UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds(wired.co.uk)
wired.co.uk
UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-broadband-speeds-fibre-to-the-home
111 comments
Hyperoptic is another niche fibre provider that are only present in parts of major UK cities (30ish apparently). They offer 1Gbps over their own daisy-chained network. Their pricing is good and the performance is great (so far) compared to Virgin. As always, it's just the availability that's lacking.
UK Internet is actually not that bad. I pay under £25/month for unlimited 80/20 and most households can achieve almost that speed.
Wow, we should totally pass a law like that in the U.S.
Not sure if that's going to change something. The main problem was never peak-time congestion (I've never experienced it personally), it's just the fact that 1) the infrastructure is shit and 2) everyone sells DSL as "fibre".
The infrastructure is a mess. Unless you've got actual fibre to the home, you're stuck with DSL, aka rust. The problem is that it's impossible to tell just how rusty it is without subscribing to service and running a speed test (at which point you've either entered into a year-long contract or paid install fees). Even the ISP can't know. What Openreach (company mandated by the government to manage the actual phone lines) should do is leave a DSLAM connected to all lines, to allow people to connect a modem and see the sync speeds (and possibly run a speedtest from a server provided by Openreach) before they sign up to anything.
The second issue is that everyone is falsely advertising DSL (and other garbage like coax cable, also called HFC) as "fibre" and consumers are confused as to which "fibre" is the better one. This also makes it much harder for companies that sell real fibre.
As it stands, this change will just make telco scammers sell "fibre" "up to 11mbps" instead of "up to 30mbps" or whatever they were selling before. As far as the consumer is concerned it's still a lottery whether you'll actually get the advertised speeds, with no way to know beforehand.
The infrastructure is a mess. Unless you've got actual fibre to the home, you're stuck with DSL, aka rust. The problem is that it's impossible to tell just how rusty it is without subscribing to service and running a speed test (at which point you've either entered into a year-long contract or paid install fees). Even the ISP can't know. What Openreach (company mandated by the government to manage the actual phone lines) should do is leave a DSLAM connected to all lines, to allow people to connect a modem and see the sync speeds (and possibly run a speedtest from a server provided by Openreach) before they sign up to anything.
The second issue is that everyone is falsely advertising DSL (and other garbage like coax cable, also called HFC) as "fibre" and consumers are confused as to which "fibre" is the better one. This also makes it much harder for companies that sell real fibre.
As it stands, this change will just make telco scammers sell "fibre" "up to 11mbps" instead of "up to 30mbps" or whatever they were selling before. As far as the consumer is concerned it's still a lottery whether you'll actually get the advertised speeds, with no way to know beforehand.
We have had terms for the difference between VDSL, coaxial and actual fibre into the home for a long time, but Ofcom has allowed BT and Virgin to sell their products as "Fibre". Ofcom and the Advertising standards agency are partly to blame, they are have allowed the advertising to suggest these products are something they are not for several decades at this point.
The rationale is that the path end-to-end, measured in miles, is mostly fibre. But of course that is neither here nor there; if you do dialup with a 14.4 modem then actually that will be mostly fibre too because that’s what the trunks are!
What physically goes into your house is what the vendors should be required to describe it as.
What physically goes into your house is what the vendors should be required to describe it as.
> everyone sells DSL as "fibre" ... This also makes it much harder for companies that sell real fibre.
Great point. FTTC is sold as a "fibre" product when it's not, really. But customers are wising up. Those that don't live right next to the cabinet know there's a difference. Also, fiber is cheaper to deliver -- e.g. in a pure-fiber setup one can get 1Gbps up and down for around £30 a month, which is a massive win compared to pricing for FTTC which has to factor in the cost of maintaining the legacy copper network.
Funnily, BT's sales team assured me multiple times that G.Fast was a fibre product and that I should "upgrade" to it (I have FTTH).
Great point. FTTC is sold as a "fibre" product when it's not, really. But customers are wising up. Those that don't live right next to the cabinet know there's a difference. Also, fiber is cheaper to deliver -- e.g. in a pure-fiber setup one can get 1Gbps up and down for around £30 a month, which is a massive win compared to pricing for FTTC which has to factor in the cost of maintaining the legacy copper network.
Funnily, BT's sales team assured me multiple times that G.Fast was a fibre product and that I should "upgrade" to it (I have FTTH).
Does DOCSIS3 count as DSL?
Nope, that’s HFC, and while it’s radio-frequencies just like DSL, it’s a shared medium across the entire neighbourhood while DSL is dedicated.
Ah then in that case you might want to add that some people have FTTC DOCSIS which is actually pretty good, 300Mbit down etc
FTTC DOCSIS is what most DOCSIS users get I believe. It’s still got most of the issues of DOCSIS, mainly being a shared medium within the entire building, leading to potential congestion issues.
What fraction of the US has fiber to the home? It must be far, far smaller than Lativa's 50%!
> The UK’s fibre to the home infrastructure is so poor it’s out-performed by almost every other country in Europe (Latvia, with 50.6 per cent fibre coverage, ranks first in terms of market penetration).
The reason the UK is on a mix of copper and fiber is because the entrenched monopoly, BT, didn't think fiber to the home (FTTH) was worth investing in. To protect their investment in their existing copper network, they pushed tech like VDSL/FTTC (up to 80Mbps) and now G.Fast (up to 500Mbps), which are "fiber to the cabinet" but the last mile is copper. The problem is, speeds fall off depending on how far your home is from the cabinet. I've seen many non-technical consumers be disappointed and say "the ISP said I can only get 11Mbps but they advertise up to 80Mbps".
BT have now been told by the telecoms regulator to prioritize deploying fiber to the home. Also, serious money is now pouring into alternative network providers. CityFibre, which is installing its own gigabit-grade fiber network in about 30 UK cities (so home users in all these cities can be offered FTTH), was recently acquired by a consortium with fairly deep pockets. BT, which historically was the entrenched monopoly, is no longer the sole arbiter of the UK's broadband future.
The reason the UK is on a mix of copper and fiber is because the entrenched monopoly, BT, didn't think fiber to the home (FTTH) was worth investing in. To protect their investment in their existing copper network, they pushed tech like VDSL/FTTC (up to 80Mbps) and now G.Fast (up to 500Mbps), which are "fiber to the cabinet" but the last mile is copper. The problem is, speeds fall off depending on how far your home is from the cabinet. I've seen many non-technical consumers be disappointed and say "the ISP said I can only get 11Mbps but they advertise up to 80Mbps".
BT have now been told by the telecoms regulator to prioritize deploying fiber to the home. Also, serious money is now pouring into alternative network providers. CityFibre, which is installing its own gigabit-grade fiber network in about 30 UK cities (so home users in all these cities can be offered FTTH), was recently acquired by a consortium with fairly deep pockets. BT, which historically was the entrenched monopoly, is no longer the sole arbiter of the UK's broadband future.
If only that were true.
The Thatcher Government stopped BT's already running rollout of FTTH in 1990. That gave us cable competition from Blueyonder who did bugger all and a BT regulated against playing in that space any more.
Hell Hastings and around Martlesham Heath (OK that doesn't really count) had FTTH in the mid 80s.
If BT had been allowed their way it'd be all FTTH by now. Regulation pushed a lot of the subsequent ADSL/VDSL product as it was all they were allowed to do.
It's only now, with broken infrastructure, and the regulator pushing for removal of those restrictions that BT got permitted to do fibre again, but this time around it's FTTC.
The Thatcher Government stopped BT's already running rollout of FTTH in 1990. That gave us cable competition from Blueyonder who did bugger all and a BT regulated against playing in that space any more.
Hell Hastings and around Martlesham Heath (OK that doesn't really count) had FTTH in the mid 80s.
If BT had been allowed their way it'd be all FTTH by now. Regulation pushed a lot of the subsequent ADSL/VDSL product as it was all they were allowed to do.
It's only now, with broken infrastructure, and the regulator pushing for removal of those restrictions that BT got permitted to do fibre again, but this time around it's FTTC.
This. BT didn't ignore FTTH because they thought it was a bad technology. BT invented _alot_ of technology that makes fibre deployments world wide cheap enough to be feasible, including fibre jetting.
They didn't role it out because first of all they were barred from selling TV over fibre in the late 80s early 90s in favour of foreign cable companies. Those cable companies eventually merged to form Virgin Media.
Later BT opted for cheaper VDSL technology because it wasn't clear they would be allow to profit (due to wholesale price regulation) from FTTH investment. The expensive bit of deploying FTTH is in "holes and poles". i.e. digging up roads.
None of the other UK players want to invest in FTTH outside of major cities and only BT is legally compelled to provide any form of broadband nationally at all. Firms like CityFibre just want to cream off the most profitable areas of the country and kill off cross-subsidising the rest.
They didn't role it out because first of all they were barred from selling TV over fibre in the late 80s early 90s in favour of foreign cable companies. Those cable companies eventually merged to form Virgin Media.
Later BT opted for cheaper VDSL technology because it wasn't clear they would be allow to profit (due to wholesale price regulation) from FTTH investment. The expensive bit of deploying FTTH is in "holes and poles". i.e. digging up roads.
None of the other UK players want to invest in FTTH outside of major cities and only BT is legally compelled to provide any form of broadband nationally at all. Firms like CityFibre just want to cream off the most profitable areas of the country and kill off cross-subsidising the rest.
Not to forget the whole point of BT's 21st century network, or whatever they called it, was to get the whole backbone on TCP with hugely upgraded capacity in the expectation of nationwide FTTH. With initially 10, planned 100M connections in every house the backbone needed it. This at a time when half the population hadn't yet discovered dial-up.
Government couldn't see past the old world of cable and watching football, BT pretty clearly could see far past just the TV. It was popping up on the news pretty regularly in the late 80s along with all the interesting things it might bring.
Me, I just wanted to consign my BT Home Highway (128K ISDN) to the bin.
What we ended up with was a travesty with BT restricted to copper only and exchange sharing for ADSL. As someone else pointed out most of what they invented got sold off to S Korea.
Government couldn't see past the old world of cable and watching football, BT pretty clearly could see far past just the TV. It was popping up on the news pretty regularly in the late 80s along with all the interesting things it might bring.
Me, I just wanted to consign my BT Home Highway (128K ISDN) to the bin.
What we ended up with was a travesty with BT restricted to copper only and exchange sharing for ADSL. As someone else pointed out most of what they invented got sold off to S Korea.
> Firms like CityFibre just want to cream off the most profitable areas of the country and kill off cross-subsidising the rest.
That has not been my experience. I live in an urban area where BT has a monopoly (no Virgin). They were not even slightly interested in deploying even FTTC -- the coverage was full of "notspots" where one house in a street had decent broadband and another up the road had none at all. BT have been quite lazy from where I stand, leaving players like CityFibre an opening.
Also, blaming Thatcher towards the end of this decade seems not to be very useful. More recently, Ofcom asked BT to consider FTTH repeatedly in aughties (2000-2010). BT declined to deploy saying "no business case" right up to Dec 2017 when their hand was forced by Ofcom. If BT were better run, they'd recognize the value in FTTH by the end of the aughties surely?
That has not been my experience. I live in an urban area where BT has a monopoly (no Virgin). They were not even slightly interested in deploying even FTTC -- the coverage was full of "notspots" where one house in a street had decent broadband and another up the road had none at all. BT have been quite lazy from where I stand, leaving players like CityFibre an opening.
Also, blaming Thatcher towards the end of this decade seems not to be very useful. More recently, Ofcom asked BT to consider FTTH repeatedly in aughties (2000-2010). BT declined to deploy saying "no business case" right up to Dec 2017 when their hand was forced by Ofcom. If BT were better run, they'd recognize the value in FTTH by the end of the aughties surely?
Gigaclear is deploying fiber to rural communities, for example: https://www.gigaclear.com/fibre-optic-gigaclear-network-for-...
CityFibre is deploying fiber to a bunch of cities like Milton Keynes and Peterborough.
I do agree that there are a number of ISPs, like Sky and Talktalk, who are content to ride on OpenReach's coattails and build no last-mile infrastructure of their own. Virgin Media do have their own last-mile infrastructure but it's very, very limited geographically afaik.
CityFibre is deploying fiber to a bunch of cities like Milton Keynes and Peterborough.
I do agree that there are a number of ISPs, like Sky and Talktalk, who are content to ride on OpenReach's coattails and build no last-mile infrastructure of their own. Virgin Media do have their own last-mile infrastructure but it's very, very limited geographically afaik.
Sky and Talk Talk are already working with CityFibre in York for FTTH.[1][2].
[1]https://www.ultrafibreoptic.co.uk/ [2]https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/ufo/broadband
[1]https://www.ultrafibreoptic.co.uk/ [2]https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/ufo/broadband
Ad at one point it was all set to go just needed the signature I know some one who saw all the paper work laid out ready for signing.
A lot of the slagging off comes from hobbyist "entrepreneurs" who think either that they can run an office on home adsl products and or/that all the consumer customers should subsidize their business
Oh and that nice Mr Murdoc whos upset that BT is competing with him for sport don't see the tabloids complaints about the Murdoch tax to watch football.
A lot of the slagging off comes from hobbyist "entrepreneurs" who think either that they can run an office on home adsl products and or/that all the consumer customers should subsidize their business
Oh and that nice Mr Murdoc whos upset that BT is competing with him for sport don't see the tabloids complaints about the Murdoch tax to watch football.
In the 80s we were going to get investment in fibre, to every home - building factories to get economies of scale.
This was stopped, and everything sold to South Korea, and we know how good their internet has been for years.
https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
This was stopped, and everything sold to South Korea, and we know how good their internet has been for years.
https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
Buying a house in a rural area is a nightmare as you don't really know in advance what speed you will get and the speeds quoted on sites like Rightmove are for entire postcodes - not the property in question.
We bought a house last year in a rural area in Scotland - not far from Edinburgh and were appalled at the broadband options. We get 20Mbps down and 1 up which is enough for most things (barely) but that was one of the fastest speeds we saw (apart from one house in the wilds of Perthshire that had 400Mpbs....).
We bought a house last year in a rural area in Scotland - not far from Edinburgh and were appalled at the broadband options. We get 20Mbps down and 1 up which is enough for most things (barely) but that was one of the fastest speeds we saw (apart from one house in the wilds of Perthshire that had 400Mpbs....).
It's not even rural areas that suck, I'm in zone 4 London, so pretty suburban, and I get about 7Mbps down/0.5Mbps up! The FTTC roll-out said it was planned for my cabinet, not just says it's not.
If your cabinet isn't provisioned for FTTC, make some noise with the council. If possible, get some residents together and write polite but firm letters to your local councillors, MPs, and BT executives. Follow up with further letters.
From personal experience, it does work. You want things to get to the point where some senior executive at BT says "can you sort this cabinet out" because that's easier than dealing with all the noise from residents, councillors and MPs. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
From personal experience, it does work. You want things to get to the point where some senior executive at BT says "can you sort this cabinet out" because that's easier than dealing with all the noise from residents, councillors and MPs. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Boat dweller in Central London here. EE 4g gives me between 20 and 60mbps and 96gb data a month.
There are specialist ISPs like Gigaclear who have connected up villages in Oxfordshire, for example[1,2]. I believe the model is you get a bunch of families to commit to the service and they deliver fiber to your community, if it's within their service area.
Deploying fiber can be done in a fairly low-impact way and as long as planners don't put up roadblocks, deploying fiber to remote locations isn't a massive challenge, as a number of rural deployments demonstrate.
[1] https://www.gigaclear.com/about/case-studies-testimonials/ [2] https://www.gigaclear.com/fastershire-rollout-schedule/
Deploying fiber can be done in a fairly low-impact way and as long as planners don't put up roadblocks, deploying fiber to remote locations isn't a massive challenge, as a number of rural deployments demonstrate.
[1] https://www.gigaclear.com/about/case-studies-testimonials/ [2] https://www.gigaclear.com/fastershire-rollout-schedule/
Bogons[0] are involved in a great project to do something about this - check out Balquhidder Community Broadband[1]. Bogons' Twitter[2] also has some fantastic updates about their work to lay fibre and provide connectivity to a few of these remote Scottish areas.
[0] http://www.bogons.net
[1] http://balquhidder.net
[2] https://twitter.com/BogonsNet
[0] http://www.bogons.net
[1] http://balquhidder.net
[2] https://twitter.com/BogonsNet
That's a fascinating read, thanks!
I see they're based here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-275016... in yet another disused nuclear bunker.
I see they're based here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-275016... in yet another disused nuclear bunker.
The guy who runs Bogons is Brandan Butterworth, who is credited with getting the BBC onto the internet in the 90s, and is currently "Chief Scientist" for BBC R&D.
There are some interesting providers in the area e.g. Fibrecast:
https://www.fibrecast.uk/
Unfortunately the area we live isn't serviced by them - but they were very good at checking availability!
https://www.fibrecast.uk/
Unfortunately the area we live isn't serviced by them - but they were very good at checking availability!
https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/
About as accurate as you'll ever get.
About as accurate as you'll ever get.
The problem is that those tools don't take into account the quality of the wire going to your house, they just quote a best-case scenario based on the wire's length, assuming a perfect wire.
It does not take into account rusted, damaged wire, open cabinets where rain & moisture can enter, etc.
This tool gives me an estimate of 13 Mbps on my line - I actually only get 6, and when seeing the building's electrical & phone line cabinets, I can understand why, but as a consumer you shouldn't be required to manually try to estimate how "good" your phone line is - the ISP should be giving you an estimate you can trust.
It does not take into account rusted, damaged wire, open cabinets where rain & moisture can enter, etc.
This tool gives me an estimate of 13 Mbps on my line - I actually only get 6, and when seeing the building's electrical & phone line cabinets, I can understand why, but as a consumer you shouldn't be required to manually try to estimate how "good" your phone line is - the ISP should be giving you an estimate you can trust.
This is true, but there are a number of data errors in BT's own inventory, so you will need to take this with a pinch of salt. For instance, according to this (and therefore in BT's internal systems as well) I am eligible for G.Fast -- I am not.
Doesn't work terribly well for new houses though!
Was amazed to see quite expensive new houses (£500K+) with no access to broadband available.
Was amazed to see quite expensive new houses (£500K+) with no access to broadband available.
House builders are told (unless they're literally building just one or two homes) to call BT at the start. For any large site, or where it's no trouble anyway, BT will run fibre to the new builds for IIRC free, the builder needs to make sure there are the right ducts etcetera in the ground, then a van shows up and blows fibre.
But guess how many people in house building remember to do that?
So instead they have the houses mostly finished and the sparky asks OK where do these phone points connect to? So that's when BT is called. And then BT will shrug and say you can pay our normal fee, you get copper cables, we can't promise how good the Internet service will be.
The part that's sad is people will stand there, talking to a sales person about their £350k house, checking things on their phone, and not think to ask - wait, this does have high speed internet - right? You aren't trying to sell me a brand new house that lacks Internet access are you?
But guess how many people in house building remember to do that?
So instead they have the houses mostly finished and the sparky asks OK where do these phone points connect to? So that's when BT is called. And then BT will shrug and say you can pay our normal fee, you get copper cables, we can't promise how good the Internet service will be.
The part that's sad is people will stand there, talking to a sales person about their £350k house, checking things on their phone, and not think to ask - wait, this does have high speed internet - right? You aren't trying to sell me a brand new house that lacks Internet access are you?
One way councils can force the issue is to deny planning permission unless builders can show they've engaged a telecoms company (doesn't have to be BT, could be Virgin or Gigaclear or Cityfibre). After all, we don't accept houses built without electricity and water. Why should we accept houses with subpar connectivity?
I recently got a new fibre connection (not from Virgin or BT) in my newish flat and I was taking to the chap who installed it about exactly this. He told me that it's actually the builders who pay BT and Virgin to come and connect up their buildings. This is so they can then market them as being almost "plug-and-play" with these services as some buyers look for this. The other smaller providers can then come along and install/connect their stuff but at their expense, and as you say, often afterwards. He said that this is made harder since installing afterwards means dealing with managing agents (in the case of of a block of flats) and this can be painful, which I can 100% believe. Perhaps the situation varies depending on where you are in the country, this was London (where there are no £350k houses!).
One of my friends parents a couple of decades ago brought an architect designed house and the designers/contractors neglected to put in any ducting!
Took them ages to get POTS - You can see why Civil engineers make Architect jokes
Took them ages to get POTS - You can see why Civil engineers make Architect jokes
My new house (well 2 years old now) came with fibre into the hall cupboard (and cat5 to every room), I'd assume that FTTP is default with newbuild
Most ISPs don't seem geared up for FTTP, so it's good for BT, as most people will just go with them.
Most ISPs don't seem geared up for FTTP, so it's good for BT, as most people will just go with them.
Every home I have lived in for the past 10 years or so has had Virgin fibre to the home. BT don't have the monopoly at all, they just have poor infrastructure and are the defacto that most people choose. Our unit didn't have a direct fibre connection when we took the lease, we rang Virgin and they used infill money to lay a fibre cable to all the units on the trading estate at no cost to us other than the initial £20 set up fee.
Perhaps I am very lucky and the North East has good internet but my experience has not been bad at all.
Perhaps I am very lucky and the North East has good internet but my experience has not been bad at all.
Virgin is very poor experience and they de facto have monopoly on fiber in some areas and that enables them to piss on customers who cannot get any alternative.
Recently I had a fault and I was 3 weeks without the internet. I am sure that could have been resolved quicker, but their staff was completely incompetent.
Cherry on the cake - I am also nowhere near the advertised speed.
Funny how we all have different experiences, I have been with them for 10 years (and longer before that in a shared student house) and can’t praise them enough. Much better than the experience we had with BT in the early days of starting the business.
Are you sure it's actually fibre? Or is it their bullshit coax cable (HFC) they mis-sell as "fibre"?
AT&T does that a lot around here... every 6 months they knock at my door saying that they have been improving the network and sell it as fiber but the fiber only goes to a main box in your neighborhood, and copper goes to your house (it's probably been the same for the last 10 years)... but to tell you the truth, I don't care if it's fiber, only the actual speed matters (with AT&T it is not very fast).
I could get 2000mbps with Comcast and can only get 25mbps with AT&T...
I could get 2000mbps with Comcast and can only get 25mbps with AT&T...
It's a bit weird that there hasn't been a decision about the mis-selling of "fibre" connections in the UK. Virgin's network is pretty great if you're not in an oversubscribed area, but it just seems weird to bill it as "fiber".
To be fair though, DOCSIS 3.1 can push 10GB through coax so it's not all bad.
To be fair though, DOCSIS 3.1 can push 10GB through coax so it's not all bad.
Yeah, so it's not fibre, and should not be sold as such. Not saying HFC is bad (it's actually an awesome way of reusing a deprecated cable TV network), but it's not fibre.
HFC for example is a shared medium across the entire neighbourhood, and in fact if you get root access on your modem and run tcpdump on the HFC interface you may see everyone else's packets as well - there's optional encryption built into DOCSIS but I've never seen it enabled.
HFC for example is a shared medium across the entire neighbourhood, and in fact if you get root access on your modem and run tcpdump on the HFC interface you may see everyone else's packets as well - there's optional encryption built into DOCSIS but I've never seen it enabled.
The ASA has made the decision to allow it.
It's annoying that we defer to them...
It's annoying that we defer to them...
It’s definitley fibre and we get a stable 100Mbit connection all the time.
Sorry, but it's definitely not fibre. I know they told you it is, but it isn't. They're using the old cable TV network. It's a coaxial protocol called DOCSIS.
Like BT, Virgin Media is fibre to the cabinet and then copper for the last mile. It's just that the coaxial copper and the DOCSIS protocol used by Virgin do a better job at speed than the twisted pair copper and the VDSL protocol used by BT.
It's going to be very interesting to see how they advertise real fibre to the public when it arrives, if even on Hacker News there's confusion about it.
Like BT, Virgin Media is fibre to the cabinet and then copper for the last mile. It's just that the coaxial copper and the DOCSIS protocol used by Virgin do a better job at speed than the twisted pair copper and the VDSL protocol used by BT.
It's going to be very interesting to see how they advertise real fibre to the public when it arrives, if even on Hacker News there's confusion about it.
We don't have Virgin on this premises here in London and the mobile phone signal is so bad it's barely usable at all.
But I have to say that BT has been a very reliable ISP and the speeds are OK (in spite of being copper) with the exception of Sunday evenings.
But I have to say that BT has been a very reliable ISP and the speeds are OK (in spite of being copper) with the exception of Sunday evenings.
It might be worth contacting Virgin and see if you can get a free installation under the infill funding, it’s specifically for urban areas that have been missed out.
I'm fairly sure there have been repeated initiatives, over decades, to improve speeds where the government has thrown money at Openreach and they've achieved next to nothing.
e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40481561
e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40481561
I guess it could be a weird coincidence? Money goes to BT. BT upgrades loads of cabinets to enable VDSL, people get faster speeds. Could all be unrelated.
Doesn't seem like it though. Also there's a deal where if BT says "This upgrade makes no commercial sense" (so they won't do it without government money) but then they make money off the upgrade, there's a "claw back" which gets back the extra money. Several of those clawbacks have now triggered in fact, and the money was used to fund yet more broadband.
Doesn't seem like it though. Also there's a deal where if BT says "This upgrade makes no commercial sense" (so they won't do it without government money) but then they make money off the upgrade, there's a "claw back" which gets back the extra money. Several of those clawbacks have now triggered in fact, and the money was used to fund yet more broadband.
This was last summer. What time line do you expect?
The Usual case of MP's with zero technical knowledge FTC make much more sense economically - if the Govemnet wants it has to give something back other wise why as a share holder should I pay for it.
TBH 11 Mbs is fine for a consumer do they realy need more I only get 3.8 or so and I only ever have the odd hang on iplayer every 9 months
TBH 11 Mbs is fine for a consumer do they realy need more I only get 3.8 or so and I only ever have the odd hang on iplayer every 9 months
11 Mbps down starts out as "fine" for the average home user, but remember needs change. What if that home user gets a Ultra HD TV and starts streaming Netflix in 4K (needs a steady 25 Mbps)? What if they have kids, who can be more voracious users?
Also FTTC is asymmetric, which means 11Mbps down corresponds to something quite horrible up. Which means video conferencing doesn't work well. Which means home-working, Skype, video chat, etc are all hobbled. In fact, I know people with fiber broadband whose children use 4G for video chat at home.
The example I usually give is that with ubiquitous gigabit internet in a city, you could send your kids to school even on a "snow day" because the teacher would be able to assemble the class and do something useful together even if the school was physically inaccessible.
The way medicine and medical care for the elderly/less mobile is provisioned would change with gigabit internet. Telemedicine and remote diagnostic tools would be a lot more popular than they are now.
These are just some thoughts as an average consumer who's not connected to the telecoms business at all (but has spent a lot of time trying to get decent internet service out of ISPs).
Also FTTC is asymmetric, which means 11Mbps down corresponds to something quite horrible up. Which means video conferencing doesn't work well. Which means home-working, Skype, video chat, etc are all hobbled. In fact, I know people with fiber broadband whose children use 4G for video chat at home.
The example I usually give is that with ubiquitous gigabit internet in a city, you could send your kids to school even on a "snow day" because the teacher would be able to assemble the class and do something useful together even if the school was physically inaccessible.
The way medicine and medical care for the elderly/less mobile is provisioned would change with gigabit internet. Telemedicine and remote diagnostic tools would be a lot more popular than they are now.
These are just some thoughts as an average consumer who's not connected to the telecoms business at all (but has spent a lot of time trying to get decent internet service out of ISPs).
I have done muti national podcasts USA UK and AUS not problem on my notspot 3.5 MBS.
Telemedicene and Video conferencing have been the latest thing in telecoms for decades.
Just because you singular want something doesn't mean its sensible in the context of planning your countries national infrastructure or sense for a national telco which has to balance multiple needs.
And what happens when some pensioner askes the PM during an election why there pension is not going up and "they" are subsiding these kids dowoading porn on facetubes - ask Gordon brown about being ambushed like this.
Telemedicene and Video conferencing have been the latest thing in telecoms for decades.
Just because you singular want something doesn't mean its sensible in the context of planning your countries national infrastructure or sense for a national telco which has to balance multiple needs.
And what happens when some pensioner askes the PM during an election why there pension is not going up and "they" are subsiding these kids dowoading porn on facetubes - ask Gordon brown about being ambushed like this.
Agree, and the BT monopoly is exactly what slowed down DSL deployment and speed in he UK 15 years ago.
Having had three few provider and different tech, unless I have a need of 1Gbps+ broadband speed in the future, I would much rather have copper RJ11 or RJ45.
Copper Ethernet RJ45 is the best. No more modem, just plug and play. Installing a Ethernet cable is, assuming enough space in the pipe, can be easily pulled through using whatever force you like, I don't think you can actually do any damage to the cable while installing it.
The telephone wire, It is a little hard to imagine a home without these wires. ( May be there are parts of the world which don't have them a default? I don't know ). There is no need to do installing. It is Modem then plug and play. G.Fast A3 actually allows 212Mhz and Dynamic allocation of Upstream and Downstream bandwidth. And gets 300Mbps + for 300M from Cabinet, and 500Mbps or those within 200M.
I used to long for Fibre, but then when the installation comes, it either works perfectly in pipes that get pulled through, or you have to lay them out in the open and are warned they are extremely brittle. Which gets me a few phone call from friends getting nervous saying they would much rather stick with Cable or telephone wire with VDSL. Or in one case where she only has a 6M ADSL she just flat out cut the services and didn't want fibre's hassle. She is mostly on Mobile Phone anyway and her unlimited 4G plans is fast enough for what she needs. The only time she needs WiFi is when she is doing IOS update and that could be done in Office. And when the times Massive MIMO, 5G NG comes with high increase in capacity and speed. I can only imagine there will be more doing just that.
A lot of times we nerds, geeks, tech savvy enthusiast just wanted faster speed, cheaper, better tech whatever. Fibre allow us going to 10Gbps! ( Yes there are 10Gbps Internet services to Home ), without actually asking if or do the many user cares. Last mile is a hard problem, and I wish more thoughts will be put in design and installation parts.
Luckily we have people working on TerabitDSL, with spaces in between copper wires and using Waveguide-mode that is similar to use of millimeter-wave transmissions in 5G. [1]
[1] https://www.assia-inc.com/terabit-dsl/
Copper Ethernet RJ45 is the best. No more modem, just plug and play. Installing a Ethernet cable is, assuming enough space in the pipe, can be easily pulled through using whatever force you like, I don't think you can actually do any damage to the cable while installing it.
The telephone wire, It is a little hard to imagine a home without these wires. ( May be there are parts of the world which don't have them a default? I don't know ). There is no need to do installing. It is Modem then plug and play. G.Fast A3 actually allows 212Mhz and Dynamic allocation of Upstream and Downstream bandwidth. And gets 300Mbps + for 300M from Cabinet, and 500Mbps or those within 200M.
I used to long for Fibre, but then when the installation comes, it either works perfectly in pipes that get pulled through, or you have to lay them out in the open and are warned they are extremely brittle. Which gets me a few phone call from friends getting nervous saying they would much rather stick with Cable or telephone wire with VDSL. Or in one case where she only has a 6M ADSL she just flat out cut the services and didn't want fibre's hassle. She is mostly on Mobile Phone anyway and her unlimited 4G plans is fast enough for what she needs. The only time she needs WiFi is when she is doing IOS update and that could be done in Office. And when the times Massive MIMO, 5G NG comes with high increase in capacity and speed. I can only imagine there will be more doing just that.
A lot of times we nerds, geeks, tech savvy enthusiast just wanted faster speed, cheaper, better tech whatever. Fibre allow us going to 10Gbps! ( Yes there are 10Gbps Internet services to Home ), without actually asking if or do the many user cares. Last mile is a hard problem, and I wish more thoughts will be put in design and installation parts.
Luckily we have people working on TerabitDSL, with spaces in between copper wires and using Waveguide-mode that is similar to use of millimeter-wave transmissions in 5G. [1]
[1] https://www.assia-inc.com/terabit-dsl/
> Copper Ethernet RJ45 is the best
Not to be That Guy, but RJ45 is a plug standard; normal ethernet cable is "cat5" or "cat6", and normal 10/100/1000 Ethernet is limited to just 100 meters. Which is completely useless given the average cabinet distances in the UK.
Not to be That Guy, but RJ45 is a plug standard; normal ethernet cable is "cat5" or "cat6", and normal 10/100/1000 Ethernet is limited to just 100 meters. Which is completely useless given the average cabinet distances in the UK.
May be I should have properly name it CAT6A Or CAT8 even. I am talking about FTTB, and not FTTC. Of coz it depend where you live, FTTC makes more sense in most cases in UK, FTTB makes more sense for places like London City.
Think the OP meant ethernet last mile which on copper is 2BASE-TL or more likely 10PASS-TS
Though I suspect that most ELM is delivered over fibre and the CPE just presents a RJ45 fo ryou to plug your TOR Router into.
Though I suspect that most ELM is delivered over fibre and the CPE just presents a RJ45 fo ryou to plug your TOR Router into.
Copper Ethernet RJ45 is the best. No more modem, just plug and play
I mean, you still have some kind of consumer equipment there, which the ISP will likely be supplying for almost all users anyway – so that's quite a specific thing.
Despite the headline figures, G.fast will not achieve anything close to that.
And I have to say that all seems like a little short-term thinking. The fragility of fibre in a permanent installation is hardly a convincing argument.
I mean, you still have some kind of consumer equipment there, which the ISP will likely be supplying for almost all users anyway – so that's quite a specific thing.
Despite the headline figures, G.fast will not achieve anything close to that.
And I have to say that all seems like a little short-term thinking. The fragility of fibre in a permanent installation is hardly a convincing argument.
You need Router for Wireless access, it cuts the Modem, ONT equipment. Or if you have just one computer you can directly plug your Ethernet cable to the Wall Socket. I used to live in a building where every flat had Ethernet cable were pre-wired.
If you are in a new building, without furniture and mess, fibre of course make sense. If you live in a Small Apartment, old making installation difficult, Fibre isn't so great. My guess is that the problem may be specific to cities.
If you are in a new building, without furniture and mess, fibre of course make sense. If you live in a Small Apartment, old making installation difficult, Fibre isn't so great. My guess is that the problem may be specific to cities.
New builds in France don't have telephone wires for example, if an alternative is available (real fibre) they just install that instead.
Assuming they're the same as my home, they come with a battery backup unit which powers the landlines (as landline phones are normally powered from the exchange - and thus work in power cuts)
Of course people who still have landlines nowdays probably have cordless ones that require a powered base station, but I assume that at least in the UK, the line must be left powered during power cuts.
Of course people who still have landlines nowdays probably have cordless ones that require a powered base station, but I assume that at least in the UK, the line must be left powered during power cuts.
Nope, none of that in France - just a standard fibre socket, and the ISP gives you an ONT that turns it into Ethernet, which then goes into a router.
I've never actually seen any ISP there even advertise a battery backup unit, I guess if you need they'll just tell you to buy a standard UPS.
No idea how it works in the UK, haven't had consumer-grade fibre here yet, always just got business-grade stuff where you bring your own hardware & UPS if needed.
I've never actually seen any ISP there even advertise a battery backup unit, I guess if you need they'll just tell you to buy a standard UPS.
No idea how it works in the UK, haven't had consumer-grade fibre here yet, always just got business-grade stuff where you bring your own hardware & UPS if needed.
> No idea how it works in the UK, haven't had consumer-grade fibre here yet, always just got business-grade stuff where you bring your own hardware & UPS if needed.
I've installed (business) fibre links on 6 continents, handoff has always been a pair of fibres (usually LC or SC), usually with a /30 ipv4/ethernet, and a routed network pointing at my end of the handoff (or in the case of private peering, a BGP configuration)
My FTTH from BT is a single fibre (no idea if it's compatible with generic bidirectional sfps). This runs into an Openreach converter box - powered by a battery backup - which has 2 phone outputs and 4 rj45s.
My core mikrotik plugs into one of the rj45s and establishes a pppoe session with BT's network.
I've installed (business) fibre links on 6 continents, handoff has always been a pair of fibres (usually LC or SC), usually with a /30 ipv4/ethernet, and a routed network pointing at my end of the handoff (or in the case of private peering, a BGP configuration)
My FTTH from BT is a single fibre (no idea if it's compatible with generic bidirectional sfps). This runs into an Openreach converter box - powered by a battery backup - which has 2 phone outputs and 4 rj45s.
My core mikrotik plugs into one of the rj45s and establishes a pppoe session with BT's network.
Oh that's interesting, I've lived in two FTTH properties in the UK, the ISP installed a battery backup in both properties just for the phone line as otherwise the landline would die if the power went out and apparently that violates some UK law about landline availability.
Given the rate at which people -- especially younger people -- are getting rid of landlines in the UK I suspect in the future this'll be a non-issue. To be honest I'm not sure why I have a landline still.
Given the rate at which people -- especially younger people -- are getting rid of landlines in the UK I suspect in the future this'll be a non-issue. To be honest I'm not sure why I have a landline still.
Which ISPs was that with?
I’ve never actually had a landline on fiber ever. It was always just standard Ethernet on top of which I run whatever I want (SIP client or WiFi calling).
How was that “landline” working? Do they give you a little converter that turns Ethernet into a standard phone jack (and converts it to SIP internally), or is there some other non-IP based signaling for that voice traffic?
I’ve never actually had a landline on fiber ever. It was always just standard Ethernet on top of which I run whatever I want (SIP client or WiFi calling).
How was that “landline” working? Do they give you a little converter that turns Ethernet into a standard phone jack (and converts it to SIP internally), or is there some other non-IP based signaling for that voice traffic?
Is that by law? To have a Standard Fibre Socket? God I wish every government would implement just that.
More accurately, it's down to the regulator being clear that it would not permit a return on the investment to roll it out. The competition is a joke. Virgin Liberty Global managed 100k passed prem for project lightning this year, talk talk and co are talk asked nothing else. How many times will companies like cityfibre have to go bust before investors realize early how hawkish Ofcom has got. Also what will people pay for? When they realize that g.fast will deliver 120 to 330 the glamor of fiber will fade. How many commenters have 50+ and suffer? I've got 330 fttp having moved from 12mbs vdsl, honestly I only notice once a week.
The UK could have had world leading broadband were it not for Mrs T. She decided BT's late 1980s decision to rollout fibre was anti-competitive and killed it in 1990 when we were pretty much leading the world [0].
So the grindingly slow reality of ADSL isn't especially surprising sadly.
[0] https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
So the grindingly slow reality of ADSL isn't especially surprising sadly.
[0] https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
Yes, and gave a private company the right to roll out its own infrastructure. Said private company put infrastructure in a few very high concentration areas during the 90s and did nothing since. It's almost as if natural monopolies actually exist.
Britain has so much potential, but when something becomes huge they either shut it down or only enable cronies to profit from it. Recent example is medicinal cannabis. There is worldwide boom, but it is illegal in the UK to grow except for drugs minister husband (Yes you couldn't make it up) and government says it has no medicinal value. But this has real suffering behind it, as people can't get medicine they need as an effect.
Likewise, the NBN (national broadband network) in Australia was a disaster.
And yet BT is pretty much the definition of anti-competitive now anyway, and it's that monopoly which is killing progress today.
Which BT are you talking about? BT the end user ISP or BT Openreach, the owner of the phone lines? Both have large oversight from Ofcom, the most visible of all the regulators.
Is that really true? What's stopping alternative companies from rolling out fibre services, beyond the cost barriers?
The contract that BT signed with the government for all the funding granting it a duopoly with Virgin, where Virgin isn't going to increase the cable network at all. That combined with the wayleave issues at a local council level being waved just for them means that the preferred rollout partner in BT gets all the money, all the profits from it and has all the access.
About the only nationwide competition that is even remotely happening is from Hyperoptic and they are being blocked all over the place and they are also really laser focussed only on high-density buildings.
About the only nationwide competition that is even remotely happening is from Hyperoptic and they are being blocked all over the place and they are also really laser focussed only on high-density buildings.
That totally sucks. Someone should really force a lawsuit on the issue.
This doesn't appear to address the two main issues I encounter when choosing UK broadband, which are that (a) advertising of upload speeds seems entirely unregulated, so that some providers offer ridiculous deals (e.g. 38Mbps down, but 1Mbps up, with the latter figure hidden in small print on another page), and (b) unless I choose Virgin, I will have sporadic disconnections sometimes for hours at a time depending on the interaction of decades-old copper, weather conditions, and random chance.
Completely agree on the upload speeds...I had Plusnet 17MPS but in actual fact it was ~6MPS download and 0.5MPS upload. The bad part was if I did an upload of say ~20MB it would throttle my download speed thereby slowing everything to a halt.
> upload of say ~20MB it would throttle my download speed
This is not directly due to the technology involved, it is due to congestion on the upstream side slowing down IP control packets (ACKs and such) as they are queued with the rest. When you have a slow upstream pipe it is very easy to see this effect. It is even worse when there are multiple upstream connections trying to use as much as they can (as seen in torrent transfers and similar), and it affects interactive traffic like SSH connections significantly too.
You can work around this by shaping your upstream traffic to reserve a little bandwidth for small interactive/control packets. If your router runs Linux there are a number of simple scripts to setup the basics (wondershaper is one I've used successfully in the past) or you can be more specific to your needs by setting up your own config with the appropriate tools.
If you usually only use one PC then you can run the shaper there instead, of course, but running shaping on one individual machine on a crowded network will have no useful effect.
(see http://louwrentius.com/how-traffic-shaping-can-dramatically-... for an example of using wondershaper)
This is not directly due to the technology involved, it is due to congestion on the upstream side slowing down IP control packets (ACKs and such) as they are queued with the rest. When you have a slow upstream pipe it is very easy to see this effect. It is even worse when there are multiple upstream connections trying to use as much as they can (as seen in torrent transfers and similar), and it affects interactive traffic like SSH connections significantly too.
You can work around this by shaping your upstream traffic to reserve a little bandwidth for small interactive/control packets. If your router runs Linux there are a number of simple scripts to setup the basics (wondershaper is one I've used successfully in the past) or you can be more specific to your needs by setting up your own config with the appropriate tools.
If you usually only use one PC then you can run the shaper there instead, of course, but running shaping on one individual machine on a crowded network will have no useful effect.
(see http://louwrentius.com/how-traffic-shaping-can-dramatically-... for an example of using wondershaper)
Thank you for this. Super interesting to hear about what's happening. At one point they told me there was a problem with the copper which meant my packets where getting dropped.
In the end, Plusnet increased their prices by £1 and in the small print of the email, they said I could cancel my contract within 30 days...I was 3 months in so I cancelled. Now I'm using my phone (tethered + 20GB of data for £20 a month from BT) and BT-FON free wifi for Youtube videos.
In the end, Plusnet increased their prices by £1 and in the small print of the email, they said I could cancel my contract within 30 days...I was 3 months in so I cancelled. Now I'm using my phone (tethered + 20GB of data for £20 a month from BT) and BT-FON free wifi for Youtube videos.
In the UK, the central network is fibre but the "last mile" from the exchange to home is always copper. The "last mile" can turn into 2+ miles if you're unlucky.
UK ISPs sell various different speeds including 'fibre' at the high end. However it's never true fibre and you'll have copper cable no matter the package you pick.
I had Plusnet 17MPS but in actual fact it was ~6MPS download and 0.5MPS upload. The bad part was if I did an upload of say ~20MB it would throttle my download speed thereby slowing everything to a halt.
I tethered my phone to my laptop and got 16MPS upload speeds....
UK ISPs sell various different speeds including 'fibre' at the high end. However it's never true fibre and you'll have copper cable no matter the package you pick.
I had Plusnet 17MPS but in actual fact it was ~6MPS download and 0.5MPS upload. The bad part was if I did an upload of say ~20MB it would throttle my download speed thereby slowing everything to a halt.
I tethered my phone to my laptop and got 16MPS upload speeds....
As the other commenter said the move from ADSL to "fibre" meant that rather than being copper from your house to the exchange it's now copper from your house to the cabinet on a street nearby (hopefully) and fibre from there back to the exchange. The "last mile" of copper is now a lot, lot, shorter which is how they're able to run the faster speeds over it. Sure FTTC is not FTTP but it's dramatic improvement over ADSL/2
Absolutely, FTTC for us made using high-throughout Internet services feasible. We're not far from an exchange but the copper overhead cables pass several RF-noisy facilities and ADSL was constantly dropping-out. Even Andrews & Arnold couldn't do anything to improve it and we changed ISP after they lost interest ( no point paying their hefty charges for a flakey service ).
With the change to FTTC all that interference is gone and dropouts are very rare. FTTH doesn't really tempt us for any reasons.
With the change to FTTC all that interference is gone and dropouts are very rare. FTTH doesn't really tempt us for any reasons.
There's a small number areas (but growing) of the UK with Fiber to the Home. Mostly Virgin (cable), but also new-build properties and areas serviced by niche providers like Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and Cityfibre. Actually, even BT sell Fiber to the Home in very select areas[1].
[1] https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7676-bt-price-offers-now...
[1] https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7676-bt-price-offers-now...
You are thinking of ADSL, which is limited to 24mpbs. BT does sell VDSL as fibre, but usually the distance of copper connection is only out to the street.
I think you're right. I spoke to the guys at Plusnet and they said it was fibre to the cabinet and no matter what package I picked it was copper to my house. With that in mind, I thought they were effectively limiting your bandwidth at the cabinet based on your package.
From the plusnet page: > Speeds are available as follows:
> Average download speeds of 36Mb† or 66Mb† for Fibre (FTTC) enabled areas depending on the package you choose > Average download speeds of 10MbΦ for ADSL2+ enabled areas
From the plusnet page: > Speeds are available as follows:
> Average download speeds of 36Mb† or 66Mb† for Fibre (FTTC) enabled areas depending on the package you choose > Average download speeds of 10MbΦ for ADSL2+ enabled areas
Adsl is a different beast indeed. It's physically limited because the frequency that it uses and the encoding that was possible or practical in the 90's can't carry more than 24. Vdsl is indeed throttled at the edge router into two products, basically the lower frequency components provide the lower speed product and propagate better over longer lines.
I live in the UK and have fttp from BT, there's an optical terminator in my looking room.
> or make a Skype call that doesn’t drop out every two minutes.
When will people learn that bandwidth has nothing to do with this? You don't need 50mbit for a skype call!
It's usually not the 'last mile' problem, but what I'd call the 'last meters' problem: most SOHO/consumer grade network equipment is just total garbage.
Replace your ISP supplied equipment with something more reliable (I highly recommend Ubiquiti gear) and you'd be surprised how much more usable your internet connection becomes.
When will people learn that bandwidth has nothing to do with this? You don't need 50mbit for a skype call!
It's usually not the 'last mile' problem, but what I'd call the 'last meters' problem: most SOHO/consumer grade network equipment is just total garbage.
Replace your ISP supplied equipment with something more reliable (I highly recommend Ubiquiti gear) and you'd be surprised how much more usable your internet connection becomes.
Yup. To invoke the inevitable car analogy, if your problem is it takes too long to get to 40mph from a standing start at the lights, upgrading from 200mph to 250mph top speed won't necessarily help. Even more so if the problem is sometimes it won't start on a cold morning or there aren't enough seats.
The pro-fibre lobby is convinced that somehow 1Gbps will enable an as yet undetermined application and countries where people have 40Mbps will get left behind. But the application doesn't exist. I had 1Gbps for several years, now I have 40Mbps. It's not just that I don't miss it, I don't even notice. I could easily afford faster, but I could also easily afford a giant cardboard Han Solo, and I didn't buy that either.
Reliability matters, but in practice copper reliability isn't bad enough to be a significant factor compared to consumer gear.
Latency matters, but most of the work needed there is in consumer gear, not in the last mile or elsewhere in ISP networks.
The pro-fibre lobby is convinced that somehow 1Gbps will enable an as yet undetermined application and countries where people have 40Mbps will get left behind. But the application doesn't exist. I had 1Gbps for several years, now I have 40Mbps. It's not just that I don't miss it, I don't even notice. I could easily afford faster, but I could also easily afford a giant cardboard Han Solo, and I didn't buy that either.
Reliability matters, but in practice copper reliability isn't bad enough to be a significant factor compared to consumer gear.
Latency matters, but most of the work needed there is in consumer gear, not in the last mile or elsewhere in ISP networks.
Does it matter though? If the ISP is responsible for the "last mile", does it matter if they screw up the last meter of it?
It's one thing if customer supplied boxes are causing problems in the last meter, but if the last mile is end to end controlled by the ISP, and they still screw it up, does it matter what meter is the problem?
The only benefit I see here is that a confident/educated customer could implement the fix themselves as you suggest. However that's sort of dodging the issue, rather than acknowledging that the ISP isn't holding up their end of the agreement (in loose terms at least).
It's one thing if customer supplied boxes are causing problems in the last meter, but if the last mile is end to end controlled by the ISP, and they still screw it up, does it matter what meter is the problem?
The only benefit I see here is that a confident/educated customer could implement the fix themselves as you suggest. However that's sort of dodging the issue, rather than acknowledging that the ISP isn't holding up their end of the agreement (in loose terms at least).
You are paying for that ISP-supplied router, either explicitly as an item in your bill or implicitly factored into the overall cost. People will either go with the cheapest option if there are any options at all or the ISP will simply save costs to do the minimum necessary to provide internet access.
And of course those routers are crap and only do the bare minimum.
For example they often have comically bad firewalls/NATs that can overflow their state tables when you do any P2P, run your own DNS resolver or run a home server through dynamic DNS.
And then there's buffer bloat.
A custom router with OpenWRT and enough RAM will cope with those use-cases and will offer all the nice linux traffic shaping plugins like fq_codel and cake.
And of course those routers are crap and only do the bare minimum.
For example they often have comically bad firewalls/NATs that can overflow their state tables when you do any P2P, run your own DNS resolver or run a home server through dynamic DNS.
And then there's buffer bloat.
A custom router with OpenWRT and enough RAM will cope with those use-cases and will offer all the nice linux traffic shaping plugins like fq_codel and cake.
Could you recommend modem / router equivalents ( whichever applies to replacing ISP supplied equivalent, I'm assuming both? ) at a few different price brackets?
Ubiquiti gear appears to be quite dear, alternatively are they worth the expense? Are there any benchmarks etc which demonstrate this, or further reading?
Ubiquiti gear appears to be quite dear, alternatively are they worth the expense? Are there any benchmarks etc which demonstrate this, or further reading?
Well, in my case, I use a Edgerouter-X with an SFP module that connects directly to my fiber line. Remember, a fibre lines does not even require a modem. I don't have experience with DSL equipment.
The equipment my ISP send me (it's still in the box) came with a 'fiber modem', which is a fiber-to-ethernet converter, and a no-name brand router with build-in wifi. The firmware on it is a custom branded build of 3 years old, and I don't expect they ever released a security update for it (KRACK attack, anyone?).
For wireless connectivity I use a Unify AC pro, which has proved highly reliable. See [0]
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-unif...
For wireless connectivity I use a Unify AC pro, which has proved highly reliable. See [0]
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-unif...
ubiquiti is the least expensive stuff that actually works.
edgerouter x https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-EdgeRouter-Advanced-Gigabit-...
ap-ac-lr https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Ap-AC-Long-Range/dp/B0...
total up to $152 at the moment. the wire cutter's suggestion for best router/access point is a $180 netgear product. and based on my prior experience, the netgear hardware won't last more than 12 months.
edgerouter x https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-EdgeRouter-Advanced-Gigabit-...
ap-ac-lr https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Ap-AC-Long-Range/dp/B0...
total up to $152 at the moment. the wire cutter's suggestion for best router/access point is a $180 netgear product. and based on my prior experience, the netgear hardware won't last more than 12 months.
Latency is way more important. My last company gave me 100down but it took 3 seconds to load google. I couldn't play any games or even talk online with friends. I switched over to another company for similar price, no speed change, and everything works fantastically. If I had incredible ping/routing I would take 20 down, I'd love to see what the most I use is, probably less than 10.
So what latency did you have? I find it hard to believe it was more than 30ms to a nearby pop. Did you have some half-duplex link somewhere?
Probably errors / transmission or a vlan issue
So for a small fraction of annual per customer income ISPs could transform their service, but they cheap out to save a few quid ... the difference in wholesale cost on the better router-modem must be c.2-3% of a low cost contract.
Somehow that doesn't make the situation seem better.
Somehow that doesn't make the situation seem better.
People should try to understand the difference between bandwidth and latency.
I've found an analogy to a car is a simple way to help people understand.
Bandwidth: This is how big your car is. High bandwidth is like driving a huge truck. You can load a whole bunch of things up at once.
Latency: This is how fast your car is, measured in the time it takes to get between two places (so lower time means a faster car)
So you can think about most web usage like picking up groceries from the store.
Driving a huge slow 18 wheeler is a waste: you're only picking up a few groceries, and it will take a long time to get to the store and back.
Driving a tiny fast corvette is silly, because even though you get there real fast, you're going to have to make three trips to fit all the groceries in the car.
What most people want is good all around car - Big enough to haul what you need, fast enough to not feel sluggish doing it.
Some things work better with the fast car (playing games, video chat, streaming songs)
Some things work better with a big truck (downloading games, streaming HD video, moving large files)
But you have to pay attention to both.
I've found an analogy to a car is a simple way to help people understand.
Bandwidth: This is how big your car is. High bandwidth is like driving a huge truck. You can load a whole bunch of things up at once.
Latency: This is how fast your car is, measured in the time it takes to get between two places (so lower time means a faster car)
So you can think about most web usage like picking up groceries from the store.
Driving a huge slow 18 wheeler is a waste: you're only picking up a few groceries, and it will take a long time to get to the store and back.
Driving a tiny fast corvette is silly, because even though you get there real fast, you're going to have to make three trips to fit all the groceries in the car.
What most people want is good all around car - Big enough to haul what you need, fast enough to not feel sluggish doing it.
Some things work better with the fast car (playing games, video chat, streaming songs)
Some things work better with a big truck (downloading games, streaming HD video, moving large files)
But you have to pay attention to both.
Interestingly, Virgin Media now advertises slightly faster speeds than it did before this came into effect. Where it's fastest package was previously 350Mbps, it now advertises the same package as giving "Average download speeds of 362Mbps". "Average" still leaves a wide range of speeds, and as far as I can tell they don't quote different speeds for different locations.
I don't think quoting the average speed of all users in the country for each package is going to give much more of an accurate picture than maximum speeds. Especially since the abundance of FTTC here means your speeds are much more dependant on local infrastructure.
I don't think quoting the average speed of all users in the country for each package is going to give much more of an accurate picture than maximum speeds. Especially since the abundance of FTTC here means your speeds are much more dependant on local infrastructure.
It would definitely be really nice if the UK rolled out comprehensive fibre connections – it seems like a good long-term investment for as many homes as possible to have a direct FTTP service.
At present domestic internet connections using DSL top out at 76MBps – and that's if you live on top of the cabinet. Aside from niche providers, the only other high-speed network is Virgin, which runs a HFC network at up to 350MBps (which, to be fair, is pretty cost-effective and widely available).
At present domestic internet connections using DSL top out at 76MBps – and that's if you live on top of the cabinet. Aside from niche providers, the only other high-speed network is Virgin, which runs a HFC network at up to 350MBps (which, to be fair, is pretty cost-effective and widely available).
There are still quite a lot of people in cities who don't have VDSL yet and are still stuck on maximum 20 Mbps ADSL2. Worse than that is that due to the length and age of the lines they can be getting unstable connections around 1.5Mbit/s.
This is one of those areas where the suburbs and countryside have done significantly better from government funding of BT to roll out Fibre. Wayleaves and Councils and landlords and management agencies across the cities have repeatedly blocked rollout, the situation for many is still much worse than 76 Mbps VDSL, that is a good outcome for someone in a UK city.
This is one of those areas where the suburbs and countryside have done significantly better from government funding of BT to roll out Fibre. Wayleaves and Councils and landlords and management agencies across the cities have repeatedly blocked rollout, the situation for many is still much worse than 76 Mbps VDSL, that is a good outcome for someone in a UK city.