I did a 511 MB file @ 44 seconds at an average of 11.4 MB/s

I love these threads

I knew there is a good reason for me not liking you

On a serious note, this is some speed you having there. I wish I could have half of it at my flat

I knew there is a good reason for me not liking you

There plenty more reasons than that

There plenty more reasons than that

Well this is enough for me, download speed of over a 100, this will keep me awake all night now

Oh good Oh those good old CDs, I remember those, along with AOL's ones being everwhere. You could even find them orphaned on the shelves in Sainsburys

[snip]

I still have one of those AOL CDs, kept for its brilliant instructions - see step 1...

I often wondered if anyone actually tried it.

How the hell are you downloading on bt? Mother in law on infinity and can't get more than 3kbps downloading torrents on a 40mb connection-!

With that sort of speed I would proxy all my fathers internet traffic in an attempt to stop him constantly infecting his computers with evils!

I did a 511 MB file @ 44 seconds at an average of 11.4 MB/s

I love these threads

Took you longer than usual to post that.

Took you longer than usual to post that.

I know, I waited until I got home as work is poor, I especially like letting Babs see it !!

Handily for me BT have plonked a Fibre Cabinet just outside of my house which is going live mid June, handier still is the news Sky are launching their Fibre product next month.

As a current Sky BB user this should give me a nice easy upgrade path!

FTTC is being pushed to 80mbps this year and FTTH is being launched as an on demand product (i'm assuming as long as you are somewhere near a Fibre enabled street cabinet) and as posted before it will have a top speed of 330mbps.

They all use 'up to' in the wording, but it seems BT are well under par, more so than most others IME, and I've seen a few lol

the reason they use "up to" is that every line is different so there is no way they can know what speed you can get.

and as for the profits, the trouble is we all want to get the benefit of billions of pounds that it would take to deliver really fast speeds everywhere, but one of us is prepared to pay more for getting those benefits. The ISPs aren't charities.

I was speaking to a BT engineer who was installing the cab around the corner from me and he said they've been told to install it all at 160 capable and that he had personally done tests where it was running even faster.

They're looking at starting it at 40, then doubling the speeds with plenty of head room to go further.

The weak link in FTTC is always going to be that last short run of copper/tin and the ISP throttling people.

I have BT infinity and before i was getting 6mg and now getting 36mb. I suppose i would see the benefits of the extra speed if i downloaded films.

I have read that for an additional cost BT will run a length of fibre to your house, I guess from the cabinet on the street and charge an installation free (I assume one off).

Now I quite fancy that.... mmmm, coupled with Sky Fibre, not sure I trust BT Infinity!

I have read that for an additional cost BT will run a length of fibre to your house, I guess from the cabinet on the street and charge an installation free (I assume one off).

Now I quite fancy that.... mmmm, coupled with Sky Fibre, not sure I trust BT Infinity!

You couldn't get that direct from Openreach (they are the ones who would install the fibre), so you could only get it if your ISP had such a deal with BT. BT are supposed to offer access to their ducts using the PIA product but the trials haven't gone too well, most of the ducts are full to bursting (so much for BT's capacity planning rules), and anyway the terms imposed on use make it fairly difficult for ISPs to get a business case to stack up.

I watched a parliamentary meeting between some communication committee and the former chief technical office for BT:

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=10560

He wittered on and on about how the UK was so far behind other countries, FTTC was a massive mistake, BT should be concentrating on FTTH and we needed 100MBPS minimum.

I pretty much disagreed with everything he said!

He wants to open up the ducts for anyone to install their own fibre, impossible.

He wants symmetrical 100MBPS for everyone but I really can't see why 99.999999% of consumers would need this.

From what I could read into it he lives in a small posh village who have slow broadband and he was cheesed off that BT wouldn't let him put a private enterprise together to install their own.

I bet if he lived in a new build with a FTTH connection he couldn't give a toss what the average BB speed is in the UK!

You couldn't get that direct from Openreach (they are the ones who would install the fibre), so you could only get it if your ISP had such a deal with BT. BT are supposed to offer access to their ducts using the PIA product but the trials haven't gone too well, most of the ducts are full to bursting (so much for BT's capacity planning rules), and anyway the terms imposed on use make it fairly difficult for ISPs to get a business case to stack up.

It may well have been some BT Business website I was reading at the time. Not sure to be honest, but I know I read it.

It may well have been some BT Business website I was reading at the time. Not sure to be honest, but I know I read it.

You're correct, as I mentioned in my previous post they will be doing fibre to the premises/home on demand.

Bet it will be expensive though!

It may well have been some BT Business website I was reading at the time. Not sure to be honest, but I know I read it.

aye but it will be an end to end BT service was what I meant, you will not be able to couple it with Sky broadband.

aye but it will be an end to end BT service was what I meant, you will not be able to couple it with Sky broadband.

Shame, as a a fully opened up FTTP would be great..... I guess one can dream!

Actually 100% FTTH would be great, hugely beneficial to the consumer.

Instead of thinking of using the Fibre for just Internet usage, the same fibre could deliver IPTV/VOD services of HD content to all, massively opening up the Pay TV market in the UK, Several voice connections could also be provided over the same connection.

Actually 100% FTTH would be great, hugely beneficial to the consumer.

Instead of thinking of using the Fibre for just Internet usage, the same fibre could deliver IPTV/VOD services of HD content to all, massively opening up the Pay TV market in the UK, Several voice connections could also be provided over the same connection.

Not to mention fast VPNs between locations, great for backing up your data and operating a decent VDI style environment....

Not to mention fast VPNs between locations, great for backing up your data and operating a decent VDI style environment....

hmm well if it is all so essential then why has no one invested the many many billions needed? Answer? Because residential consumers just want a nice cheap service that does what they need. Businesses by and large have all the fibre they need.

One hurdle we face in the UK that they don't in other countries is that as soon as you light a fibre you have to pay business rates on it. So the government make all the right noises about great broadband, but then they tax it out of existence. The only exemptions from this are BT (rated on their overall profit on the network), and Virgin (rated per home passed by the network). The Labour government promised to fix this by 2003 at the latest (never happened), and the Tories gave great speeches before being elected, and then promptly dropped all their promises to look at it.

hmm well if it is all so essential then why has no one invested the many many billions needed? Answer? Because residential consumers just want a nice cheap service that does what they need. Businesses by and large have all the fibre they need.

Rolling out a national fibre network would cost billions like you say, as did the original copper network in place now, why was the copper rolled out nationally? because it was done not for profit but paid for by the Taxpayer during the old GPO days when the phone network was Gov owned.

They effectively gave the copper network to BT who wont dip their hands into their pocket to roll out a full fibre network for two reasons:

the ROI would be far too long for BT to care about it, in the long run it would hurt BT's revenues vastly as effectively phone calls would become free for all.

It really needs to be paid for by the Gov, they have enough money set aside to do this, its currently being spent on that stupid train to get people from London to Birmingham quickly. While the UK ends up in the lower ends of the worldwide broadband speed tables.

My point was that in order to get anyone to stump up the massive sums required (whether they be investor or taxpayer), you really need to be able to demonstrate a good reason for it. I have spent a lot of time debating this issue with politicians and officials (I work in the industry) and they all talk about economic benefits and the need for business to be competitive - and they use that as an argument for a residential product. In reality the political pressure such as it is, to do this, comes from an attitude that we have to be bigger / better/ faster / whatever, than X country. I once heard someone say the investment was needed to deliver HD TV pictures - but why we need another HD platfom was not explained.

The problem is that people like the sound of more, faster, whatever it may be, but they have also got used to paying the levels they have been paying. I wouldn't expect to be able to buy a top end supercar for the same price as an entry level Fabia but for some reason when it comes to broadband, that seems to be roughly what people do expect. But back to my point, until we stop taxing our fibre networks we haven't got much hope of rolling out other than to the most commercially attractive areas.

aye but it will be an end to end BT service was what I meant, you will not be able to couple it with Sky broadband.

Would Sky not be able to "lease" the fibre from BT / Openreach (whoever owns it) the same as they do now with the copper?