My new connection

[Demon Cleaner]

I opted for a higher debit connection, as I had a 100MB down and 50MB up, and my ISP had an offer, for only 7€/month more, you would get 200MB down and 100MB up. So some weeks ago I subscribed to that one.

Then 2 days ago I noticed that the speed changed again, and I saw that from the 1st of August on, they changed that tier to 500MB down and 250MB up automatically, for exactly the same price. I was quite delighted.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7538043460.png (http://www.speedtest.net/result/7538043460)

[Harrison]

That is an insane speed.

I assume you have FTTP (fibre to the premises)? Where I live we only have access to FTTC (fibre to the cabinet), so the final bit is still copper from the cabinet to the house. Maximum speed I can get is 76Mbps down and 19Mbps up, but I get more like 50Mbps. Still good enough to stream 4K Netflix and Sky.

Virgin Media have been upgrading their cable fibre network in Chichester this year, and they have rumoured to be starting where I live in the next 2 years, which should offer 300Mbps or more if they do.

Your prices also sound much cheaper than ours.

[Demon Cleaner]

Yes, having FTTP here.

I pay 58€ a month now, you can see the prices on the picture below, notice that M and L are the same price at the moment, that's the reason I changed in the first place. The offer runs for 24 months.

And as you can perhaps see, the TV option is switched off, as I have a satellite dish, thus I don't need the TV subscription from the provider.

https://i.imgur.com/lePVCab.jpg

[Harrison]

Not bad prices at all. In the UK if we have to get internet via the phoneline we have to pay line rental in addition to phone connection and then internet connection, which can make it very expensive. Many offer what seem to be good deals, but there are hidden charges or restrictions when you read the smallprint, such as a capped monthly data limit or restricted bandwidth speed.

For those reasons I just stick with British Telecom as they build and own the fibre network via their wholesaler Openreach branch, and it stays uncapped and unrestricted. Not the cheapest but probably the least restricted. I think I pay about £60 a month for phoneline, unlimited calls, and unrestricted BT infinity (fttc). I also get free access to standard definition BT TV services such as AMC channel and BT sports which I can access via my Sky satellite box.

Some other companies such as Sky offer their own alternatives that are similar and their lease the fttc network from BT but they end up costing near enough the same over time. BT into offer for £26.99 a month sounds great but then you look at its got a 20GB monthly cap.

In a way I could forego the landline phone as we both have mobiles if broadband only was an option, and there has been some discussion about this recently with data only connections possibly offering free line rental. That would be good.

[Stephen Coates]

Looks good. Most of my Ethernet ports don't even support that kind of speed.

[Harrison]

That's one big issue isn't it. Many fibre and cable companies are reaching theoretical speeds that can far exceed many consumers equipment. A large proportion of people now only access the internet via WiFi on phones and tablets and that can't access anywhere near these speeds. Most would be lucky if they get 30Mbps when right next to the router and more likely to get about 13-17Mbps in the real world. But you can be certain they will still sell consumers a speed they can't access.

Like I assume most here do I use wired Ethernet where possible and installed physical ethernet ports around my house using CAT6 cables and wall sockets, so I can in theory use 10Gbit ethernet over the network, not that I can afford any hardware that supports it. But all my equipment is Gigabit so should be good for a bit longer. I I know in theory Cat5e can be used for Gigabit and even 10G up to 45M long but when putting the cables around my house I had to run them near to central heating pipes and alongside the electric cables so I thought Cat6 with its better shielding would be better.

[Kin Hell]

....Bloody Hell DC!
:eek2:

[Demon Cleaner]

I changed my connection, meaning upgraded it. Why? Simple, as I got my new phone I also wanted to get a new contract, I had the smallest and the one above was on offer for less as time has passed since I have my contract and my provider does not tell you about price changes and as I never changed contracts I paid way too much for over 2 years.

We checked the prices here at home and also noticed that I pay 74€/month for my internet connection, the L option, but the actual price of that is only 57€. The XL option nowadays being only 64€. So I took my old contract, went there and complained, but it is apparently my fault as I should have checked from time to time about price changes. So for over 2 years I paid 27€/month too much!

So I changed my contract to the XL option for less money and have now 1Gbit download and 500Mbit upload.

Had to buy a new FritzBox though, I still had the 7390 which is 13 years old, and it didn't give me the maximum speed, as it's quite limited, so I bought the newest model which is the 7590 AX and it now gives me the actual speed I have.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/14181850534.png (https://www.speedtest.net/result/14181850534)

[Harrison]

Nice speeds. My fibre download is about thy same as yours as I'm also on 1Gbit. Last I tested I was getting about 980Mbit down. But because of how BT Fibre works even though I'm in the fastest package my upload is 110Mbit and that's the actual maxium speed. I'm not really that bothered though because that's still pretty fast for uploading stuff even for website development.

The only way to possible get faster upload would be a much more expensive business full fibre package. Same download speed, but 220Mbit upload. But that's only if the local exchange is upgraded to offer that.

There is much faster business fibre available in some areas. And that is a mad 10Gbps symmetricalbleased line fibre. That's 1,280MB/s! So over 1GB per second. But as with all new tech it's only available in specific locations such as London and other inner cities, and prices start from £599 per month. It is mind blowing speeds though.

They do the same in the UK for contracts. They sign you up to a fixed length contract between 12-24 months at a fixed price, but then don't let you know when the contract ends and just keep billing you at the same price, even if newer similar packages are cheaper.

Broadband, landline, mobile contacts, TV packages etc. They are all happy to not really tell you and just keep billing or renew at the same price.

But there were recent laws changed in the UK where companies do now havev to offer the same prices and deals to existing customers and new customers. Before you could only get thy best deals as a new customer so had to change company to get them

[Demon Cleaner]

I don't care so much about upload anymore either, over are the PD, UG and BG times :( At that time it was definitely a big advantage being able to seed and increase ratio.

Most sites have anyway their speeds limited so you will never reach maximum download speed.

[Harrison]

It's definitely sad the days of the ratio sharing sites are over. Such fast upload speeds would have benefitted PD greatly. Still can be useful for torrents though.

But as I said above, even at 110mbps my upload speed is a huge increase in the 9mbps I was getting the year before. Means I can upload to servers I'm working on at 12.5MB/s, rather then just over 1MB/s. That makes a massive difference.

But not many need it though and it's getting to the point now where soon beoadband speeds will be a think of thy post for most. . In the UK BT is working to replace all copper phonelines with full fibre by 2025. This will mean nearly everyone will have access to much faster broadband, but most won't have the need or use hardly any of that bandwidth.

I remember last year finally getting full fibre and being excited at not having to wait long to download even thy largest games. But once I had it I suddenly found myself wondering what else I could use it for a I'd downloaded everything and it was sitting there idle. If never had that situation. Normally something was downloading. Felt strange.

[J T]

Hot speeds DC, that's blazing fast


But once I had it I suddenly found myself wondering what else I could use it for a I'd downloaded everything and it was sitting there idle. If never had that situation. Normally something was downloading. Felt strange.

I too looked at upgrading my FTTP speeds but really, there's not much point as I don't pirat... ug... upload linux distros any more, in fact it's been many many years since I have bothered. Perhaps 7-8 years or maybe even more. Probably the biggest thing I download is the odd PS4 or Switch game and I can bear to wait for those.... so in the end I decided to just leave my connection as it is.

[Harrison]

The advantage of fttp is no waiting for downloads at all, no buffering, 4k in multiple rooms. It is worth it, but probably more so once your kids are all wanting to use it at once.

[Kin Hell]

Here in the UK, British Telecom are f'kin useless & couldn't even wire a Lan Party up correctly.

BT bastardise every single network protocol to give you the laggy-ist possible experience & yeah, we'll still leave you on Aluminium wires.... :mad:

1G down & half a G up.... Great connection DC. :thumbs:

[Harrison]

You still having the same issues? I remember you talking about the aluminum wires years ago.

I've been fairly lucky here. At my old house the connecting was good for fttc. And whilst a bit slower was ok here too. And it was great they upgraded my road to full fibre as one of the first in the area last year.

But my mother-in-law has had a complete nightmare with here phoneline since we moved her near to use in her own bungalow about a mile from us. When she moved in her son signed her up to the cheapest rubbish Talk Talk contract possible still usb adsl. She was getting 1MB download and about 300K upload. It got even worse as line interference got worse and Talk Talk did nothing to fix it. Problem was my brother in law died and it was in his name so that didn't help. Eventually I managed to end the contract and switched it to fttc with Now TV. Much better and getting about 30Mbps. But then the line interference started to get so bad she couldn't here a phone call. I got thrm to check thy line and they said their was a fault on the line. I couldn't fault Now TV in arranging the engineers, but it took 3 Openreach visits to fix it.

That was last year. Then a week before Christmas it started acting up again. Sometimes you couldn't ring in. It just rang engaged. And sometimes the dialtone was acting up when trying to dial out. Then rhe dialtone stopped and it was just making clicking noises. Again Now TV were quixk to get an engineer out who checked all the lines inside the house and to the cabinet, but traced it to the local exchange. Another engineer the following day fixed it then rang me. Seemed to be working again. But a couple of days later the ovine cut off after a couple of minutes into any call. Had to wait a week because of Christmas, but thrn an engineer came out. This time he checked everything and said he could see the issue before he even came into the house. He believed the cable from the pole to the house was the issue and spent the afternoon replacing it. Seems to be working again now and the interference is all gone and working correctly. Strangely the fttc was never affected.

So fingers crossed it's all working from now on as she conducts everything on the phone as she doesn't trust the internet for ordering or banking and she's house bound, which is a nightmare in itself. Then again she's extremely deaf and refuses to wear the hearing aids she was given so can't actually hear anyone in the phone, so that's also a nightmare. Oh well, the things we have to endure.

[Kin Hell]

Same H & we have Fibre all around us.

11 residents on our lane voted/requested FTTP. With ten interests shown, BT are supposed to action it....

Still waiting.....

Fibre installed almost ten years ago in our neighbourhood....

Like I said, BT are a useless bunch of see you next Tuesday's or Thursday's.... :eyebrow: