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.
UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
11–20 of 112 posts
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#12In 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....
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#13> 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, the…
Agree, and the BT monopoly is exactly what slowed down DSL deployment and speed in he UK 15 years ago.
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#14This 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…
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.
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#15In 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 w…
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.
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#16> 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, the…
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.
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#17> 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, the…
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…
https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/
About as accurate as you'll ever get.
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#18In 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 w…
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
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#19> 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, the…
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.
Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds
#20> 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.