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FTTC now live on Bentley (TBHT) exchange

I think 47Mbps equates to a line length of about 280m without any cross talk. I'd have thought it further than that. But, maybe it isn't?

Will be interesting to see how it performs. Pop back and tell us..
 
I think 47Mbps equates to a line length of about 280m without any cross talk. I'd have thought it further than that. But, maybe it isn't?

Will be interesting to see how it performs. Pop back and tell us..

I'll give you a guide. My line is 264m from the cabinet and I currently get a solid 72Mbps
 
I know many cases of people living 800m from the cabinet and getting 60Mbps+. Our line is in good condition too with a new line to the house installed a few years ago.
 
I'm not part of the steering group any more - there wasn't really anything for me to do after it became a 'State project'.

In fact I'm not really sure there is a group any more, most of the activity was about coming up with a parish plan in light of the new development.

There is a website which is really out of date now, it probably needs taking down as opposed to updating - I'll see if I can track down who is responsible.

So I'm trying to work out the answer to what seems a reasonable question - how fast will VDSL be? Bearing in mind we have "superfast speeds" already and that VDSL is not going to get anywhere near 4G's upstream speeds, so it matters, not least because of the long contracts, and that when we had ADSL, the Sync Rate was only about 42% of the predicted "supposed" rate for the line length which led us to ditching that and going over to 3G in the first place.

Here's our result set:

bb-speed-est.jpg


This doesn't tell me what speeds we'll get. I look at:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.html

Which has a table showing estimated speeds but oddly, based on 'distance to cabinet' which is an irrelevant metric, all that matters is line length, metal, gauge and quality. But assuming they mean 'line length' - the most optimistic of the speed results above correlates with a line length of 600m. So it should be seeing upstream estimates of 14Mbps, which is still slow (compared to 4G) but tolerable.

But the upstream speed estimates correlate with a line length of 1000m+. Which is how long I think the line is based on looking it up once in the database (on the BE site, IIRC - it used to give you the values). At that distance you're looking at 24Mbps down or less.

Flicking around various ISPs in List B on this page:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/te...e/broadband-speeds-cop-2010/list-of-isps-2010

The speeds quoted by ISPs vary, from 5 to 8 up, and either 27 down or 27 to 36 down. It doesn't seem to be possible to find out how fast it will be.

If there were no competition here, then I'd just have to order it anyway, but since there is, and it is equivalent to or better than VDSL, then this matters - I'd need to know just how far the speed will drop compared with what we currently have, but the way that the product is sold seems like "You're so very lucky to be able to have anything that you'll get what you're given and be jolly happy about it" ;)
 
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Hi Mark,

We would quote ourselves, for the example you gave 27.5Mbps to 29.1Mbps and 5.7Mbps to 7.2Mbps. In other words, we go down the middle of the data. Figures on the very low side quoted (such as 15Mbps) would normally pick something up in GEA tests.
 
Thanks. I was having a look at the OFCOM Code of Practice. This looks like a Code that was originally intended to support the consumer, but at some stage a couple of extra paragraphs got inserted (lobbying by the industry?) that dilute it to the point that if anything it works in favour of the ISP.

For example - I'd have thought it would read: for fixed line -

- Customer to be given two guaranteed speeds at sign up: out of peak hours, and peak hours.
- Customer to be told what peak hours are.
- If the throughput falls below those rates, customer may raise fault with ISP.
- After three successive fault reports, customer may leave without penalty
- If that happens in the first 3 months, customer is due a full refund of all money paid

This would enable the better ISPs - those which provide adequate capacity - to "shine" and show the customer what the difference might be between the cheap ones and the more expensive ones. In this respect it also protects the better ISPs. The "cheap" ones could either display "honest" peak time speeds, or, lie, and see their customer churn and losses skyrocket.

How it actually reads is:

- Customer to be given an estimate
- If following activation speed is not as estimate customer contacts ISP
- ISP may or may not act on this depending on their interpretation of some very vague wording in the Code about percentiles
- ISP is not bound to deliver what was estimated at any point
- ISP has up to 3 months to deliver or gets to cancel the contract and keep all the customer's money

What this actually does is force the entire industry to the lowest common denominator - price.

Does anyone know of any sites which show the D-side cable length?

Edit: I'd believed previously - E = 2500, D = 1286 = 3786m total, ADSL Max line sync 2,048kbps when we had it, neighbours (same pole, similar drop lengths) have ADSL2+ one at 1.6Mbps down and the other at 2.9Mbps down.

Looking now the AA website returns "Approximate line length 3556m" based on postcode alone (edge of postcode nearer exchange), so the figures above seem reasonable I guess.

Those appear to be what are driving the upstream figures as they're about right for the line length. The Range A top speed looks as if it takes the corresponding likely downstream rate and multiplies it by 2 in case the line is 1mm copper not 0.5 :)
 
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That's a good downstream result. The distance between you and the cabinet must be a fair bit shorter than I imagined it was.

You should really notice the upstream especially after ADSL. Emails and uploads - YouTube videos just fly along, the blue progress bar just goes from 0 to 100% instantly.
 
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See I think it might actually serve most of the residents of Lower Froyle quite nicely. I think 20Mb might be the lowest people might see.

I guess FTTC isn't as bad as you thought...
 
I've never really considered it. It has been years since I read that TCP-IP Networking book. IIRC in theory yes, it will go up, because the ping request will get queued along with all the other upstream and downstream packets. In the same manner if you had a maximum of 100 meg down and 100 meg up, you could see both results independently, but you wouldn't see both simultaneously.

You can prioritise certain traffic in some routers - for example to use QOS to prioritise VOIP traffic over everything else.
 
I really wish the upload was a bit better than 10Mb; I was hoping for nearer 20. I've never seen a 10Mb upload on 76Mb fibre actually.
 
Yes whjen I first went FTTC had a 79Mbps download and a 8Mbps upload now I get 58Mbps down and 16Mbps up

Don't always rely on TBB speedtester as that is crazy like BT.




Just now on an 80/20 product with a 58Mbps sunc.
 
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I really wish the upload was a bit better than 10Mb; I was hoping for nearer 20. I've never seen a 10Mb upload on 76Mb fibre actually.

I've seen plenty of posts from people with 5Meg upstream or less, it's not unusual. Though they tend to have longer line lengths.

The odd thing is that for the line length 10Mbps up is slightly low and yet the downstream you're getting is curiously high. You'd think the values would "work together" i.e. rise and fall as a pair. It may wander up and down perhaps. Crosstalk may bring both values down over time if you're one of the first to be connected.

The slow upstream is the killer and the main reason why I haven't signed up for it. Our forecast is between 3 and 7. I'm used to 40 or more.

Did you take a screen capture of your estimated upstream speed? You could perhaps report it as a fault.
 
The big problem is BT do not guarantee upstream speeds so they will not take faults on just upstream. OFCOM need to grow a pair and get that added in..

Infact I have loads of proof where a performance related slow speeds on downstream where on my ISP network my upstream is 10Mbps faster than when you re-login to test on BT's network.

Only change is the username changed from my ISP to BTspeedtester one, went to a friend who was having speed problems and helped her do the tests and same thing happened, upstream on her ISP 11Mbps changed to BT's and speed dropped to upstream fraction over 2Mbps which also made her downstream faster so they said no speed issue.

Fixed is what comes to mind I have a large database of results going over the months I have had this connection ecen failed on performance on BT test logins but upspeed still dropped to around 2Mbps.


Rip off BT and yes I do have shares in the company but looking to get shut of them, I would rather not support a company that will use this type of trick. Never yet had a BT test login result over 3Mbps on a 80/20 product it is like their tester is capped on TAP3.
 
Well we've got a fault so OR are coming out to visit tomorrow to hopefully repair it (interference problem).

I wonder what the uptake on our cabinet is like...
 
A few people have mentioned it to me, I don't know how many have taken it up. I did write a piece for the village magazine and half expect to be deluged with complaints from those VDSL doesn't reach e.g. Upper Froyle.

I did see an Openreach van pull up outside in our lane, the guy got out, stared at the pole, got back in and drove off.

A few hours later I saw another Openreach van pull up outside in our lane, the guy got out, stared at the pole, got back in and drove off.

I think they're busy pole staring. Either that or the DACS box and lack of spare pairs has something to do with it.

Maybe someone up the lane from us ordered it and it was pants.

But you'd expect to see cross-talk making an appearance by now causing errors and dropping speeds.
 
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