Internet and speeds

[Smallfry]

Back on the air again after a week without internet. Has been quite liberating though, not wasting so much time. On the other hand, not being able to find out stuff or order anything has been a real bummer. I grew up with no internet, or even a phone until I was seventeen, and this makes me realise how much we are dependent on it now.

But anyway. We are at the end of a 5.5km copper line, and speed has never been great .... 1 meg if we were lucky, and a real handicap as SWMBO works from home mostly. Latest engineer, a Nepalese ex Gurkha, found a junction box in a manhole up the lane, which has been covered in mud for years, and found the whole lot full of water. Apparently the joints are water resistant, but not meant for constant immersion. He fixed that, and we now have a mind boggling 3 meg !

The difference is startling. Can only wonder what high speed fibre would be like.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

I grew up with no internet, or even a phone until I was seventeen,

I suspect that's also true of a lot of folk on here...but mostly because those things didn't exist .

 

[gaz1]

Back on the air again after a week without internet. Has been quite liberating though, not wasting so much time. On the other hand, not being able to find out stuff or order anything has been a real bummer. I grew up with no internet, or even a phone until I was seventeen, and this makes me realise how much we are dependent on it now.

But anyway. We are at the end of a 5.5km copper line, and speed has never been great .... 1 meg if we were lucky, and a real handicap as SWMBO works from home mostly. Latest engineer, a Nepalese ex Gurkha, found a junction box in a manhole up the lane, which has been covered in mud for years, and found the whole lot full of water. Apparently the joints are water resistant, but not meant for constant immersion. He fixed that, and we now have a mind boggling 3 meg !

The difference is startling. Can only wonder what high speed fibre would be like.

oh ive been there and had the techs and rows with bt about it

1/2 meg for me too far away from the exchange to receive any faster than that then got a loverly threatening letter saying that i was using more than i should over 2 meg supply so they was going to charge me another 60.00 on top of the price that i already payed them

i had to go through managers and there techs to again prove that i couldnt receive what they said i was receiving and as i had loads of tests i could well and truly prove it
bt didnt like speedtest or there results that i can tell you

soon after that i upgraded to 35meg and droped bt down to surftime as it was called then reducing bts bill and that didnt go down well either

and to go from 1 meg to 35meg was heaven

 

[pedrobedro]

A friend of mine was getting under a meg on EE when he should have been getting double figures so I told him to ring them. The chap on the phone told him it was likely due to his distance from the exchange. My friend told him straightaway he could throw a brick through the exchange window from his front door, it is literally across the road. Before the end of the day he was up to 12mb.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

What's the price of starlink these days?...can't 3 or 4 neighbours just club together and create a better connection maybe...subject to terms and conditions I guess.

 

[8ob]

The difference is startling. Can only wonder what high speed fibre would be like.

One of our lads lives out in the sticks in an annex of a large house, tenants of the main house moved away which left him with no Internet so he bought one of the new internet anywhere gadgets. He reckons it's faster than the fibre that he has had the use of for years and not too spendy either.

Bob

 

[Robotstar5]

Back on the air again after a week without internet. Has been quite liberating though, not wasting so much time. On the other hand, not being able to find out stuff or order anything has been a real bummer. I grew up with no internet, or even a phone until I was seventeen, and this makes me realise how much we are dependent on it now.

But anyway. We are at the end of a 5.5km copper line, and speed has never been great .... 1 meg if we were lucky, and a real handicap as SWMBO works from home mostly. Latest engineer, a Nepalese ex Gurkha, found a junction box in a manhole up the lane, which has been covered in mud for years, and found the whole lot full of water. Apparently the joints are water resistant, but not meant for constant immersion. He fixed that, and we now have a mind boggling 3 meg !

The difference is startling. Can only wonder what high speed fibre would be like.

It's night and day, I got fibre to the house a few years ago and the biggest difference I found was upload speed, I back up a lot of photo's to "the cloud" and on the copper lines I would start the upload before going to bed as it would take hours, now it takes a few minutes.

 

[skotl]

It's night and day, I got fibre to the house a few years ago and the biggest difference I found was upload speed, I back up a lot of photo's to "the cloud" and on the copper lines I would start the upload before going to bed as it would take hours, now it takes a few minutes.

Same here. We had a copper line coming to an actual telegraph pole in the back garden, and had 3-20Mb/sec depending on time of day.

I was astonished when I checked last year on the availability of fibre and they said they could run that to the house, no charge. Even more astonished that they ran kevlar reinforced fibre through the trees from the telegraph pole up the road to our pole, and into the side of the house. Now we have around 800Mb/sec in both directions. All for £30 a month with plusnet.

 

[Morris]

Same here. We had a copper line coming to an actual telegraph pole in the back garden, and had 3-20Mb/sec depending on time of day.

I was astonished when I checked last year on the availability of fibre and they said they could run that to the house, no charge. Even more astonished that they ran kevlar reinforced fibre through the trees from the telegraph pole up the road to our pole, and into the side of the house. Now we have around 800Mb/sec in both directions. All for £30 a month with plusnet.

I've just checked here and we can now get full fibre. They have been doing a lot lately putting up what I assumed was normal copper wire but it's obviously fibre. It runs through our holly tree!
Getting rid of the landline (we only get spammers on it) and 700meg will be cheaper than the 20 at best we get now

 

[Dev]

Starlink is £75/mo I think, or was when I had it.

As part of their ‘commitment’ to full fibre I was able to get Openreach to survey my house for connection, which was damn decent of them. I kept a copy:

As the designated universal service provider for the UK (except Hull), we were chosen as the most capable and efficient business to deliver universal service upgrades, but these are expensive and there are significant engineering challenges. These are broken down in the table below:

Cost Category ​	Total ​	Description ​
Planning and Survey	£13,700.92 ​	This is the beginning of the process; the costs relate to labour and resource for Openreach staff and planners who will survey the area and plan the best network route.
Civil Engineering	£18,882.91 ​	Whether it’s digging up roads and pavements, running cables overhead and trimming trees, or negotiating permission to close roads and dig on private land, civil engineering work can increase costs.
Cabling	£55,820.06 ​	This is the cost of fibre cables and the labour cost for laying it. The cabling would go from your local exchange to the premises included in the build.
Total Cost:	£88,404 ​	This is the total cost of the build excl VAT
BT Contribution	£17,000 ​	This is the deduction to the total cost of the network build through the BT contribution USO funding entitlement
Actual Cost	£85,684.8​	This is the total cost of the build, following the USO industry funding deduction incl VAT

We appreciate this is a lot of money - if you decide this isn’t for you, there are still other ways of getting faster broadband which could work better for you such as community fibre partnerships, where you can take advantage of Government vouchers, or satellite broadband.  

If you’d like to go ahead with the network upgrade, we’ll need to take payment up front.

My house is 100m from one of their fibre cabinets with 2 fields inbetween. If you followed the path of the road its about 180m. A serious engineering challenge it seems.

A year later another provider, though not the most capable and efficient business of course, delivered fibre to the premises for no installation fee and £40/mo for 500mb

Fun fact: while BT are regulated by Ofcom, Openreach, which is a completely separate company, not the same at all, pinky swear, is **not** regulated by Ofcom so if you have an any issue with them you’re on your own.

 

[ukracer]

One of our lads lives out in the sticks in an annex of a large house, tenants of the main house moved away which left him with no Internet so he bought one of the new internet anywhere gadgets. He reckons it's faster than the fibre that he has had the use of for years and not too spendy either.

Bob

We use EE with a sim card in the router while in the caravan. We used to use an huawei phone but this sim card is paid in advance. We stream all sorts and constantly and always get a decent speed.

 

[frank horton]

I want starlink but she insits that Vodaphone via a sim will do the job.....and for the first time ever after hours on the phone V/phone tweaked the wifi box we got 50mbps quite reliably....
until the tweak we had 12'ish.....why can't they just sort the prob out in the first place...

Star Link here is 29 euros pmonth for the general service....if the system is mad busy it will slow down....
If u get the premium service at 49 p/m it will never slow down...their speed averages out at 300mbps I'm told here....
no idea what their general speed is as nobody I know has it...

 

[knighty]

What's the price of starlink these days?...can't 3 or 4 neighbours just club together and create a better connection maybe...subject to terms and conditions I guess.

I'm paying £75 a month for mine

we're too far away to get fiber or decent dsl

there's no real choice of packages, they're all you get what speed you get and £75 a month

if you're in a very congested area you can pay extra for some priority traffic, but I think it's only any use if you're in an area where a LOT of people have starkink

 

[addjunkie]

We are on starlink due to a 6500 yard copper cable. About 220 down and 25 up, very usable but its £75…Also supplies two holiday cottages with out issue.

Did go 4g first on an unlimited sim through a directional amplifier ariel wasn't bad. About 50meg

 

[Dev]

I did find out recently (from an email from Starlink) that I can take my Uk kit anywhere they have coverage and use it on a PAYG basis for £50 for 50gb, which would be good for a campervan or holiday home.