BT have been badgering me for some months to upgrade my Broadband package to Infinity.So, after getting another letter this morning (Plus, for the first time, what passes in BT for a glossy brochure) I made the relevant enquiries.

broadband service sites seem to say that I should get a speed of 14mbps (I think this is pretty poor for NW London) and tbis would seem to tally with official BT data on FTTC cabinet status:-

http://fttc-check.alc.im/

I notice the that speed uplift stated in BT's cabinet data shows only a 3.44 multiplier on existing services (Total broadband) in my locality and I'm only 1/2 a mile from the exchange. However, three miles away in another area (Where I used to live), the BT FTTC shows a speed uplift of 9, again for a location only 1/2 a mile from the exchange - and this area was notorious for flooding affecting the infrastructure.This web site :_

http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/postcode_checker/?gclid=CLbnjcrClLMCFXDLtAodRxoAaQ#products=postcode=HA53FG&advanced=1

shows my old address would receive a 16Mbps service from BT ? ? ?? ? Both locations are reported as being rolled-out under Phase 5a.

What's the explanation for this ?

Nick

Edited 22 October, 201213 yr by Clunkclick

I fail to see how they are discriminating? If you dislike BT so much, why not simply switch provider.

Because the houses most likely aren't cabled in a straight line, you can have like you say two houses the same distance from the exchange but the cable can take vastly different paths due to some going underground/overground, where ducting goes etc.

Also since its FTTC both properties may well have different distances from the CAB in the street cable run wise.

I fail to see how they are discriminating? If you dislike BT so much, why not simply switch provider.

Aw, don't say things like that, I quite enjoy Nick's rantings ramblings about why he dis-likes BT so much. ;)

Other sites appear to confirm the speed, so it's not BT "propaganda" that's being read. FTTC isn't FTTH either, so it's still reliant on copper for the last leg of the journey, which, being London, is probably the original 100 year-old stuff as installed.

It's also likely that the estimate is on the conservative side too. No-one has yet (although there's always a first time) complained if they got faster than the estimated speed. After companies being chastised for customers not getting advertised speeds, this would be reasonable course of action to take. Apparently my Virgin Media connection is supposed to be 100Mb, seem to have been clocking 105-110 recently, no cause for complaint or alarm there.

You think Nick is bad?? I read a tirade of hate aimed at Tescos yesterday - Why??

Because the guys local Tesco Express has stopped selling loose onions, and now he has to buy a pack of three!!!!!

In the three N/NW properties I have been in in the last 3 years the speeds have varied massively - with the same provider and service!

I've got infinity 2 and they told me I'd get 50mbps down and 12 up. I get 75mbps down and 17.5mbps up. So in my experience their figures are conservative. I got 3 to 3mbps on normal broadband if I was lucky.

Edited 22 October, 201213 yr by Schern

BT infinity way oot in the sticks!!, and this is on a bad day!

Edited 22 October, 201213 yr by slider

BT infinity way oot in the sticks!!, and this is on a bad day!

Is that Infinity 2 you've got there ? Are you on. A new housing estate ?

Nick

Now then, Now then.

For the record, I luvvvve all telecomms companies equally (in a politically correct way , of course) and the way they embrace open competition (Always, adjusting prices accordingly ):-

http://www.telegraph...ty-Council.html

Ps: Virgin is my alternate fibre supplier.

Next time I go out of the house I'll check the cabinet number provided by the FTTC database against the newly installed cabinet not 75 feet away - bit strange if that's the one they intend to connect me up to and its only offering what appears to be Infinity 1 @ 14Mbps (From what I can tell the number of people signed-up to Bt Broadband round here (BT FON map) are counted on the fingers of two hands, due to the prevalence of Virgin, so. I would suspect that contention issues would be low). and this is NW London and not Tannock brae.

Nick

Edited 23 October, 201213 yr by Clunkclick

Here's mine tested just now. I do have to try different servers though to get top results. This is on Infinity 2 and I'm in Peterborough so not the sticks but not exactly a bustling metropolis either!

Remember other providers also provide infinity based fttc. I have sky fibre unlimited, 40 mb downstream and 10 upstream. It's been excellent

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I think Plusnet and Sky offer FTTC fibre through my exchange so that might explain why they are offering Infinity 1 at only 14Mbps i.e. divided bandwidth, when infinity 1 can provide up to 25Mbps.

Not sure why they haven't offered me Infinity 2.

It might not be implemented round here in London (Bearing in mind BT seem to have first introduced the Infinity system outside London (South wales)).

I suspect that its the pricing. They are offering what appears to be an additional recurring cost-free transition to infinity 1, in that they have offered me Infinity 1 with evenings and weekend call package at £0.90 a month less than I'm currently paying for the the 5 Mbps Total broadband service with the same call package. So, they are hoping that by making the transition to infinity 1 financially painless in terms of monthly cost that I will take it up. However, they then go on to negate that meagre incentive by telling me that to get Infinity 1 I will have to pay a one-off application fee of £25 and pay £7 for the new Home Hub 3 modem i.e. I'd have to be on infinity 1 for in excess of 32 months before I broke even. Dohhh ! (Home Hub 2 was free !). So a nice bit of anti-competitive pricing there. Meanwhile they offer the same service to new customers at anything from £9 to £13 a month (depending on whether you're watching the TV ad or reading the info on their website), with the first six months free.

Lets be reasonable , as a BT customer of 27 years I'd be more than happy to accept the infinity 1 service at £9 a month, rather than the £18 they want to charge me.

Posctript

I can't see why BT or any other twisted-pair broadband service supplier should be able

To get away with this.They advertise and charge for a service as being say Infinity 1 rated @ 25 Mbps and then supply anything but that, with huge variances in delivery speeds, according to where you are in the country. There are huge unresolved Trades Description and contract issues here, which the authorities should be should be addressing. After all, this is the era of output economics when you're only supposed to charge for what you deliver. Accordingly, if service provider, for reasons beyond his control, cannot supply the service exactly as specified, but,nevertheless can provide some sort of service, whether better or worse, and that this arrangement is acceptable to the customer, then supply of the Service should go ahead on the principle that the service is graded and charge for accordingly.

So, if like me, you are being offered a 25Mbps service with over a third less throughput than the spec i.e. 14 MBps, then th charge should be reduced by a third, or thereabouts i.e. Like most wholesale markets operate.

Nick

Edited 24 October, 201213 yr by Clunkclick

I dunno what you're on about, "divided bandwidth"? As I understand it, Infinity is technically capable of providing a max of 40mbps downstream to every house connected to a particular cabinet, if every house had a perfect line. Your line is probably far from perfect, hence the speed estimate of 14mbps, Infinity still relies on the last leg being copper (i.e. street cabinet to your house) which is unfortunately probably the oldest, crappiest piece of copper in the entire chain. Your speeds will be boosted due to the fact that the majority of copper (i.e. exchange to street cab) is now a fibre link, however. This could also explain why you're not being offered Infinity 2; if the last leg of your phone line is so poor that you're only likely to get 14mbps, then there's no point offering you an "80mbps" product, because you will never be able to use the potential speed. Think back to the early days of ADSL (pre-DSLMax) where you had to choose the correct package based on your line capabilities; it's the same issue here. No one in the old days would have stopped you from paying for a 2mbps package when you got 512kbps, but you would be wasting your money. I assume BT just don't want complaints from idiots who don't understand what they're buying (the "I'm paying for 80mbps and getting 14, fix it or I'll sue" brigade you get with every ISP) so they simply won't sell you an 80mbps product if you can't even use the 40.

As for the pricing, given that a decent, standard ADSL2+ modem for use with a regular ISP costs anywhere up to £100, for you to get a new technology VDSL modem for £7 is a damn good deal. The technology is newer, and there's less demand, of course ISPs aren't quite at the point of being able to give them away for free but £7 is as good as free given the context. The application fee is annoying, yes, but then if price is your main driver then you should wait until it's more commonplace anyway. Infinity is only just past the "early adopters" phase really, so it will still come at a cost premium.

GAC

Speed of light response there.

Do you have some connection with the supply side of the industry ?

IMHO its poor marketing and pricing.

I don't know for a fact that they can't supply Infinity 2 -as I haven't asked.

But if they can only supply Infinity 1 to 2/3 of its spec then I shouldn't be paying topdolar-general rule of the marketplace.

Nick

Edited 24 October, 201213 yr by Clunkclick

I have no connection with the supply side at all, although I'm both a professional and recreational geek so it's my area to find out how things like this work. I just realised that you've edited again and marked the section you added. In future, a new post would probably be more appropriate though otherwise my advice could be taken totally out of context due to your sneaky editing

Infinity 1 isn't a "25Mbps" product, it's an "up to 40Mbps" product. Just like when DSLMax came along and everyone got switched to "up to 8Mbps" even if they could only get a fraction of that speed. Just because you can only receive 66% of the potential speed doesn't mean that you only represent 66% of the cost of provision. BT still have to upgrade your street cabinet at their expense. They still have to go through the expense of planning permission, contractors for the physical replacement. They still have to buy all new DSLAMs to go in the new cabinet. I assume they're also finding other expenses (even down to silly things like insurance etc, there's now more of a fire risk in the streets due to increased heat from more active kit than there was with ADSL, etc). All these costs are fixed. The transit bandwidth they use is probably charged on a volume basis rather than speed, so if we assume you download 50GB a month, it costs them exactly the same whether you do it at 14Mbps or the full Infinity 2 80Mbps, So they're quite correct to charge you the same as other customers. If you don't like that pricing, then you're free to keep your existing service, at least for now. By the time your current ADSL service is stopped completely, FTTC services will be "the norm" and down to single-figure prices per month, just like ADSL is now after starting out extortionaely priced.

I don't know for a fact that they can't supply Infinity 2 -as I haven't asked.

But if they can only supply Infinity 1 to 2/3 of its spec then I shouldn't be paying topdolar-general rule of the marketplace.

If you asked, then I think they would probably tell you it's unavailable. There is no point selling you an "up to 80" product when you can't even use the "up to 40" to its potential, it just means you'd be wasting your money on something you can't use.

See my post above for why the pricing isn't graded, but essentially the cost to BT for providing you with an FTTC is exactly the same whether you get 80mbps or 0.8, so while you still have a choice it's not unreasonable for them to pass those costs onto you until the service naturally becomes cheaper through economies of scale.

There appears to be 2 words missing from the above posts - UP TO this is their get out.

I'd like to see how other industries would fare with that get out.

I'm being offered 35% (14/40) of the full spec speed and being asked to pay full spec price - that's well short of "Up to"

All this might be a bit easier to swallow, if BT weren't using revenue from the likes of me to obscenely cross-subsidise new customers and if the new service offers were free of irritating minor on-costs. Then again, I 'm not a marketeer, how would I know what inhibits customers purchasing decisions.

Nick

I'm being offered 35% (14/40) of the full spec speed and being asked to pay full spec price - that's well short of "Up to"

Indeed, and I've explained why. I've suddenly remembered why I intended never to reply to one of your threads again.

Since I'm on a car forum, let me try and make this into an easy to understand car analogy:

You and I both go out and buy a new Skoda from the same dealer.

The specs say that the car is capable of 140mph

I do motorway driving, so I only ever do 70 max in mine. Yours is used solely for town driving, so you never go over 30.

Do either of our cars cost less to produce? Do either of them cost less to get to us, the customer? No they don't. Each is built on the same assembly line, then shipped on the same transporter to the same dealer. So we each pay exactly the same amount, but each have to accept that fact that we use a differing proportion of the cars true capability and neither of us is getting as good value-for-money as someone who lives in Germany and could do 140 up and down the autobahn all day.

Your broadband is the same. The costs incurred by BT to upgrade an area to FTTC are fixed, so the price should be fixed regardless of what speed you actually get out of it. If you don't like the price and don't feel it offers good value for money for what you would get, then don't upgrade, that's your prerogative. Simples.

Good try GAC, but slightly imperfect analogy since both cars would be capable of the same (roughly) whether or not you use them to the max. I guess the better analogy might be that both cars have the same fuel economy figures, but they never really match those due to variation in driving style, road conditions, weather etc etc etc

Phone lines have very variable quality, varying materials used (thick copper, thin copper, aluminium, copper mixed with aluminium etc), and the suppliers have absolutely no idea of how they are routed especially when dealing with very old network.

So there are broadly two options:

1) they can give you a rough idea using the "up to" basis - in my case the service is up to 40 Mb/s , they estimated I would get 25 Mb/s but when it went live it was at 39 mb/s.

2) they can tell you - look, we've no idea what speed your line, with your equipment with your internal wiring will produce. If you like we can do a detailed study and give you a better forecast but that will cost money and we'll either build it into the price or you can pay up front for it.

Guess what? No one is really interested in option 2 so we have option 1. Is it perfect? No. Is it workable? Yeah, pretty much.

Sorry but the OP seems to be looking for a very idealised solution and it's never going to happen (not with FTTC at least).

(and yes I do work in the industry)

I know it's not perfect. I've explained the line quality thing already in a post further up the thread, but in true Clunkclick style he's simply not listening and has ignored it at least once. I thought by condensing it into 5 lines he might actually pay attention to it, although I'm not holding my breath. His track record of listening to sensible advice on here is very poor, which is why I generally avoid his threads, I dunno how I managed to get so involved in this one...

This is what I get from Virgin Media on their Premium package.

It claims to offer speeds of up to 60Mb/s.

As you can see from the speedtest I just performed, thet live up to their claims.

If tou send me a PM ClunkClick I have some additional info for you.

Stats like this don't help:-

BT sales site (http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=25795) says that I should be able to get 59.8 mbps download on Infinity and 7mbps on Total Broadband - in fact. I'm only getting 4.7 on Total Broadband at the moment.

If you go to an independent site it site it says I will get 14Mbps on Infinity.

If you reference the BT FTTC database it says you will get your existing Total broadband download speed x a multiplier in my case the multiplier is quoted as 3.44 giving an Infinity speed of 16.17 mbps.

Which one do you rely on ?

Nick

I used to have 2 mb broadband, the fttc estimate was 25 mb but when delivered it was 39 mb. Only way to find out what your line can do is to order it.

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