guess/hope that as its largely irrelevant who you go with, as you have (as much as possible at the consumer level anyway) a direct connection to the internet. 

I think it is one of the few options available if there is on proper fibre network into a property. Ours is much better than the antiquated copper fed broadband we were paying standard rates for that was so slow it was almost like going back to dial-up . Latency does not seem to be an issue now either. My next step is to put up an external antenna on the house but will need to think and decide whether to go with a directional setup which could prove problematic it the transmitter / repeater on the water tower it's aimed at goes down, or to go with an omnidirectional affair that might stand a chance of picking up less strong but stillusable signals from other towers. I will have to rekindle a couple of the mast data and signal strength apps before deciding.

As a trivial aside "they" replaced the aging phone pole on our boundary last year. I got talking to the guys and ended up with the old pole which turns out is dated 1945 and still oozes real creosote whenever the sun gets on it. I have plans for it and just this afternoon got the chainsaw out and cut it into four equal lengths, counting the rings I got to about 35 before the few on the outside grew a bit indistinct which means the tree started life new enough at the turn of the 20th century. I asked the pole replacement guys what was the oldest one they had found still in service and they said last year they pulled one dated 1908 which when it was gut up was likewise still in excellent order and thick with creosote.  

[udderlyoffroad]

On 22/05/2023 at 17:49, Miserableolgit said:

I think it is one of the few options available if there is on proper fibre network into a property.

I did watch this video last night...interesting for those unlikely to get FTTP.  Doesn't appear to be the easiest kit for permanent installation. Even if the chap in the video has a habit of over-thinking things.  And a lack of Ethernet port?  Seriously?  What brain-dead accountant got that through?  Also it seems they're back to charging £450 for the kit.

 

[udderlyoffroad]

Just to update this; my FTTC Broadband provider suddenly put its prices up from £23/month to £45/month.  When I called to enquire how long my contract had left - no I couldn't see this online - they offered me their basic FTTP package (100mbit) for....£23.10/month.  I really detest business practices like this but it appears to be standard across the industry.  The only reason I 'rewarded' them with my business is that, at least this way I have only one company to deal with should things go awry during the switchover.

An engineer is coming on the 03/07 to install the equipment, and the router apparently is being delivered to me shortly.

[Miserableolgit]

On 05/06/2023 at 08:58, udderlyoffroad said:

I did watch this video last night...interesting for those unlikely to get FTTP.  Doesn't appear to be the easiest kit for permanent installation. Even if the chap in the video has a habit of over-thinking things.  And a lack of Ethernet port?  Seriously?  What brain-dead accountant got that through?  Also it seems they're back to charging £450 for the kit.

 

I missed this. Interesting option @ £99 but the offer has already closed. Touch wood so far so good with my cellular router set-up. 

5 hours ago, udderlyoffroad said:

Just to update this; my FTTC Broadband provider suddenly put its prices up from £23/month to £45/month.  When I called to enquire how long my contract had left - no I couldn't see this online - they offered me their basic FTTP package (100mbit) for....£23.10/month.  I really detest business practices like this but it appears to be standard across the industry.  The only reason I 'rewarded' them with my business is that, at least this way I have only one company to deal with should things go awry during the switchover.

An engineer is coming on the 03/07 to install the equipment, and the router apparently is being delivered to me shortly.

As you say it appears standard but of course that does not make it right, morally anyway.

[Bigbob]

The mrs worked for Sky till she retired  part of the package was free sky for 5 years reduced broadband and mobile phone charges . And i still struggle to get something to watch with all the channels if i watch tv its usually history or dave so when the time comes i will just take it to sky basics