BT service.....?
 

I have no (technical) idea what BT have been up to recently, but I just had a look at their speedtester for my pc.

My speed has leapt from about 6 to 16.

Over the years I have nagged them to improve my speed, which has been in the range of 4 - 6 mega whatnots per whatever. (Against, of course, a much higher advertised number). I buy their top-end service (not fibre), but have previously received a very average speed given my proximity to their gadgetry. I live about 1 km from their "switchboard" in the village, and about 700 metres from a brand new BT green box, which sits (proudly??) next to the old BT green box. Amongst various things that BT did over the years to improve my speed, the pc now sits about 6 foot from where their line emerges from the ground, they put in an "ADSL v1.0" socket about 4 foot from the pc, they (allegedly) upgraded the copper cable from my house to their nearest junction box/whatever it is called, (which the engineer pointed out is often under water). None of this stuff did anything much to change my speed, which was normally in the 4 - 6 range, but which could go lower.
So either the nearest junction box has dried out in the dry spell, and the line works better, or this mysterious new green box has had some effect.
What have they been up to??
(This area does not have fibre - neither BT nor Virgin think we are worth it.)

There are unfortunately 101 possible reasons for broadband speed fluctuations. So my advice would be to sit back and enjoy your new found (temporary ?) speed.

I would suggest that the most likely reason is that your exchange may have been upgraded to ADSL2+ (20mb) which if you are close to the exchange/cabinet should lift your speed as you describe. SamKnows would be worth a look.

I am a little puzzled by the 'new' green cab - is it the same size as t'other?

The new green box.
The main road near us (c 700m) is an A road, and the telephone exchange sits on that road. About 300m N of the exchange is a green box which gives BT engineers no end of fun. So they can double thir opportunities for fun, they've just erected another one next to it. it is about the same size, but the paint is much more shiny. So right now there are two boxes.
If I wrote children's fiction, which I do not, then the opportunities for jealousy, falling out, eventual reconciliation and so on, between the green boxes are endless, but I'll put that on JB.

BT say the following: -
Is this about BT Infinity?

No, this upgrade is part of our ongoing network improvements.

Mr Sam says the exchange/switchboard is ADSL2+ enabled.

- that is probably what has happened, then.

It seems a bit of a waste of money (Ah! you did say BT...............) to put in another similar newer cab when the ?eventual? fibre cab is a larger one.

Have I missed something with Mr Sam?

Before I can get anywhere it wants me to sign up to some project.

I'd question the BT answer, as the main/only reason they stick a secondary roadside cab in place is for Infinity.

What does Samknows say about FTTC date?

MB - the Infinity cabinet is significantly larger than the 'standard' so I suspect BT are correct..

vulcan - skip past that bit!:)

When discussing 'BT and Cabinets', you all need to remember that the BT cabinet data is quite inaccurate, thought to be often 1km out of actual position and known in one case to be 5km out!

Not only that, but your "line" may not take the most direct route. It's not unknown for a cabinet to be 1 km away from you but the cable length is 3 or 5km. And it ain't just in the sticks either.

I'm 1.6km from the Bracknell exchange as the crow flies....yet 9.1km away as the cable runs. :ugh:

So at 9.1km I assume you have no wired broadband?

Wierd. BT catch 22?
 

Wierd....
On a FTTC check website, (whatever that is)
FTTC Check
it suggests that my "uplift" for paying the extra for fibre would be 2.32 times my current speed. As bt speedtester has now said that my speed is about 16, then are BT shooting themselves in the foot? Why would I pay extra for fibre, when the uplift is not worth it? 16 seems enough for me, currently. (Up to 4 pcs, a couple of Apples, a couple of wi-fi tvs. No film downloading, yet, but lots of wi-fi BBC iplayer)

Anyway, the fibre only goes from the old switchboard, (OK, exchange) about 300 metres up the A road to the cabinet. They've done nought from the cabinet to Ancient Towers.

Is this catch 22 for BT? Damned if they do not upgrade, and damned if they do?

FTTC = Fibre to the cabinet
FTTH = Fibre to the home

Therefore FTTC comes before FTTH, if FTTH ever makes it your way in the near future that is !

FTTC is cheap and easy for BT to implement as they stick blown fibre down existing ducts to desired cab locations.

FTTH is where stuff starts getting expensive as you've got to dig and lay new fibre runs and then get wayleave to go across private land and drill into peoples homes etc. etc.

Mixture,
Thanks. I just got that level of understanding by reading some other websites.
I'll keep an eye on what they provide, over time. I suspect that the 16 will be allowed to downgrade so they can sell me fibre when they are ready. However, Virgin have no plan to put fibre down our Close, so maybe BT won't either.

AO,

Personally, knowing BT's abysmal level of customer service, I would pick a decent LLU ADSL line over any BT broadband product, fibre or otherwise.

Once the 21CN wholesale rates start dropping, you'll see LLU-style offerings over fibre. But will probably take some regulatory intervention to force BT to share some of that fibre infrastructure with others at a fair rate (well, fair as far as BT's pricing structure goes anyway !).

Mixture,
as I've said before on here, BT's customer service increases with either a good letter to the CEO, or with knowing someone reasonably senior, who can put you on to their employees and friends help team. My contact has just retired after 42 years with them.

(I've just re-read that. I'd much rather have a friend/relative at BA to give me cheap flights.)

However, to get thru to a good service, one has to be patient, and if I were running a biz from home, they would have bankrupted me a couple of times....

On a lighter note.....One day you might like to ask your BT contacts how their Chairman got his Broadband. When he was just a beancounter, he did not get much in the way of broadband. Now he is a BT Chairman, he appears to get brilliant broadband.

As in most walks of life...its not what you know, its WHO you know !!!!

The customer comes first. I can name you a number of ISPs where you can get good service and prompt resolution by just walking in off the street.

Its an utter sham and part of BT's disgraceful customer service that you have to escalate in order to get anything done.

Communicating with the CEO doesn't always resolve either. He's tightened down his remit in the recent years and is eager to pass the buck.

I don't see why I should have to maintain the address book that I do of various senior contacts within BT.

Which is why if quality of service comes before cheapest price in terms of importance, you should never choose BT.

You should never have to be patient to eventually get through to a good service. You should be able to speak to people with a brain straight off the bat.

Actually I have a 3.1mbit/s connection. However this 9.1km was in 2001/2 when they sent a BT bloke out in a van and there wasn't a concept of 'wires-only' broadband. I had to wait until 2006 to get broadband, and then at approx 1.1mbit/s via RADSL. It's progressively got better and I have rewired my house and all the way to the junction box on the wall to get it up to this speed. My loop attenuation sits at 68dB at the moment.

As you can tell, i've been awaiting Infinity with baited breath (since 2009 when it was first supposed to be available in Bracknell....but not)

I suspect you are now a bit 'closer' to the cabinet or you would not get those figures at all. At 9.1km you will not even smell Infinity. It 'dies' at around 5km at 0mb. Also 68db does not suggest 9.1km. I reckon around 4.

I don't doubt that. Anyhow, Infinity is about 200 yds or so to the roadside cab. I worked out that the 9.1km must have been a circuitous route round 2 or more other estates.

I think I must have one of the more impressive 'multiples' from that FTTC link, at an uplift of 21.37 x the 3.1mb speed I have now :)

Apologies to AO for the 'hijack', but I'm fascinated! 200 yds to an Infinity cabinet which is normally placed within 100yds of an existing cabinet and you reckon 9.1km? :confused:

Has your "apparent speed" increased or just what the tester reports? You don't usually get something for nothing. ;)


Rans6....

Sounds like a fairly standard roll out of BT's "up to 20 meg" service.

Just tried speed again on bt speedtester. Still over 16. Tried others such as speedtest net and bbspeedchecker, and all agree that it is over 16. (12.00 midday local UK on a Saturday)
No obvious difference to services' speed, but I seldom download huge files such as movies.
I'll keep an eye on the green boxes as another web-site suggests that having two might be a temp thing.
There are also the usual wait 10 day comments on websites - so my 16 might be a fluke as it could settle down to less.

PS For once, I did do wot the BT e-mail had suggested, which was to reset my bt modem/router. I also turned it off for 15 minutes, much to daughter's annoyance, who seems to only watch tv thru wi-fi nowadays.

I just checked Samknows re FTTC. Sam says it is available - BT says it is not currently available, but should be from July.
So sam doesn't always know. (It is notionally available for some areas served by the switchboard/exchange - just not for me/our road)

- known in the trade as 'Sam Doesn't know' sometimes:)

To be fair, they can only work on BT data which is flawed. They (Sam) had my exchange 4.5 km out of position, but did correct the error eventually.

'NGA' connections will be down to post-code level, ie one p-c on an exchange will have it, the neighbouring may not, and in that p-c different houses likewise. Based on local evidence, BT appear to be 'doing' about 40% of cabinets in rural areas, and about 22% of connections on those cabinets.

Worth trying to watch Peter Cochrane's (ex BT chief technical Officer) evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the government's handling of the broadband 'improvement' plan - a 1:20 delivery, and the best bits here. Some eye opening comments about Thatcher's government and how it killed fibre to the home for Reagan's 'benefit'..

Words fail me,
From the Telegraph.
Rural broadband would only benefit the rich, says Labour MP Graham Jones

Upgrading rural broadband is a waste of money because it will only bring faster internet shopping to the rich people who live in the countryside, the Labour MP for Hyndburn, Lancashire has claimed.

Considering he has the ISP Supanet (the part of the Time Computers empire that the administrators couldn't prove was part of the group, so wasn't shut down) in his constituency its not so surprising that he's a bit jaundiced towards the internet
An attempt was made just before Time went smash to transfer the assets to a Dubai company - however the controlling family didn't work quickly enough and there was a fair bit left in the UK for the administrators to grab.
However its interesting that the Supanet website now shows it as domiciled in Cyprus......

I suspect this MPs comments are part of a political campaign against the owners of the group. Theres more than a lot of ill will between the local politicos and that family - sorry, I really can't say more.

Its even more interesting in that Lancashire County Council has just contracted with BT, using governnent funds, to subsidise the installation of high speed broadband to the whole of rural Lancashire - his area is included

Another in the words fail me:
BBC News - 'Ugly' cabinet dispute thwarts BT in Kensington and Chelsea

We have also recently noticed a speed increase since an adjacent area to us got infinity. No 1 son who has just started training in a BT call centre asked the question and was told that as people moved to Infinity those still on ADSL2+ were getting a better contention ratio.

Definition of frustration - walking past a BT Infinity cabinet every day 100m from our house and no outlook as to when our street will be upgraded!

Sounds like he is going un-necessarily political and making up random excuses to benefit BT.

Seriously. What possible benefit would fibre to the home had in 1986 ? And if you think its expensive to rollout now, I dread to think what the cost per metre would have been in 1986..... let alone in 1986 where there were no mass-produced GBICs etc.

BT were going to stream television programmes Mixture, but Maggie said "No,, there must be competition." Thereby depriving the people who live in the countryside both cable TV and high speed broadband.

Still think that was a cloud dream though.

Glad they didn't achieve it because they would have ended up with more of a monopoly than they do now.

Competition is a good thing and BT could have done with more of it at an earlier stage.

Edit to add:

Found a historic presentation, in 1986, BT's fibre rollout was projected as a 10 year programme costing £15 billion (probably roughly £30 odd billion after inflation in todays money)

21CN is a 5 year programme costing £10 billion.

Don't think it did BT much harm to wait. Cheaper, more efficient programme of works I'd say.

Also, given the techological developments between 1986 and 1996, the technology would have been outdated by the time they'd have finished and so they'd only be looking to rip it out and upgrade it all again anyway.

At least they can sweat the assets of the 21CN a bit longer and the upgrade costs will be lower.

Part of the deal not mentioned would have been that in exchange for a universal supply obligation to supply the cable network, BT would have been granted monopoly statues fro phone and cable provision.
Thats what stuck in Maggie's craw

You obviously don't give a ***** for rural people having the same facilities as townies then mixture

- 21CN is not FTTC (I understand 21CN/'NGA' includes ADSL2+) and FTTC is not like FTTP so the costs are not directly comparable. - you mean like they pretty well have now?

- you mean like they pretty well have now?

if you remember at the time, Cable & Wireless were bragging about how their "Mercury" fibreoptic phone network was the way of the future, while the nascent cable TV networks were beginning to show pretensions which neither would be able to finance.
In the event, all failed financially and (with the exception of a couple of small late-coming cable TV networks,) all were folded into Virgin's system.
However if the BT system had gone ahead, all those projects would have been stopped: the investors would have refused the capital. As it stands, maybe it would have been better if they had been stopped as none of those networks have ever been successful.

Erm ... NO

I DO give a ***** for rural people. But NOT at the expense of competition and a fair and open market.

BT already retain their fingers in too many pies as it is. It would only have been worse had they been given the green light in 1986 !

Old habits die hard. For example, look at the current debate over BT's PIA reference offer. The pricing is unrealistic and the restrictions placed on other operators use are archeic. PIA is primarily duct and pole sharing, however as an example BT has placed restrictions on other operators that say they cannot use the product over long distances to reach isolated communities. BT have also set restrictions in PIA to say other operators cannot use the product for backhaul for mobile masts or wireless. So basically other operators can only use PIA to access properties in areas that are already relatively well served, and not make use of it to gain access to those who are in dire need of decent broadband.

All those involved in the industry can see BT gunning for a new monopoly, using broadband as a foot in the door. However recent governments, irrespective of colour, don't seem to have a problem with it, and continue to maintain arms-reach regulation over BT and continue to provide ready access to government funds to BT.

Well thanks to attitudes like that we are now second class citizens living in the countryside, no cable TV, ultra slow internet, and no competition and a fair and open market. Luckily BT sort out problems quickly around here, it's the only good thing around here.

Steady on GG, I live out of town too. Think we are effectively subsidised by town dwellers for bus/electric/broadband/post etc as it is. Yes, could ask for more but at least we don't have to smell them;)

Her very close friend Lord Young happened to be the chairman of Cable and Wireless.

Indeed it was and the infrastructure enables huge volumes of data and calls to be carried across the country at very high quality.