Full Fibre Broadband

[Harrison]

Found out yesterday I can finally order full fibre broadband. Openreach installed the cables in our road a year ago, but I couldnt find out any information on when it could be ordered. I had an email offer for the BT january sale saying if I renewed my broadband contract I would save £5pm. Logged into my account and the offers said I could suddenly order full fibre at the same price. That was a nice surprise as there was no mention when I checked in December Very nice!

So for £5pm less than I was currently paying I've ordered the top package. BT Halo 3+ 900 full fibre to the premises. 900Mbps download and 150Mbps upload.

Massive increase on my current fttc 56Mbps connection. At full speed that would be 112.5MB/s, or 1GB in 9.1 seconds! A 100GB game download in 15 minutes! Will be great for remote server work too. Server backups in seconds!

Only downside is having to wait until 8th Feb for the install.

The package includes a lot of things, but I already had most of it like the BT complete Wifi discs that create a mesh to boost your signal. But I will be getting a Hybrid Connect router that is EE 4G and takes over if the Broadband drops so you never lose your connection.

 

[screemo]

Sure sounds like quite an upgrade for the mid-2000 connection you have been dealing with so far - interesting you get 150Mbps upload though ?

We got some fiber here a few years ago, and the lower latency of that physical connection makes all the difference - usually 2ms instead of 20-30ms for every packet, you can feel that.

Once you get that better connection, you will probably start to see that wifi mesh is not ideal for 1gbit internet - but then you got an excuse to upgrade

 

[miggymad]

The following was announced yesterday in The Telegraph:

Broadband users hit by 'work from home tax' as BT raises prices by almost 10pc

Telecoms giant says increases that will force most customers to pay an extra £3.50 a momth are 'sometimes a necessary part of business'
ByHelen Cahill and Tim Wallace20 January 2022 • 8:51pm

Millions of households are facing a steep increase to their broadband and phone line costs in a "tax on working from home" after BT kicked off a wave of price rises with an inflation-busting 9.3pc increase.

BT will charge up to 14m customers as much as £42 a year more for their broadband after it put up charges in the wake of surging inflation, piling further pressure on households already facing a significant blow from higher taxes and energy prices in April.

The company increases its broadband prices on March 31 each year by 3.9pc plus inflation as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, which stands at 5.4pc - its highest level since the 1990s.

That £5pm saving will soon be gobbled up once March 31st arrives

 

[fitzsteve]

I'm on the full fibre 900 too, it's great getting a 60gb game in under 10 minutes. Most of my WiFi devices max at around 500/600 though it's only the cable connected computers I hit the full speed, sometimes 1.1gb/sec.

 

[Timtheloon]

I'm happy with my 75 MB/s

 

[Harrison]

75MB/s or Mb/s?

 

[Harrison]

I saw a lot of posts on the BT forums with idiots posting complaints about the speed they were getting with fibre 900. It turned out they were all expecting the maximum speed via Wifi! ?

Most WiFi chips max out at between 150-300Mbps. Nearly everything in my house is via Ethernet so not an issue. If I can connect it that way I will. It's only tablets and laptops using wifi and they won't need anything faster.

 

[Harrison]

My price is protected for the length of my new contract (24 months). ?

 

[Harrison]

Wifi speed isn't a concern. Its only used for tablets and laptops. Everything else in my house uses Erhernet as I ran Cat6 throughout the house when I rewired the electrics.

What's the question regarding upload speed? 150mbps seems the fastest on offer from any provider as it's an asymmetrical service much like FTTC or even ADSL. I think only fibre via completely different providers such as cable TV offers any faster upload and that's only ever available in a few larger cities.

As regarding mid-2000 connections. For many in the UK they have only recently got FTTC and speeds up to 76Mbps. I was one of the first to get that in my area back in about 2011/12. But my parents who live in a village in the New Forest only had their exchange upgraded to fttc last year (2021) and they now get about 35Mbps. Before that they were stuck on ADSL at 2Mbps! So until last year they struggled to use Netflix and Youtube. And 4K was out of the question.