UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds • Hacker News Board

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#21

Post by Blackstone4 » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

wafflebear wrote: post #15

Blackstone4 wrote: post #12

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 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.

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

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#22

Post by JonoW » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #10

signal11 wrote: post #6

> 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…

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.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#23

Post by wjoe » Wed, May 23, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

oldcynic wrote: post #8

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...

And yet BT is pretty much the definition of anti-competitive now anyway, and it's that monopoly which is killing progress today.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#24

Post by notheguyouthink » Wed, May 23, 2018, 3:00 PM UTC

LeonM wrote: post #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 ge…

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).

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#25

Post by bytematic » Wed, May 23, 2018, 3:01 PM UTC

LeonM wrote: post #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 ge…

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.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#26

Post by yankcrime » Wed, May 23, 2018, 3:05 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #10

signal11 wrote: post #6

> 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…

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

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#27

Post by dodobdob167 » Wed, May 23, 2018, 3:06 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #6

> 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…

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.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#28

Post by dodobdob167 » Wed, May 23, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #16

signal11 wrote: post #6

> 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. e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40481561

This was last summer. What time line do you expect?

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#29

Post by dingaling » Wed, May 23, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

rndmio wrote: post #18

Blackstone4 wrote: post #12

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 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 ADS…

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.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#30

Post by oldcynic » Wed, May 23, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #6

> 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…

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.