Fibre upgrade - switching provider

I had an email saying my current BT Full Fibre 900 contract came to an end. They offered to continue it and renew it, but wanted £94 per month for the privilege. When I first took the old contract out I think it was £79.

I have stayed with BT for many years because although they are the most expensive, the connection has been really reliable.

However they also offered to upgrade me to their new EE fibre, so I took a look. When it dropped me over to the EE site they were offering me the equivalent 1Gbit package for £84, so only saving me £10 per month. And only 1Gbit (never thought I would refer to that as "only"). But I knew from checking my address (after Kin gave me the heads up about EE merging with BT) that I could get their 1.6Gbit speed. But being linked from my BT account they wouldn't give me the option.

So I created a new EE account and after it checked my location offered me the 1.6Gbit speed for £69 per month. You have to be careful because they were going to offer me a lower package for £15 more if I'd just gone with their initial offer. Shouldn't be allowed to do that but Im sure many see the supposed £10 saving on their BT offer and just go for it.

So EE are meant to be installing it on the 18th June in the morning. But sure why they need to install anything as I already have the fibre installed. Just a case of swapping the routers over and letting it connect. At least if anything doesn't work an Openreach engine will be here.

Looking into the EE broadband hub, I remember Kin saying it wasn't impressed with it and replaced it with an after market model. However some have done a steip form of the EE router and other than the case it's identical to my existing BT Halo3 hub, and I've been perfectly happy with that in all the time I've had it, so if it works as well I'm happy to keep that for the moment.

Only issue I know with the EE hub is it only has 1Gbit ethernet ports, so I can utilise the full 1.6Gbit speed over one Ethernet connection which might convince me to eventually upgrade. Router recommentations please for me to consider. Any would meet to have Wifi mesh support and come with at least 1 mesh wifi extender that could be extended via a hardwire ethernet connection for the garden studio.

Anyway, now to wait until the 18th June for the install. Guaranteed minimum download speed is 1300Mbps so that's good enough. Sadly still only 115Mbps upload. Must be a limitation of my exchange. I was gob they might offer a faster upload, but 115Mb is still fast enough for most uploading I do for server updates.

I also looked at the EE mobile offers, as you get a 30% discount for being a member, but they are as bad as BTs prices. Silly money for a monthly contract. So I will be sticking with Sky for mobile contacts. Far cheaper.

Man, that's fast.

I still remember using the old forum, back when I lived at home with mum and dad, on an AOL broadband (ADSL) connection that came with a shitty USB modem. I can't remember whether it was 512k and then got upgraded to 1meg, or if it started at 1 meg and was then upgraded to 2. Either way, the difference to now is incredible.

And yet, the internet is really shit now; it's boring, back then it seemed like a wild playground of opportunity and excitement, danger too.

My first ADSL connection at my parents house was only 512Kbps, but that was a massive upgrade at the time from the 7Kbps dialup I had before it. Plus no more dialing up and tying up the phoneline and being moaned at all evening. It is amazing how we coped with 7Kbps, even 512Kbps. I used to leave the PC on all night doenloading stuff. Things I can now download in a couple of minutes. It is mad.

What is even madder is that the fastest fibre connections now exceed the maximum supported home network speeds of most devices, as most still have 1Gbps Ethernet ports, or slower Wifi. This includes current consoles. Only PCs with 2.5Gbit ethernet and newer devices with Wifi 6 and 7 can take advantage of the full speed. However it does mean multiple devices can download much faster at the same time, which really in a household with multiple users is a nice bonus. Especially now my son is into PC gaming with his school mates and constantly on Discord whilst playing online. And my wife connected to her school servers to do work from home.

Regarding the internet, I totally agree. It used to be fun before everything got so serious and controlling. Governments and corporations always ruin everything.

The great days of sites like Underground Gamer and Pleasuredome are now lost, along with their communities. And you can't replicate them on social media because it's too open to everyone and they are full of self righteous arsehats.

However with such a fast connection I've wondering why I'm paying for some of the streaming services I have that are not releasing that much new content. Might have to return to the high seas!

Congratulations on the fibre upgrade.

I'm surprised that FTTP connections often still have such low upload speeds. I think this is just the way Openreach and others have arbitrarily decided to implement it, as other wholesalers like CityFibre do symmetrical connections.

As for dialup speeds... You may be amazed to know that I haven't used dialup in maybe a decade or so now (it would be especially difficult now as I no longer have an analogue phone line). I was recently stuck on GPRS though, which was reminiscent of dialup. Hopefully that will be no more though as I have just bought a 5G modem :).

Aye there C'apn.... Tis faaast fer sure! :JRflag:

Latencies for Fibre are still utter bollocks though. - Something to consider:

Speed of Light is 299,792,458 metres per second

Distance around the Equator is 40,075,017 metres

This means you could travel around the World 7.5 times in one second if you were going at the speed of light.
(Speeds based on being in a Vacuum as Space is of course)

Doesn't matter what Speed test you run, it's like watching a rubber band unwind. Fibre should be FLAT out in a nanosecond, not pi$$ing around winding itself up like Copper Wire always has.

https://proof.ovh.net

My speed always starts & hovers @ 900 before realising it's got another 700Mb to go. - Why?

Why does the Upload speed also unwind like it's on elastic?

Gaming... Yeah, you see a worse kind of BS when trying to Frag your opponents. It's like you're on Ice when it's really Laggy. - LAG on lightspeed Fibre... Shouldn't be happening!

Fingers crossed for this to come mainstream, sooner rather than later:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...e-latency.html

Though I expect we're all going to get milked some more for the privilege.

I love my Ubquiti DM SE for the Networking Features it bestows, is there any need for 10G to you main Computer? You can stream 4K BluRay across Gigabit.

Full Fibre here in the UK on BT/EE's Network.... Never mind the Quality, feel the Width!

But it is fast, isn't it..... :dry:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Harrison

My first ADSL connection at my parents house was only 512Kbps, but that was a massive upgrade at the time from the 7Kbps dialup I had before it. Plus no more dialing up and tying up the phoneline and being moaned at all evening. It is amazing how we coped with 7Kbps, even 512Kbps. I used to leave the PC on all night doenloading stuff. Things I can now download in a couple of minutes. It is mad.

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That's got me thinking, which step was the bigger, more impactful feeling, for you?

I can't really talk about the jump from dial-up to broadband as I never really did much with dial up, so that era for me personally was:
no internet at home at all -> ADSL (prolly 512k), which felt revolutionary to us (cos, well, it was, for us!) at the time.

Whereas now, it feels like:
something -> that same thing but more and faster. Oh, and also that thing is less exciting and more of a basic commodity to me now.

Quote:

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Might have to return to the high seas!

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I think I might have to do a research project, for research purposes, on this and particularly how the trends have changes (with a focus on what's popular now) and how security measures have changed (cos people don't wanna get caught).

I think my first ADSL connection was 1 or 2 Mbps, but I did use someone elses which was 512k, as he had it some years before we did.

It was a big jump to DSL for me, as although I got on OK with dialup speeds at the time, the always on nature of DSL was a huge selling point. Speed has never been a particularly big issue for me, I've always preferred always on and reliable to fast.

e.g. I was recently using an older Cat 4 LTE modem. On the EE network I could get 30-40Mbps download speed. Now I'm on 5G I can get nearly 300Mbps. On the Three network I can manage 500Mbps. Can I tell the difference in anything but a speedtest? No. Why? Because my main bandwidth use it watching HD video on YouTube which is 5Mbps max, and everything else is web browsing and IRC. Oh, and don't forget VoIP which uses a whopping 64kbps :).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by J T

Whereas now, it feels like:
something -> that same thing but more and faster. Oh, and also that thing is less exciting and more of a basic commodity to me now.

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Isn't that just it. - And it so much more expensive for what speeds you were getting or able to get in your area at the time.... Now it's soooo cheap per Mb/Sec the faster you go.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by J T

I think I might have to do a research project, for research purposes, on this and particularly how the trends have changes (with a focus on what's popular now) and how security measures have changed (cos people don't wanna get caught).

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:sly:

@ Harrison

Have you thought about a change of Router/Gateway for your new service yet or do you not want a 2.5G/10G link into your man cave? <---- That doesn't sound right does it!?

I am thinking of upgrading the router to get 2.5Gb into my study, but all my PCs only have Gb Ethernet so would need to add a card, although in I've considering building a new PC soon so would gain it then also. I would also need to replace 2 switches at the same time.

What routers are worth looking at these days, and switches? I normally buy Zyxel switches for some years as they have been really good for the price.

I'm not so fused about upgrading switches anywhere else as everything in the living room or cabin are 1Gb or on wifi.

I was always a sworn Netgear guy going back a while but look after the wallet as much as I can these days.

Sure, £500 on the Ubiquiti UDM SE might seem like a lot but it's an investment that should last for some years to come & also manages the home security.

I bought this from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CQ441Z...t_details&th=1 - You can use a CAT8 SFP Module rather than Fibre if you desire.
This gives me a 10G Link if I need it, but primarily for the 2.5G ports offering four devices 2.5G simultaneously to the Gateway. Its also future proofed for & when 10G goes mainstream.
I'm sure they will by default but make sure the ONT they install can handle 2.5GBit. You would think they would fit this when you're ordering 1.6GBit but make sure they swap out your current one for the fatter bandwidth. :thumbs:

As for reliability with the Amazon 2.5G switch, only time will tell.

I had the fibre upgrade yesterday. Only thing they had to do was replace my existing ONT as the one I already had was only 1GBit so that had to be swapped out for a 2.5Gbit one. The most time taken was the engineer getting it to connect and had to resort to ringing up to pair the ONT number to my incoming fibre connection. Once done that was up and running that was it. Plug the new router in and check it was working. Job done. Bet the Openreach engineers wish all their callouts were that simple.

Test ran from the hub to check speed from the fibre to the hub.

Attachment 1537

I'm not going to upgrade the router to a third party one at the moment as I don't yet have anything that has any 2.5 Ethernet ports. This router does have Wifi6 though and I've noticed an improvement with tesponse time on devices that are compatible, although that is only portable things as I like to hardwire everything I can.

Hardest job yesterday was getting everything in the house connected back up to the new router. Onviously I could have edited the new routers login to the old router so everything would have jussi carried on oblivious to the changes, but I normally find setting a lot of devices up again with the new details is better overall. Just a bit of a hassle.

One was my Ring doorbell. I couldn't see any wifi networks, whereas my phone could see networks from both next door neighbours and my own. I had to manually enter the network details, then it connected first time. Very odd.

And some smart devices are stupidly designed. Hardest to get working was a tp-link smart extension lead my wife has by the bed. It has 3 seperate smart plug sockets that can be controlled separately via app or Alexa. It's useful for the bedside light, but also for her straighters and hairdryer as she can double check they are off if she's forgotten to check. Anyway they seemed no way to change the wifi settings in the app. I looked through the maker's FAQs and it has one for moving the sevice to a new network and stated the app has no ability to do that. You have to factor reset the device and remove them all from the app. Then set it up again as a new device. That in itself is fiddly, but then you have to fight with the Alexa app to make it realise the existing entries are no longer valid and the new devices it discovered and added without asking were the same. Anyway got it working in the end.

Last headache is Sky Q. My main Sky Q box was working without doing anything because its hard wired, but the sky Q mini box in the bedroom obviously was offline. So I has to reset the network on the main box, thrn restart and reinitialise the mini box 3 times before it evened devices to see the Sky Q mesh and connect. That's now working. But another mini box I have in the log cabin still refused to reconnect. Its hardwired as way too far from the house to ever see the Sky Q mesh (why they couldn't just use the house wifi as the wifi mesh booster is right next to the mini in there). It's been installed in there for 4 years connected via ethernet and working fine. I have had a couple of times when the internet has dropped in thy cabin and has to reinitialise it to get it back up and running. But yesterday no matter what I tried it wouldn't connect. It just keep telling me it has to connect via wifi and I needed to press the wps button on the main Sky Q box. No because that wouldn't work. Every time I tried resetting the box it just went back to that screen asking me to press the button. So I have up yesterday. Will try again in a minute.

Anyway I think I have most things back in the network now. Smart lights, plugs, security cameras, doorbells, all the Amazon echos in every room, laptops, tablets, phones, Hive central heating.

Actually that's busy made me realise there are 2 now I've not done. The Netatmo weather station and a smart electric panel heater both in the cabin.

Also discovered the outside blink camera on the cabin decided to have flat batteries Ystradgynlais so had to order some new lithium AAs. Those things are expensive.

The Sky Mini box in the cabin ended up being something I'm blaming my wife for.

After it refusing to see the network and insisting on trying to connect wirelessly I noticed the ethernet cable wasn't plugged until the switch. Strange as they don't normally just fall out. Still no light on the router so I rebooted the sky box. Still nothing. I ran out of time so gave up after trying for over 30 mins.

Yesterday I went in there and still no joy. Decided to double check the cable. It was still plugged into the switch, but I thought I had better check the other end and it wasn't plugged into the sky box! Doh! Plugged it in and within seconds reconnected and Sky up and running.

Why would it suddenly be unplugged at both ends? RJ45s don't just fall out! They are normally hard to release if anything. My wife did a full clean of the cabin a couple of days before the broadband upgrade so I'm blaming her for somehow accidently pulling the cable out of both ends. Very odd though.

So finally nearly everything reconnected. Be lithium batteries arrived for the outside camera so that was back up and running quickly. But I then discovered another worrying thing I'm also definitely blaming my wife for! The outdoor Blink cameras use a small sync module to connect them wirelessly, and thy sync module then connected to the Wifi. It's only a little box with a couple of lights on and was plugged in and sat on the floor in the corner under the desk. I had to reset it to get the camera reconnected and discovered there was a big hole melted right though the top of the case. And only one thing in there could have done that. My wife makes wooden signs to sell on Etsy and does wood burning on them for the lettering. It's basically a soldering iron with different shaped ends and the hole fits the iron! Of course she denied any knowledge of it which is worrying. How did it happen without her realising? Themselves the sync module still works with the big melted hole in it!

Apart from the satisfaction of seeing a much bigger number on your speed test (and I'm not downplaying that, it really is a satisfying thing) how does it actually feel now you are upgraded? Have you seen much appreciable difference in how you use it?

I remember when our first big upgrade (this was back when we were on ADSL) made video calling so much smoother and better, and downloading software updates (phones, for example) much quicker. Then when we got FTTP, not having to wait for long for the streaming video to start playing.

In terms of bandwidth not much really as I already had 900Mbps Full Fibre for a couple of years. So anything hardwired by Ethernet is exactly the same. Streaming services are as fast as they can managed to load. They are the bottleneck these days in how fast they can serve the data.

Downloading hits the 1Gbps limit on Ethernet now as that's what most devices do have, so PS5 is slightly faster, doenloading at about 950Mbps when it was about 845Mbps before. And the extra bandwidth does mean that if I boot the PS5 and it has to do some big updates there is still a lot more left over to get on with other aid without it being impacted. I think that's the biggest plus for the extra bandwidth.

The new router is Wifi 6 and I have noticed a big improvement for Wifi devices. Overall wifi coverage is better too. I obviously could have added Wifi6 before but again not too many devices use it. The Nintendo Switch is still stuck at 32Mbps f.ex. one's that have benefited are things like smartphones and Steam Deck.

Bit of a per lava involved with your upgrade H.... Poor wifey! :lol:

Still you're there now & still stuck on Gigabit Networking with all that fire power coming in.

2.5G & 5G are not far off mainstream now. I'd say things have really started coming together for faster home networks & the Wi-Fi craze has naturally pulled hard wired along too.
Fast SFP Modules in 8 port 2.5G Switches are really cheap if you're willing to go outside of Brand name components. Cisco, Netgear & similar still command high prices when buying new.
The unfortunate thing about 10G is that it needs CAT6a cable to do the whole 100m. CAT6 is only rated 50m.
2.5G & 5G will still work on 100M runs of CAT5e.

I've got a 2.5G network card arriving from China today. Putting this bad boy into my new home server build (i7 3770K on a Z77 Chipset) since selling the NAS box recently.

I read that at some point very soon EE will be releasing a new router with 2.5G ports. If it's a free or fairly cheap upgrade I might do that as I'm perfectly happy with the current EE router other than the Ethernet ports. It just seems mad that they offered this 1.6Gb service but the only port that was 2.5 was the WAN port.

The Openreach engineer thought it was daft too, and said the other broadband supplied routers from every isp are the same. Cost cutting because they know most well never use it or are naive to using the full bandwidth.

It is quite mad though isn't it that we are now discussing Gigabit Ethernet as being slower than our broadband connections.

I got a couple of emails from BT saying I had to return their hardware by the 17th July or world be charged for it. I had already gone into my account and applied for them to send me a returns bag. But the email said they would send one auromatically so I might end up with 2. I have older BT routers in a box so might return the lot.

But that did make me think. I paid to upgrade to the Halo 3 when it came out, so didn't I own it? Hmm.

If for some reason I didn't return the hardware the costs are silly. £69 for the router, £30 for the wifi disc and £50 for the EE 5G hub.

And what will they do with it when they receive it back? Ewaste it?

Someone did a strip down if the current EE router and found inside was identical to the BT halo router. So maybe they just refurb them and recase them.

You'd think if you were charged for the Halo3 upgrade that it made you the owner of the hardware. - Best check the contract terms b4 you do H.

I have a suspicion that if you sent them back the box, but with a few rocks inside, they wouldn't notice - I reckon it all just gets trashed anyway.

However, I'm not firm enough in that belief to test it myself.

- - - Updated - - -

Kind of like the amazon returns that just get binned or resold in bulk lots - it's cheaper for the company than actually dealing with it fully

I'm not convinced of that 100% either to test it.

Such returns policies from companies such as BT and Sky are just money making schemes. Do sky still refurb old Sky boxes and send them out again? I know many years ago when I used to get a Sky engineer out for a defective box they would often swap them out for a dodgy refurb. I had this horrible Grundig box replacement once that started to smoke 10 minutes after the engineer left!

And maybe BT do refurb their returns. Who knows. The hardware in returning was still working find and good enough for all but thy fastest speeds.

eWaste needs investigating though. The amount of hardware scrapped every year is stupid. You can't even save anything from a dump any more either.