Is is possible that a large percentage of the population just don't have a need for super fast broadband? I would feel inconvenienced without at least 40mbps, but my in laws are very happy with their 3mbps even though there are bigger and better plans available, they can do all the things they need, so why pay more?
UK's 'superfast' broadband is still complete dog toffee, even in London
The government may claim that 90 per cent of the UK have access to superfast broadband, but in reality an analysis of customers' speeds in 20 major cities, including London, found most folk aren't even getting 24Mbps speeds. Data from comparison site USwitch analysed actual speeds rather than available top speeds, indicating a …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 28th April 2016 08:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
I agree. I get about 15 - 18mbs and it streams iPlayer fine.
I see no need to go up to super-duper-hyper 200mbs for ONLY about another £25 a month. It's utterly, utterly pointless for me.
My parents had a crap, over priced old service from Virgin. Did they care? No. It was only because I found they could triple the speed, get a better box and more TV for half the price did they decide to move. Speed was not the deciding factor in this.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 08:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
re. virgin
I must say, that I'm - reluctantly, become a real fan of virgin cable. Once we ditched BT landline (on principle, as I've found it more than irritating to be ripped off by their phone charges), and the (great, but slowish and pricy) foster child, plusnet, we went for the slowest virgin package, no tv shit. Surprisingly, they didn't push for the tv-phone-internet package, possibly because I played a grumpy old man likely to froth from the mouth and they had plenty of sheep to shear in their shop (mums with child buggies listening to their "experts"). Anyway, despite their terrible reputation, and having to explain something over the phone to "Tom" from India, I got lucky, i.e. my set up was painless, and since then (2 months) - fingers crossed. That speed is addictive, but also, gives us a peace of mind. Previously I got stung, more than once, for going over the monthly "cap" - ping goes a fiver. Last drop was when plusnet charged me this fiver over... 20 MB going over the cap. Now if I want to listen to the radio, I just do so on my mobile, streaming anything I want, likewise my wife. Same with playing videos for kids (and plenty of educational ones). I know they have do have some... restrictions, but we've never hit them yet. Their ftp upload speeds are horribly a-symmetrical (something like 3.7Mb upload v. 50Mb/s download speed), but it's still more than 4 x faster than before (and I do upload a lot of large graphic files to my server). The only niggle is that I can't be bothered to set upa voip for a landline, because it is restrictive, and on tight budget, so I won't use my mobile much, but then, for a few vital links, both the recipient and myself call each other via whatsapp (another ideological horror, to praise a facebook company! ;)
So, overall, for an average family we are, more and more speed is a definite selling point, once you see the light. And then, most folk are into streaming netflix and such, so I can easily see 100Mb/s as their "expected" speed. And with 4K, I bet 200Mb/s wouldn't go amiss. Then - think of the children, i.e. when they turn the corner into their teen years...
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Thursday 28th April 2016 14:29 GMT Rol
Re: re. virgin
Yep. By default of being a Virgin customer, I had my times of woe, but that was mostly down to customer service wanting to take it to the line before giving me the deal I wanted, but that has totally changed, and now it's a pleasure to deal with them.
Speed and availability has never been an issue, and yes, I very much doubt I will ever leave them, but don't tell them I said that.
As for speed in general, I half suspect many speed tests are carried out when the user is experiencing stuttering on streaming services and the like, probably around late afternoon, early evening when everyone and his dog is banging away at their keyboard and hence a low speed report, but later when things are quieter and their streaming of Game of Thrones is perfect, they never think of doing a speed test and thus the overall figures will suggest average speeds are lower than they really are.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 16:20 GMT Matt Bridge-Wilkinson
Re: re. virgin
I agree that I probably won't leave them either in a hurry either and they are generally good. They have improved a great deal in the last few years. You just need t leave and resign every year or so to stop the price creep they are still good at.
I also think a network is only as good as its weakest point and should be measured on its peak useage hours. So if its poor at peak hours then that is how it should be measured imho because that is when most will want to use it. Virgin are notorious for over selling capacity so measuring it at its worst is good for driving them to improve. Otherwise its "economy 7" style internet we are talking about..
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Thursday 28th April 2016 09:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Iplayer
Yes, that's one POINT five megabits. Download rate on average of about 250KB per second.
Amazing that your average download rate is higher than your reported synch speed. 250KB/s would equate to a minimum line rate of 2Mbps, without even taking in to account typical DSL overhead.
Yeah, it sucks but there's no need for the hyperbole.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 10:53 GMT lorisarvendu
"I agree. I get about 15 - 18mbs and it streams iPlayer fine.
I see no need to go up to super-duper-hyper 200mbs for ONLY about another £25 a month. It's utterly, utterly pointless for me."
Well I have an Unlimited "up to 80Mbps" FTTC service from Plusnet. I get between 50 and 60Mbps depending on which way the wind's blowing, and I pay £22.49 a month.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 14:45 GMT dotdavid
"Well I have an Unlimited "up to 80Mbps" FTTC service from Plusnet. I get between 50 and 60Mbps depending on which way the wind's blowing, and I pay £22.49 a month."
Plus £16.99 line rental. Still not sure why the advertised prices of broadband don't include this mandatory charge, even if you never use the landline.
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Friday 29th April 2016 15:04 GMT lorisarvendu
"Well I have an Unlimited "up to 80Mbps" FTTC service from Plusnet. I get between 50 and 60Mbps depending on which way the wind's blowing, and I pay £22.49 a month."
Plus £16.99 line rental. Still not sure why the advertised prices of broadband don't include this mandatory charge, even if you never use the landline."
Ahh...no. I only get my broadband from Plusnet, so £22.49 a month really is all I pay them. I don't pay your imaginary mandatory line rental charge. My landline is from BT, and it's always been that way. Yes I pay BT line rental for my landline, but you can't add the line rental price onto a discussion about broadband and then imply that this is the "true" price of broadband.
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Friday 29th April 2016 04:29 GMT Steven Burn
Should be on their (now) ancient packages, cost for my PN connection is at least twice that ;o) (still wouldn't switch though, short of a major feck up - they "just work" (yep, they have issues occasionally, who doesn't) and their staff for the most part (once you get past the first line) actually know what they're talking about (still miss the old staff though))
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Thursday 28th April 2016 08:58 GMT DaddyHoggy
Before my wife was medically retired last year, she used to work from home quite a lot and we switched from a very expensive BT dial-up up, to a very expensive BT ADSL to a (at the time time) much cheaper Virgin Media Fibre connection. It started life at 150Kb/s, then it moved to 300Kb/s, then 1Mb then 3Mb, then 10Mb, then 30Mb and I now have 60Mb. Other than 'normal' prices rises there's barely any difference in the relative cost of the 150Kb then and the 60Mb now connection. The main difference is *now* I have two kids who don't consume normal TV - they live on YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Quite often my wife, plus two kids will all be streaming TV shows at the same time - throw me trying to watch a Twitch stream, or iPlayer catch up into the mix and I'm very grateful to have such a decent sized pipe!
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Thursday 28th April 2016 16:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Yes nail on the head! I actually sent feedback to Virgin recently upon their request. I stated that the constant "doubling" of speed (to hide annual 13% price rises) wasn't what I as a customer wanted as I didn't actually need more than the 40meg I already had. I'd rather they stabilised what was there and focused on reliability than keep pretending like enabling whats already there is any kind of added value. I can already watch amazon/youtube/netflix in several rooms at once why would I want to pay for more?
With regards to Hull as the lowest takeup, when you look at house prices there and a struggling job market is it any surprise that people there aren't keen on super expensive fibre broadband? There are more important things in life like food, water, a roof over your head and warmth...
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Thursday 28th April 2016 08:18 GMT AndrueC
Were these wireless or wired tests? I wouldn't trust a wireless test in an urban environment. I live in a small rural town but I can see 14 wifi access points from my living room. Most people's wifi isn't configured to support high-speed broadband even if it was operating without interference from neighbours.
As for what people want - I think the market is pretty clear there. VM have to keep closing old slower packages and upgrading customers for free. FTTC take-up is running at about 30% (and I suspect the recent rises there are more due to BDUK finally getting it to the people who had poor ADSL). Even those who do take up FTTC are often going for the 40/10 packages rather than 80/20. BT just introduced 55/10 in the hope of encouraging take up of higher speeds.
Some people want faster broadband and by pushing for it they help the rest by making it available when the rest finally do want it. But you have to be careful pushing for the investment because market data struggles to support the claim that everyone wants it.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 10:01 GMT AS1
"Eh? What is this gobbledygook?", said the 70% of users with ADSL packages. "FTTC? BDUK? I know 20/20 is good vision, but 55/10?"
With all this techno-babble around broadband, no wonder a large proportion just go by price. It's something they understand, and they just run the router supplied with their first package assuming that the vendor set it up correctly.
For deeper penetration, broadband probably needs an A-E rating akin to white-goods. That way the 'better' A rating will be chosen by households who treat their internet access as a fridge, i.e. they buy it and it works. If we look at the transition of the personal computing market from technical savvy PC owners to closed box phablet owners, I suspect that is the vast majority of households.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 12:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
They've got it completely arse over tit. Desperately spouting rhetoric about how successfully they're foisting 55/10 onto some fictional percentage of people who were perfectly happy with their 3/0.5.. While they totally ignore that 10% of the population who dream of 3/0.5 while languishing the end of some shitty 0.4/0.1 strand of aluminium that's been rotting away since the '70s... or worse.
La la la.. we can't hear you... gigafast digigasmicbritan uberhighway!.. la la la...
Why? What good is being served by UKPlc pu$hing ever "faster" connections onto people who neither want nor need them, while wilfully and conspicuously ignoring the very real needs of others.
Something to do with them flogging off our TV spectrum then using their cut to fund a long retirement in a Tahitian brothel, no doubt.
Google "how do I order FTTPoD" for examples. Even people on FTTPoD cabinets and told it's "available" to them can't really get it... It's all lies.
Disingenuous fucks.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 12:57 GMT Nigel 11
+10
Wish I could upvote AC's post by +10
It could be fixed so easily by government decree. There's a universal service obligation on telephone lines. It's high time that same universal service obligation was extended to a usable broadband service on those telephone lines. (I'd hope that was at least 8/0.5).
Yes, it would cost, but broadband has gone from being a luxury to an essential service. We don't expect folks in villages to pay more for their water supply, still less drink water out of a pond, so why should decent broadband remain excessively expensive or completely unobtainable?
PS at the same time, they should bang the mobile companies heads together. It's unnacceptable that Vodafone has a monopoly on the place I live, and EE has a monopoly on a nearby village, and never the twain shall interoperate. Surely there could be mandatory free internal UK roaming between networks in areas where not all of the networks have coverage? The banks sorted out "roaming" of cash machines years ago, the mobile networks need to be told to sort out something similar.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 14:59 GMT Rol
Re: +10
As an economically poor, long-time user of the internet I baulk at the idea that my bills will be loaded with the costs of running high bandwidth services to Lord and Lady Mucks country palace.
I'm not against subsidising rural roll-out, but I am against the inevitable regressive taxation if the costs are borne solely by the providers, who in turn will increase EVERYONE'S bill to pay for it.
No. this needs to be a Government led initiative, payed [work it out] out of general taxation and thus a more fairly distributed burden.
After all, I very much doubt Lord and Lady Muck will be happy when asked to contribute toward supplying, poor inner-city households, a PC capable of taking advantage of their superfast internet, which is the next stumbling block in internet access.
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Friday 29th April 2016 11:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
> Google "how do I order FTTPoD" for examples. Even people on FTTPoD cabinets and told it's "available" to them can't really get it... It's all lies.
FTTPoD has been intentionally wrecked by OpenReach, by setting a WHOLESALE rental price of £99+VAT PER MONTH [*]
I have no problem paying a few grand for the cost of unclogging ducts or whatever is needed to pull the fibre through. But once it's installed, it should cost no more to "rent" than the copper it replaces.
[*] https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=0WyIM7tTGGgucFf0dXUIWK4XSAplAmgrRZNg5Pk%2B5%2F%2BkRgB7BL4KNYn%2FlKx2YB4Qe6YShZ82RgLO%0AGLsH2e9%2Bmw%3D%3D
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Thursday 28th April 2016 08:40 GMT djstardust
Why get Fibre?
I'm in Aberdeen and get an average 17mbps on a copper line, which is faster than the figure quoted for fibre in this article. Only downside is a 13 year old uploading Youtube videos at 0.85mbps for weeks on end.
Despite our estate having loads of new cabinets saying "fibre has arrived" when we check the BT website we are not enabled. WTF?
At least fibre would give better upload speeds ... or would it?
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Thursday 28th April 2016 09:07 GMT DaddyHoggy
Re: Why get Fibre?
On my VM fibre things get increasingly asymmetrical - I get 60Mb DL but *only* 6Mb up - 6Mb is obviously not too shabby, but only 10% of my DL rate.
They just offered my a year's trial of the 200Mb VIVID service at the cost I'm currently paying for my 60Mb - I asked what the UL rate was - 10Mb (same as the 100Mb service they also offer in my area) - so I won't be switching (especially as the cost would double my current payment in a year's time).
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Thursday 28th April 2016 20:40 GMT Down not across
Re: Why get Fibre?
On my VM fibre things get increasingly asymmetrical - I get 60Mb DL but *only* 6Mb up - 6Mb is obviously not too shabby, but only 10% of my DL rate.
<pedant>
It's not fibre, despite what VM (at least used to) advertise. It's old fashioned coaxial cable running DOCSIS.
</pedant>
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Friday 29th April 2016 11:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why get Fibre?
> At least fibre would give better upload speeds ... or would it?
Likely yes, but beware.
There are three different wholesale services which BT provide. 80/20, 40/10, and the historic 40/2.
Where I live the achievable downstream rate is only 25M. I was already on Plusnet, so when I moved here I took their 40M service. But it turns out their 40M service uses 40/2 and not 40/10. They forced me to switch to a more expensive product just to get unclamped upstream (I now get 25/5, although I'm paying for 80/20).
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Thursday 28th April 2016 08:41 GMT Orwell
The last paragraph is just plain wrong in every way. A typical case of a politician believing his own BS.
Hardly anyone has fibre. What he means is fibre to the cabinet, which may be miles away. This is only slightly better than fibre to the exchange which is what we all had before.
And as for 90% getting 24Mbs and 50% getting 100Mbs this is laughable.
Think Hull has the best outlook. Sounds like at least they are trying to do the job properly. Unlike BT's bodge it and run approach. Does KCOM in Hull get lots of government money to spend or do they finance it themselves?
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Thursday 28th April 2016 13:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
KCOM got precisely 0 pounds 0 pence from UK Govt. If you read comments on our local rags website, you will see it full of whiners saying they wish they could have Virgin, BT, Sky what have you. Given I read articles on the register et al I am not a subscriber to the grass is always greener brigade.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 14:49 GMT dotdavid
"Given I read articles on the register et al I am not a subscriber to the grass is always greener brigade."
Surely it's better to have x providers all claiming to have installed fibre broadband to your area rather than have to put up with just one provider claiming to have installed fibre broadband to your area?
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Friday 29th April 2016 11:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
> Surely it's better to have x providers all claiming to have installed fibre broadband to your area rather than have to put up with just one provider claiming to have installed fibre broadband to your area?
There is only one provider of "fibre" (FTTC) broadband: BT. They wholesale it to everyone else.
So if you take "fibre broadband" from Talktalk or Sky, you are getting BT FTTC.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 08:41 GMT msknight
The whole bloody thing is a mess.
OpenReach "upgraded" my village to FTTC and in the process screwed up the ADSL connections so that intermittent interference knocks out the line. Did a seven month long stunt with Eclipse that saw me replace everything, including the relatively expensive consumer grade router. When I acquiesced to the £200 OpenReach call out (it's £120 for phones, £200 for broadband apparently) they telephoned me to say that they weren't going to call OpenReach.
Cue me switching to PlusNet a few weeks ago... and now I'm repeating the whole damn show all over again.
If there's a problem with my water, or my electric, I can talk straight to the company responsible for delivering it to my home.... not so telecoms. OpenReach won't talk with me, despite telling them they've got a village in trouble.
On top of that, PlusNet are shy of calling OpenReach as well, apparently I've been told that 6 dropouts a day on ADSL is an acceptable threshold... well, not if you're running IP telephony it bloody well isn't.
I do have a letter from Ofcom confirming that they're going to propose tightening these limits later this year, but what is the point of putting targets on OpenReach.... when they really need to be imposing those fault targets on the providers, to get them to friggin' well CALL OpenReach in the first place. And I'm going to have to endure this whole debacle for another TWO MONTHS before I can call in an arbitration service.
The whole damn industry has rigged itself to be immune to the very rules and targets that Ofcom have set. It's a complete shambles.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 13:27 GMT Nigel 11
If there's a problem with my water, or my electric, I can talk straight to the company responsible for delivering it to my home.... not so telecoms.
Sorry to break it to you ... but no, or at least not around here. It's "Western Power Distribution" that delivers the power. Mind you, if Openreach did even half as good a job as Western Power Distribution, I'd probably be happy. But there again, electricity is under a universal service obligation.
Recently heard someone relating his attempt to report a tree that was being held up by the electricity pole to his power company, before the tree came down completely and brought the electricity supply down with it. Complete failure. It'll get fixed a few hours / days after the power fails, and at ten times the expense.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 10:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Hull
Yes we do still have a totally independent telecoms service in Hull. KCOM are putting in fibre to premise in its just taking a while, it's a big invesment but should futureproof the infrastructure. They are indeed ramping up the rollout this year. I have fibre at home and subscribe to their 50mb/s service, you can get up to 250mb/s, at my office I still use ADSL and see about 9Mb/s.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 09:02 GMT Disgruntled of TW
FFS - it is NOT fibre.
It is copper.
The exchanges that are FTTC enabled always had fibre. Taking fibre out to the street cabinets does not miraculously change the customer premises equipment from copper to fibre. The CPE is still copper bearer over POTS. I wish the ASA would wake up to this and stop this illusion that we're all getting fibre.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 09:23 GMT Tom 38
Re: FFS - it is NOT fibre.
Virgin Fibre is the same as well, HFC is fibre to the local headend whereafter it's all coax to the home.
<smug>I have true FTTH, and it's very nice indeed, symmetric gigabit, sub ms ping</smug>. To think we could all have had that, instead of a really fast choo choo to Leeds...
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Thursday 28th April 2016 09:25 GMT Blergh
What is the data source of these tests?
I don't think it was clear what was the source of these figures. It sounded like that it was from Uswitches broadband speed tests. I'm quite sure the test is accurate enough but what about the sample of people who use it?
From a personal stand point I've now got FTTC broadband and I have only once checked to see what the speed was, since then I've not had the need because it is fast enough for everything I want. However previously when I was just on ADSL I was checking whenever I suspected my connection was being abnormally slow.
Therefore could it be that the sample is likely to be skewed towards those who have slower broadband speeds? Maybe they've adjusted for this, but it wasn't clear if that was the case.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 10:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What is the data source of these tests?
One problem is a lot of people will have done tests using their wireless connection in their house, that can vary hugely depending on where they are in their house and what is going on at the time, they are also likely to be the people 'testing' their connections because they have issues.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 09:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
One thing missing....
...is the rise of 4G
My connection (I have a tower and exchange within 5 minute walking distance) and my phone connection blows my ADSL out of the water
My peak test was 86.7 down / 17.41 up.
That upload alone blows most home connections out of the water. Just same about the pricing.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 17:14 GMT NotWorkAdmin
Re: One thing missing....
I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed with appalling latency. My home internet is utterly horrible to game on. Bizarrely, I can tether to the 4G on my phone for a better ping. I'd prefer 5-10Mb with low latency than almost any other configuration.
If you need 100Mb in a domestic environment, you're doing it wrong. By "you" I mean the people who if challenged wouldn't know what a Mb is. By "it" I presumably mean porn.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 10:01 GMT CJatCTi
There is no FTTC in central London
We have lots of customers in central London & there is no FTTC available there, hence no take up.
This is for 3 reasons:
1) FTTC is Fiber To The Cabinet, with distances being short lots are direct to the exchange so no chance
2) Even if there is a cabinet then the ducts to it are full and BT can't dig up the roads to lay new duct.
3) Targets are set against homes & these are businesses, so they don't count.
BT seem to be fiddling the figures on homes covered by enabling the exchange, claiming the coverage (getting the government money) but not actually enabling the cabinets or connecting people. Both my local exchanges are enabled with zero people connected, and plenty want to.
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Friday 29th April 2016 09:59 GMT dajames
Re: There is no FTTC in central London
We have lots of customers in central London & there is no FTTC available there, hence no take up.
When I'm at home in sunny Berkshire I have ADSL2+ which is nominally "up to 16Mb" and generally synchs at about 17 or 18. I find the speed of the line less limiting than slow servers and web pages overloaded with more adverts than content (El Reg take note!). I could have fibre (FTTC - cabinet about 150m away) but it would cost 50% more and the extra speed would only be noticeable on large downloads from fast and responsive servers. I feel no temptation to pay for that!
SWMBO has a flat in the City of London, but there she can only get "Up to 8Mb" ADSL 1 (same price, same ISP) which generally delivers between 5 and 6 Mb/s. I find that OK-ish for most things, but she says it's at best a bit slow for her work (using a virtual desktop system of some kind -- I try not to get involved) and at peak times much too slow. She doesn't experience that slowness at peak times when in Berkshire, so it does seem to be due to ADSL contention, not server load.
At the flat there is no possibility of FTTC or even of ADSL2, and the reason does seem to be that BT don't care about domestic customers because the City is largely about businesses, and businesses (in the City, at least) generally have SDSL or better.
Sometimes it's better to be out in the country!
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Thursday 28th April 2016 10:59 GMT james 68
I know that Virgin media usually takes a flogging round these parts, but when I was living in Belfast I had their 150 Mbit fibre (no telly or phone, just the internet) and it was very fast.
Now 150 Mbit is supposed to be just under 19 Mbyte per second however I regularly got speeds of 25 - 30 Mbyte on downloads so I'm guessing that when the line is uncongested that Virgin happily upped the speeds to 300 ish Mbit.
Any time my speed was slow I can pretty much guarantee that it was due to the site I was connected to and not my line.
Now, in Japan on a 100 Mbit connection it is frustrating as hell, it crawls in comparison. I wish I had my old Virgin fibre line back. :-(
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Thursday 28th April 2016 16:30 GMT Matt Bridge-Wilkinson
Very true, I must admit I have 70meg broadband now (I downgraded to 35meg to save money and it double shortly after).
I can easily get 8Mbyte a second on steam for example and once had close to 9.
Their service is really good these days and support has much improved. Even returning my tivo box which I could no longer justify paying for, was utterly effortless and efficient.
They are trying to get better you have to give them that!
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Friday 29th April 2016 04:18 GMT Steven Burn
Frustratingly, still waiting, almost a decade now, for VM to get into my street (and those close to me on the "right side" it seems, street on the front has VM, streets to the back of those don't), gave up waiting (VM connections I've had the pleasure have been extremely fast (obviously leaving out those I've had the displeasure of dealing with over the years (though usually resulted in diags showing hardware/broken connections/VM infra issues etc)
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Thursday 28th April 2016 12:53 GMT adam payne
Last month culture minister Ed Vaizey said: "We now have 93 per cent of the country able to receive fibre, 90 per cent of the country able to get superfast speeds of 24 megabits and above, and 50 per cent of the country able to get ultrafast broadband speeds of 100 megabits and above."
I'd liked to know how Ed came by these numbers. Did the BT marketing department send him the details?
That brings up another question how does the government check what they have and haven't done? where is the oversight?
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Thursday 28th April 2016 15:56 GMT patrick_bateman
Why do apparently so many stil have issues!?
2014-2015
Virgin, DSL, 20mbps,
was fine, went to upgrade to FTC but they no longer provided broadband in my area, sign up with someone else...
2015+
Nr Basingstoke, Hampshire
Plusnet
FTC at 80mbps
connects at 79+
I get and use every nibble of it
I really don't get why I keep on hearing about all these issues, everyone I know, even my dad in a little village miles from anywhere that use to struggle to get 2mb 2 years ago is now blasting away on 10mbps+
I understand people can get 100mbps with ease, our speeds are only slow when compared to Googles rollout
this is far from news anymore.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 16:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Very true
I work outside the UK, in Germany and Netherlands I've had no trouble getting providers to give at least 50Mbps and 100 or even 200Mbps is now available even for non business users and for mobile 4G is well rolled out around big cities, by contrast in the UK they have trouble getting to 50Mbps in many places and the service is crap, with obvious bandwidth shaping for video (especially BT), I've pretty much given up video conferencing with workmates or relatives in the UK, Virgin is the only company that seems to offer decent speeds and only then where they have fibre.
Even been to Bulgaria and got 100Mbps in hotels etc. due to the government there providing state of the art internet connectivity (they are trying to compete as an outsourcing destination).
In many respects the UK is like one of the former Eastern bloc countries in terms of broadband speed, but then again UPC in Poland will do 250Mbps I understand, so maybe worse than that!
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Thursday 28th April 2016 17:32 GMT Cynic_999
I wonder what proportion of the population have any need for fast Internet? I suspect the proportion will increase as people switch to streaming TV, and TV resolutions increase, but at present my guess is that less than 10% of the population have any need for speeds higher than a few Mbps.
I pay a premium for unlimited FTTC and get over 70Mbps download speeds and 17Mbps upload, but I have 3 people in the house who often stream films, and I also download BluRay images quite often, so it's worth it. My mate who uses his broadband only for browsing and the occasional Skype call is quite happy with less than 10Mbps download and probably 1Mbps or so upload, and would not dream of paying a penny extra to get anything faster.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 19:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Who needs more than 2 Mb/s?
People who argue this tend to be those who think the world revolves around them - if I don't need any more than that, no one else should either.
Back in the real world, a family with 2.4 kids is typically going need at least that per person just to watch Iplayer simultaneously, ie a minimum of 10 Mb/s. And that's before they start file sharing.
If you can't thing of anything to do with fibre broadband, you aren't using your imagination. You probably aren't aware that streaming speeds to actually make use of your 4K compatible TV are considerably higher than 2 MB/s.
But more importantly, who needs more than 640K RAM... ;)
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Friday 29th April 2016 17:25 GMT Cynic_999
Re: Fibre speed
"
Once you've experienced a 1 GB file download in under 5 minutes you'll realise that 2 Mb/s is not an acceptable speed in a first world country.
"
Difficult as it may be to believe, there are a great many people who have never downloaded a 1 GB file, nor do they have any wish to do so.
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Thursday 28th April 2016 20:19 GMT Will Godfrey
On the other hand
I get about 16M on ordinary copper and it would probably actually degrade if I opted for fibre (to the cabinet). This is because the main exchange is in sight of my house, but the nearest (active) cabinet is around 2 miles away.
P.S. That rate is more than enough for my Internet use.
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Friday 29th April 2016 04:11 GMT Steven Burn
2 FTTC (I know, I want FTTP too) connections here (and a third ADSL line, but leaving that aside), both at an average of 76Mbps (1 x BT Business, 1 x Plusnet Business, costs considerably more (PN especially, was an old ADSL package that stopped existing, but didn't go lower in price - ah well, DILLIGAF), but worth it, both rarely have issues). Apparently I'm in the 10%?, who knew.
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Friday 29th April 2016 08:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
What do you expect with BT at the helm?
Ok, so - Aberdeen was screwed by NTL buying Aberdeen cable and subsequently going bust....theydidnt do any upkeep on the network, and it would have cost too much to resurrect.
Here in London (and around the country), BT just cant be bothered......my building is in Canary Wharf, but Im stuck with ADSL. The building is a direct connect to the exchange, so cant get FTTC - and hyperoptic installed within the building nearly 2 years ago, but still isnt connected - something to do with the fibre having broken somewhere and TFL and BT are fighting over when it will get fixed (likely story - but hey thats marketting for you!).
However, Im moving out of the city - to the middle of nowhere - literally .... but can somehow get Virgin cable .... and also in the middle of nowhere in central Scotland where my parents live, I can get FTTC.....
Hmmmmmmm
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Monday 9th May 2016 12:38 GMT BurnT'offering
In other news
Research has shown that the UK's Superfurry Animals are only 97th in the global league tables of animal furriness. The Animals have responded with an assurance that they will do their utmost to become more hirsute if the Government agrees to grant them £6billion in funding. This should be enough to win Axl Rose's unwanted hair plugs on eBay or a vial of Andy Murray's nasal clippings