Changing to fibre optic

[Fareastdriver]

Vodaphone have just dug up all of our pavements and installed the fibre optic stream. They are promising speeds up to 105 mcs. + at a reasonable introduction rate plus a £45 connection fee.

I gather that with this connection the BT landline is no longer required so one can disconnect it and use your mobile phone saving £12 or so a month. What worries me is what figure does Vodaphone charge you once the introductory period is over because you are stuck with them unless you go cap in hand to BT.

Has anybody changed over to fibre optic and if so what are the charges like?

[Ancient Observer]

Virgin dug up our streets. Their offer was good to start, but shot up after the introductory offer. Looking forward - After a couple of years it wasn't worth it for us.

[Blackfriar]

You will probably find the streets have been dug up by CityFibre and Vodafone have an agreement for "1st Dibs" on customers. Usually with all these deals at renewal time a threat to go back to BT or someone else (CityFibre may be offering their own services by this point or they may have another wholesale customer) usually gets renewal at the same price, in return for another 12 or 24 month contract.
Fibre to the Home (FTTH) is more than just a higher bandwidth. Your BT line is copper (or sometimes a bit of aluminium) that corrodes and joints get wet. The signal is electric. Hence the service can vary greatly and you get more faults. FTTH means an optical fibre direct to you home router and water has no effect. It doesn't really degrade much over time (25 years anyway). And the bandwidth can be increased almost without limit. It's worth remembering that bandwidth usage has been doubling every 18 months (since the 1980s, so while 100Mbps might seem good today, in 5 years you will want 800Mbps.

[caiman27]

The streets in Bishop's Stortford were cabled decades ago (remember Cable TV?).

Virgin now own it and it still works very well indeed, in spite of their less than perfect service and support. I currently have 100 MB and am currently offered 350 MB if I felt the need (I don't). There is absolutely no way I would back to BT as their fastest speed by copper wire is less than half of my basic offer.

[pax britanica]

Virgin are not very good at customer service and if your service works well then it is very good, if you have problems well that's another story.
A few things to note
BT have to provide you with service anywhere in Uk Virgin do not so they dont serve private roads remote locations, long driveways. My neighbour had to build his own duct from the adjoining street to get Virgin and doesnt reckon it is really worth the effort compared to BT who themselves are starting to roll out Fibre to the home .
Are speeds over 100Mbs really worth it for domestic users , perhaps in a household with 4 teenagers and mum and dad homeworking it is useful but as outlined above maybe in 5years time 500 Mbs might be required for heavy users.

Fibre optic cables do not degrade which can happen with copper but they are just as easily cut by wayward digging , trenching , street works etc which are one of the main reasons you might lose your internet.
Equally they are no protection against equipment faults in your nearest network node(telephone exchange)
So, a few things to think about value wise before just going down the if its faster it must be better route. Rather like digital cameras, 20Mega pixels is better than 12 but the eye cannot tell the difference, unless you do lots of large scale enlarging the images both look the same

[N707ZS]

Virgin media £55 for the month basic 110mb unlimited phone. They have increased the price a couple of times recently. BT is an old bit of copper wire on a pole.

[rog747]

I think Virgin is broadband, phone and TV via a ground cable (streets dug up) and thus you have to be in a Virgin ''area''

Vodafone uses lines via Openreach for Fibre and phone line - same as BT (also provide ADSL Broadband and Fibre for SKY, Talk Talk and Plusnet who all basically rent the lines off Openreach)

Sky can offer a package for line rental, anytime calls (so no more BT contract) and Fibre broadband for under £50pm on their current offers.

Offers are usually valid 12 18 or 24 months - after that time shop around
Always found SKY service to be good and Tech back up is all in the UK. You don't have to have SKY TV.

[andytug]

Also bear in mind that having 100s of MB does not make your WiFi any faster..
If it's an 802.11g router then the max is about 8MB/s - shared across all the connected devices.
802.11n and ac are much faster, but only if the router and device are both capable - older ones may not be.
We manage fine on 40MB between 5 of us , but we have two WiFi routers one of which is n speed.
If the device doesn't move it's best to wire it up to the network rather than use wireless as Ethernet supports 100MB minimum.

[cattletruck]

802.11n (or MIMO capable WiFi) only achieves high download rates in ideal conditions, upload rates remain at the standard 802.11g rate and is shared with every other device.
When it comes to this kind of setup nothing beats plugging into Ethernet directly as Andytug has already alluded to.

[Saab Dastard]

lso bear in mind that having 100s of MB does not make your WiFi any faster..
If it's an 802.11g router then the max is about 8MB/s - shared across all the connected devices.
802.11n and ac are much faster, but only if the router and device are both capable - older ones may not be.
We manage fine on 40MB between 5 of us , but we have two WiFi routers one of which is n speed.
If the device doesn't move it's best to wire it up to the network rather than use wireless as Ethernet supports 100MB minimum.




The general thrust of your post is correct, but please differentiate between B and b in network speeds! 1Byte = 8 bits, so your 40MB is 320mb! Network speeds are, conventionally, expressed in bps (bits per second). Originally in bits, then kilobits (Kbps), megabits (Mbps) and now gigabits (Gbps).
SD

[Fareastdriver]

I use power connectors between the modem and my computer. I would use the same again from a fibre optic modem to my computer.

[ben645]

Fibre to the home is the future, copper will eventually be phased out. If you are being offered it now at a good rate jump on board. Adds value to the price of your property as well :)

[ShyTorque]

No-one supplies fibre optic here (we live at the far end of a private street) but my BT old fashioned "copper connection" runs at about 130 Mbps. For now at least, I see no need to upgrade from that.

[Mark in CA]

Just for comparison, in my little village just outside Budapest we get 500/20 Mbps internet, a medium level HDTV package and phone for the equivalent of about 26 GBP. Frankly, these speeds only make real sense for casual users if you have several computers hardwired on your LAN at the same time. Any single computer tops out at about 300 Mbps with gigabit ethernet (wired), much less for Wi-Fi.