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Confused by difference in speeds of BT FTTC cabinets and real download speeds

cbdeakin

Regular Member
Basically, why is there such a big difference in average speeds between FTTC cabinets and the average / minimum FTTC speeds received by customers?

If you look at the table below, it suggests the average / minimum speeds are between 58-64mbps (for BT), for the higher tier FTTC products:


What I find odd about this is, how are the speeds reported above possible when the mean / median speeds of BT FTTC cabinets was measured to be between 27-32mbps in 2016?

Link here:

The technology in cabinets has remained much the same during this time, as far as I'm aware. If anything, shouldn't speeds reduce a little over time, as more customers subscribe to FTTC (increasing crosstalk/interference)?

Or, am I missing something?

EDIT - Maybe the cabinet average speed figures include some lines capped to 40mbps?
 
Last edited:
You're looking at two very different sets of data above and these should never be confused.

The first link (Ofcom) is using speed data gathered up to a customer's broadband router (more accurate but via a tiny sample size), while the second link is based on web-based speedtests conducted via Thinkbroadband and all the various caveats that entails (i.e. influence from slow WiFi, local network congestion etc.).
 
Yeah I think you are right, the download speed from the cabinets seems much to low because of way it was measured. Really not reliable or useful data in my view. Except that, there is a measurable difference between ECI and Huawei cabs.

Still, a much bigger difference than I would've thought between the two data sets. It certainly does highlight how much poor local networking performance and simultaneous usage in households can affect the speed received by customers.
 
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