Fibre upgrade - switching provider

[Harrison]

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.

[J T]

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.

[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.

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!

[Stephen Coates]

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 .

[Kin Hell]

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

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.....

[J T]

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.

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.

Might have to return to the high seas!

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).

[Stephen Coates]

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 .

[Kin Hell]

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.

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.

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).

@ 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!?

[Harrison]

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.

[Kin Hell]

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.

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