BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

Caged · 25 Oct 2020 at 23:25

ic1male said:
Why do BT have this "safe guard" speed promise thing? I thought with FTTP you got maximum speed at all times?

Broadband is a contended service, nobody is going to sell you 900Mbps for £50 a month and guarantee those speeds

ic1male · 26 Oct 2020 at 00:43

Billy 2 Sips said:
Unfortunately not, it’s still a contended service. I think the most common setup is a trunk with the available bandwidth roughly 2.4Gb down - 1.2Gb up. This can then potentially be shared with up to 32 customers.

What’s the actual trunk part? Is that telephone pole (or a bunch of poles) to cabinet? I see some of the poles are interconnected with a single overhead wire which I didn’t really notice before. But maybe that is something else. All the fibre seems to go down the pole underground.

Caged · 26 Oct 2020 at 00:53

Openreach run their GPON network on a 32 way split, so 2.4Gbps down and 1.2Gbps up is divided between 32 ports. If everybody was downloading at the same time then each subscriber would get 75Mbps each.

In reality people don't all max their connections out at the same time, not everybody on a splitter is going to even subscribe to a service, and there's an easy enough upgrade path to XGPON when that's required.

dubs · 26 Oct 2020 at 07:54

Openreach are currently enabling our pole (cable is currently hanging in a loop and the splitter box(?) is fitted), anyone have an idea as to when the service goes live?

the-evaluator · 26 Oct 2020 at 08:10

It varies. Parts of my town are pole fed and I know some people who could order within a couple of days of the CBT being installed and others that still can't a few months later.

dubs · 26 Oct 2020 at 08:11

the-evaluator said:
It varies. Parts of my town are pole fed and I know some people who could order within a couple of days of the CBT being installed and others that still can't a few months later.

Cheers, guess it'll be a wait and see

the-evaluator · 26 Oct 2020 at 08:14

Yeah, keep an eye on the Openreach Fibre checker and when that says it's available you should be albe to order it within a day or two.

Terrier_Jimlad · 26 Oct 2020 at 10:34

So, following on from my previous posts, I've managed to source an Huawei MT992 Gfast modem to run alongside my USG-3P (PPPoE mode) so I am now in a position to order my Gfast from BT (I want to avoid TalkTalk and Sky)

The new house is fairly close to the CAB, DSL checker is showing the following - a decent 174-230Mbps range on a non-impacted line.

BT are currently showing/offering me:

I plan on going for the Fibre 100 package as it's a little cheaper than the 250 - Question though, how is speed restricted/limited between the two, in the GFast pod on the side do customers get put on difference frequencies to offer the higher speed of Fibre 250 or will I get put on the same, but then limited by BT themselves?

More me, I just want 100Mbps with a decent ping/latency whilst using my own UniFi gear. Our current VM service is atrocious (village congestion, been over 6 weeks and no fix, so wont be taking them to the new place)

Caged · 26 Oct 2020 at 10:41

It's the same as FTTC when you have a 40Mbps service, the modem just syncs at a lower rate.

Terrier_Jimlad · 26 Oct 2020 at 11:13

Fair enough - contemplating whether to spend the extra £10 a month and get Fibre 250 - its unclear how much much extra as their estimates dont tally up with the DSL checker, although they're mininmums do. I guess if I go in on the Fibre 100 and feel the line is solid and unimpacted, I could always ring them and upgrade the 250

£125 cashback too at the moment

Does anyone envisage i'll face any problems using the MT992 modem, hooked up to my USG-3P which will be setup with PPPoE with the generic username/password from BT

ic1male · 26 Oct 2020 at 11:15

How is BT as an ISP these days? They weren't regarded very highly last time I enquired.

Caged · 26 Oct 2020 at 11:20

They've been fine for the 9 years I've had FTTC with them

MissChief · 26 Oct 2020 at 11:24

As is usually the case if it works you’ll be fine. It’s when it stops working you see the value in a company.

Terrier_Jimlad · 26 Oct 2020 at 11:30

MissChief said:
As is usually the case if it works you’ll be fine. It’s when it stops working you see the value in a company.

That's the sole reason I avoided TalkTalk. Their GFast offering is really really cheap, and yes the line is all the same OR stuff back to the local exchange (I believe TalkTalk are LLU in my Exchange) so when it works it should be no different from any other ISP, its when things go wrong and you have to speak to someone - TalkTalk are the worst. I wanted to go PlusNet in all honesty, but they dont offer GFast for some reason, I assume due to their router/modem combo not supporting GFast yet

Are you still working for Sky by the way?

MissChief · 26 Oct 2020 at 11:40

Terrier_Jimlad said:
That's the sole reason I avoided TalkTalk. Their GFast offering is really really cheap, and yes the line is all the same OR stuff back to the local exchange (I believe TalkTalk are LLU in my Exchange) so when it works it should be no different from any other ISP, its when things go wrong and you have to speak to someone - TalkTalk are the worst. I wanted to go PlusNet in all honesty, but they dont offer GFast for some reason, I assume due to their router/modem combo not supporting GFast yet

Are you still working for Sky by the way?

I am, although not on the domestic side anymore.

Siliconslave · 26 Oct 2020 at 12:15

MissChief said:
It’s when it stops working you see the value in a company.

Yup - having a horrible time with BT still - outtage coming up for two weeks, been updated twice by text, both time telling me its fixed (its not). Been promised three call backs and not had one :rolleyes:

ChrisD. · 26 Oct 2020 at 14:43

Siliconslave said:
Yup - having a horrible time with BT still - outtage coming up for two weeks, been updated twice by text, both time telling me its fixed (its not). Been promised three call backs and not had one

Are you wishing you went with Zen then? I guess BT can only relay what Openreach tell them.

Doco · 26 Oct 2020 at 17:20

ic1male said:
How is BT as an ISP these days? They weren't regarded very highly last time I enquired.

I placed an order for FTTP on the 3rd August - set to get up and running on 2nd September, fibre engineer arrived on that day only to find out that the groundwork basically hadn't been done and he couldn't do his half, since then I've been temporary Internet to keep me online (first bt mini hub - using the EE network, wasn't a good option due to EE not half a great/consistent signal where I am, then I was given a copper line - after being told by 2 reps I couldn't get it, it seemed fine at first, 11-12 meg speeds, but every weekend without fail my speeds plumet - I average between 2-4 meg on weekend, generally closer to the 2 and sometimes even lower, had an engineer out who found no fault and I've been told that the speed drop is due to bandwidth being saturated at the weekends) Its been like this since the 2nd sept - multiple phone calls over this time period has yielded no results, every call can be sumed up as - sorry we still have no further update for you, my last call on the 21st ended with the N.I. team are under a backlog and are no longer responding to escalations in a 48hr period so mu next contact date is the 2nd of November

the-evaluator · 26 Oct 2020 at 17:29

Doco said:
my last call on the 21st ended with the N.I. team are under a backlog and are no longer responding to escalations in a 48hr period so mu next contact date is the 2nd of November

They're fobbing you off, they are dealing with escalations as normal as far as I can see.

My parents were due to have FTTP installed 5/10 after I placed the order 16/9, nobody turned up. On 7/10 I spoke to someone at BT after having a rant on Twitter and they've been keeping me updated regularly (usually every other day) with progress. Openreach needed to install some ducting in their front garden which was done early last week, then Openreach returned on Saturday to run the fibre through the newly installed duct and left a coil of it by the front door.

BT have just called me again to say that Openreach have accepted an escalation request to finish things off (the request couldn't go in until the previous work was complete) and all should be done by the end of this week.

Generally BT are fine with things go to plan, but an utter nightmare when it doesn't.

Doco · 26 Oct 2020 at 17:41

the-evaluator said:
They're fobbing you off, they are dealing with escalations as normal as far as I can see.

My parents were due to have FTTP installed 5/10 after I placed the order 16/9, nobody turned up. On 7/10 I spoke to someone at BT after having a rant on Twitter and they've been keeping me updated regularly (usually every other day) with progress. Openreach needed to install some ducting in their front garden which was done early last week, then Openreach returned on Saturday to run the fibre through the newly installed duct and left a coil of it by the front door.

BT have just called me again to say that Openreach have accepted an escalation request to finish things off (the request couldn't go in until the previous work was complete) and all should be done by the end of this week.

Generally BT are fine with things go to plan, but an utter nightmare when it doesn't.

Yeh from what I've gathered openreach need to do abit of work so a CBT box can be installed but getting that work done has been a nightmare