My new connection

[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!

[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.

[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.