Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

wired.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 112 posts

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#81

Post by solf1re »

signal11 wrote: post #74
Lio wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. BT didn't ignore FTTH because they thought it was a bad technology. BT invented _alot_ of technology that makes fibre deployments world wide cheap enough to be feasible, including fibre jetting. They didn't role it out because first of all they were barred from selling TV over fibre in the late 80s early 90s in favour of foreign cable companies. Those cable companies eventually merged to form Virgin Media. Late…

Gigaclear is deploying fiber to rural communities, for example: https://www.gigaclear.com/fibre-optic-gigaclear-network-for-... CityFibre is deploying fiber to a bunch of cities like Milton Keynes and Peterborough. I do agree that there are a number of ISPs, like Sky and Talktalk, who are content to ride on OpenReach's coattails and build no last-mile infrastructure of their own. Virgin Media do have their own last-m…

Sky and Talk Talk are already working with CityFibre in York for FTTH.[1][2].

[1]https://www.ultrafibreoptic.co.uk/ [2]https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/ufo/broadband

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#82

Post by oldcynic »

Lio wrote: post #60
oldcynic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 subseq…

This. BT didn't ignore FTTH because they thought it was a bad technology. BT invented _alot_ of technology that makes fibre deployments world wide cheap enough to be feasible, including fibre jetting. They didn't role it out because first of all they were barred from selling TV over fibre in the late 80s early 90s in favour of foreign cable companies. Those cable companies eventually merged to form Virgin Media. Late…

Not to forget the whole point of BT's 21st century network, or whatever they called it, was to get the whole backbone on TCP with hugely upgraded capacity in the expectation of nationwide FTTH. With initially 10, planned 100M connections in every house the backbone needed it. This at a time when half the population hadn't yet discovered dial-up.

Government couldn't see past the old world of cable and watching football, BT pretty clearly could see far past just the TV. It was popping up on the news pretty regularly in the late 80s along with all the interesting things it might bring.

Me, I just wanted to consign my BT Home Highway (128K ISDN) to the bin.

What we ended up with was a travesty with BT restricted to copper only and exchange sharing for ADSL. As someone else pointed out most of what they invented got sold off to S Korea.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#83

Post by isostatic »

pjc50 wrote: post #61
yankcrime wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a fascinating read, thanks! I see they're based here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-275016... in yet another disused nuclear bunker.

The guy who runs Bogons is Brandan Butterworth, who is credited with getting the BBC onto the internet in the 90s, and is currently "Chief Scientist" for BBC R&D.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#84

Post by isostatic »

arethuza wrote: post #40
rwnspace wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/ About as accurate as you'll ever get.

Doesn't work terribly well for new houses though! Was amazed to see quite expensive new houses (£500K+) with no access to broadband available.

My new house (well 2 years old now) came with fibre into the hall cupboard (and cat5 to every room), I'd assume that FTTP is default with newbuild

Most ISPs don't seem geared up for FTTP, so it's good for BT, as most people will just go with them.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#85

Post by isostatic »

Rjevski wrote: post #48
ksec wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had three few provider and different tech, unless I have a need of 1Gbps+ broadband speed in the future, I would much rather have copper RJ11 or RJ45. Copper Ethernet RJ45 is the best. No more modem, just plug and play. Installing a Ethernet cable is, assuming enough space in the pipe, can be easily pulled through using whatever force you like, I don't think you can actually do any damage to the cable while in…

New builds in France don't have telephone wires for example, if an alternative is available ( real fibre) they just install that instead.

Assuming they're the same as my home, they come with a battery backup unit which powers the landlines (as landline phones are normally powered from the exchange - and thus work in power cuts)

Of course people who still have landlines nowdays probably have cordless ones that require a powered base station, but I assume that at least in the UK, the line must be left powered during power cuts.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#86

Post by isostatic »

bytematic wrote: post #25
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.

So what latency did you have? I find it hard to believe it was more than 30ms to a nearby pop. Did you have some half-duplex link somewhere?

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#87

Post by kingosticks »

Hyperoptic is another niche fibre provider that are only present in parts of major UK cities (30ish apparently). They offer 1Gbps over their own daisy-chained network. Their pricing is good and the performance is great (so far) compared to Virgin. As always, it's just the availability that's lacking.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#88

Post by walshemj »

pjc50 wrote: post #57
ksec wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had three few provider and different tech, unless I have a need of 1Gbps+ broadband speed in the future, I would much rather have copper RJ11 or RJ45. Copper Ethernet RJ45 is the best. No more modem, just plug and play. Installing a Ethernet cable is, assuming enough space in the pipe, can be easily pulled through using whatever force you like, I don't think you can actually do any damage to the cable while in…

> Copper Ethernet RJ45 is the best Not to be That Guy, but RJ45 is a plug standard; normal ethernet cable is "cat5" or "cat6", and normal 10/100/1000 Ethernet is limited to just 100 meters. Which is completely useless given the average cabinet distances in the UK.

Think the OP meant ethernet last mile which on copper is 2BASE-TL or more likely 10PASS-TS

Though I suspect that most ELM is delivered over fibre and the CPE just presents a RJ45 fo ryou to plug your TOR Router into.

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#89

Post by walshemj »

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…

The Usual case of MP's with zero technical knowledge FTC make much more sense economically - if the Govemnet wants it has to give something back other wise why as a share holder should I pay for it.

TBH 11 Mbs is fine for a consumer do they realy need more I only get 3.8 or so and I only ever have the odd hang on iplayer every 9 months

Re: UK ISPs have to stop lying about broadband speeds

#90

Post by walshemj »

tialaramex wrote: post #67
arethuza wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't work terribly well for new houses though! Was amazed to see quite expensive new houses (£500K+) with no access to broadband available.

House builders are told (unless they're literally building just one or two homes) to call BT at the start. For any large site, or where it's no trouble anyway, BT will run fibre to the new builds for IIRC free, the builder needs to make sure there are the right ducts etcetera in the ground, then a van shows up and blows fibre. But guess how many people in house building remember to do that? So instead they have the h…

One of my friends parents a couple of decades ago brought an architect designed house and the designers/contractors neglected to put in any ducting!

Took them ages to get POTS - You can see why Civil engineers make Architect jokes

Post reply on HN