7 ms·

I don't agree. BT have got to 95% 'superfast' (24mbit+ sec) coverage, with minimal govt funding. It will probably get to 98% coverage. Try switching from Virgi

I don't agree. BT have got to 95% 'superfast' (24mbit+ sec) coverage, with minimal govt funding. It will probably get to 98% coverage. Try switching from Virgin to BT/openreach FTTx and you'll probably see much more reliable speeds. FWIW I have hyperoptic in London which is ~£45/month for 1gigabit up and down. edit: keep in mind the NZ project cost NZ$1.5bn subsidy to get to 87% penetration for ~1million premises. The UK has got to 95%+ penetration (>20million premises) for £600m ish subsidy. It's literally 20x the cost.

te_chris 9y ago
You're one of the lucky ones. I don't consider the 'fibre' crap they offer, FTTN then vdsl, to be 'fibre', so the comparison you make is misleading. If the UK gov had got 95% FTTH they might have something to be proud of.
- walshemj 9y ago
  But FTTH as opposed to FTTC (Fibre to the cab) a lot more expensive and the "subs" are not keen on paying for FTTH. Whos going to pay for this extra infrastructure.
  - te_chris 9y ago
    That was in my first post: The govt. should pay, or at least subsidise, as it's a national infrastructure investment. The UK is one of the world's leading tech nations, mostly due to London and the research universities, but the broadband is rubbish. If the govt. is prepared to write what looks like a blank cheque for HS2, why not throw a few billion pounds at FTTH?
    - martinald 9y ago
      Why? It's likely to be tens of billions of £ to move from FTTC to FTTH, which very few people would even notice.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      There are better uses of tax money than upgrading grans line to FTTH when all she uses it for is to call her daughter and family on the phone. and why does consumer bb speeds effect th UK's status as a leading tech nation - not treating engineers and scientists as second class citizens would do far more.
- martinald 9y ago
  I honestly can't tell the difference between 80/20 FTTN and 1gig FTTH for 99% of use cases. Both support HD conferencing and 4K video with ease. WiFi tends to struggle to deliver above 100meg reliably regardless (especially in dense urban environments, or conversely old rural homes with very thick walls). Keep in mind BT is starting an aggressive Gfast rollout and has a slow and steady FTTH program also running. Personally I don't think it's worth the UK govt spending £30bn+ on FTTH as I believe the commercial sector will get there, especially when FTTC is so widespread.
  - nimish 9y ago
    Wifi struggles hard in British buildings but the difference between 80/20 and 1gbps is huge: worry free multiple streaming or uploads or anything involving more than one person or even 4k streaming for one person The upload does matter with everyone uploading videos and high resolution pics plus game streaming. It also helps a ton if you have the odd 200GB genome you need to archive somewhere :)
    - martinald 9y ago
      Ok, I don't know if this use case justifies many billions spend on it from government funds. Netflix's top 4K stream uses 25mbit/sec. How many households have multiple 4K TVs in use at once?
      - nimish 9y ago
        ...How many families with kids streaming 2 different shows to their ipads/phones/laptops do you know? + Parents streaming video? Maybe one of them streaming a game on twitch? It adds up. Copper is far less reliable at distance than fiber (the amount of people able to get 80mbps is < 10%). And government is totally incentivized to spend money on a natural monopoly with an immense RoI. Rural areas are basically disconnected from high end internet activities. If you build a fast national network, it will pay off. And for the record, the cost to full fiber the UK is less than the government plans to spend on HS2, a single rail link between birmingham and london.
wastedhours 9y ago
I live in Zone 1 (less than 1/2 mile from an exchange) and still don't have fibre, and get less than 300kbps in the evenings with BT some days (max quoted, 16Mb). Fibre isn't even planned for our cabinet yet, so it strikes me as surprising we're at 95% coverage.
- martinald 9y ago
  Ironically these super central London locations are often really badly served as they are all on exchange only lines with no PCP in-between. BT also has a massive leased line base in these areas they want to maintain. I agree this is really poor and BT should resolve this ASAP.
  - Mindwipe 9y ago
    The lack of a plan for EO lines is definitely becoming quite the problem.
    - martinald 9y ago
      There is a plan, Openreach are either building new cabinets or doing full FTTP. The problem in Central London is that there is often very few residential connections to justify it (though I agree that a lot of people could switch from expensive leased lines if it was available).
- dx034 9y ago
  I guess the problem is that so few people live in the city that it compares for BT to a small village. Businesses usually will have dedicated lines so it's not really worth going after the few people living there (esp as many use it as a second home which shortens average contract duration).
  - cannam 9y ago
    "Zone 1" is not the same thing as the City -- it has a population probably close to half a million people.
gmac 9y ago
I tried BT's "fibre" for a year, and I probably never will again. When it was connected, the speed was as advertised. But it disconnected several times a day, sometimes for half an hour at a time, and they didn't seem able to fix it. Relying on decades old copper wire seems like it will never work.
- martinald 9y ago
  You should try AAISP. They are very technically savvy and will bully openreach relentlessly to get it fixed. They offer to refund all costs if they can't. They almost certainly can, with time.
  - gmac 9y ago
    Yeah. I have thought about it. They're just a lot more expensive than the big guys, at least when you factor in cashback etc, and with data caps.
dx034 9y ago
I agree, switching to BT makes a big difference. With virgin, I rarely got the advertised speed (certainly not on the weekend or evenings), with BT it's stable 24/7 (~60mbit). In addition to that, peering appears much better. Downloading files from US west coast works generally at very good speed, any connections to servers in the US from Virgin Media was often <10mbit. Apart from downloading backups, I never find myself constrained by 70mbit download speed.
SXX 9y ago
> I don't agree. BT have got to 95% 'superfast' (24mbit+ sec) coverage, with minimal govt funding. It will probably get to 98% coverage. Is BT still have awful bandwidth limits? Because like 3-4 years ago they capped you at like 300GB and then cut your speed next month or something like that.
- dx034 9y ago
  I don't think so. I regularly download >1TByte/month and never got capped.
  - SXX 9y ago
    Thanks. Probably they no longer practice that. I just got letters from them telling they'll decrease my level of service since I got over 300GB this month, but that was 4 years ago and on xSDL (many areas fairly close to London city still had only xDSL then).
    - martinald 9y ago
      Keep in mind there are many other providers for Openreach FTTx (though BT retail don't cap anymore). I'm refering to BT fibre as really openreach fibre. Sky, Vodafone, etc etc all provide the service also.
- ollie87 9y ago
  Once did a couple of Terabytes in a month on BT, didn't have an issue.
nemof 9y ago
my own experiences of BT have made me leery of using them. their customer service is utterly appalling. just consistently, every single time i've had to deal with them, help a friend or family member sort out their bs, it's a horror. we even had to move our business away from their service because we just couldn't have meetings and do screenshares consistently. even if i wanted bt fibre, i live in the center of a large city in the uk, and i cant get fttc because im on the wrong street. one street over they can get fibre, mine, not a chance - and no plans to according to openreach either. similar issue with where our office is located. wrong street. no fibre. a few streets over, fibre. virgin on the other hand, i have their 200/20 package. consistently max out the connection no problem. had them for years and they've consistently performed above expectations - i even remember when they were called blue yonder.
jrb2018 9y ago
They're probably running fibre cabling for the same geographical distance as here considering NZ is slightly larger in area. So yes, it's 20 times the premises, but I think calling that 20x the cost is a bit of a stretch. You'd have have to calculate the additional cost from street-to-house for the additional 19 million premises versus the difference in running the cable the length of each country to prove that 20x number. Side note: just left BT. Hate their service, never go back.

te_chris 9y ago

You're one of the lucky ones. I don't consider the 'fibre' crap they offer, FTTN then vdsl, to be 'fibre', so the comparison you make is misleading. If the UK gov had got 95% FTTH they might have something to be proud of.

walshemj 9y ago
But FTTH as opposed to FTTC (Fibre to the cab) a lot more expensive and the "subs" are not keen on paying for FTTH. Whos going to pay for this extra infrastructure.
- te_chris 9y ago
  That was in my first post: The govt. should pay, or at least subsidise, as it's a national infrastructure investment. The UK is one of the world's leading tech nations, mostly due to London and the research universities, but the broadband is rubbish. If the govt. is prepared to write what looks like a blank cheque for HS2, why not throw a few billion pounds at FTTH?
  - martinald 9y ago
    Why? It's likely to be tens of billions of £ to move from FTTC to FTTH, which very few people would even notice.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    There are better uses of tax money than upgrading grans line to FTTH when all she uses it for is to call her daughter and family on the phone. and why does consumer bb speeds effect th UK's status as a leading tech nation - not treating engineers and scientists as second class citizens would do far more.
martinald 9y ago
I honestly can't tell the difference between 80/20 FTTN and 1gig FTTH for 99% of use cases. Both support HD conferencing and 4K video with ease. WiFi tends to struggle to deliver above 100meg reliably regardless (especially in dense urban environments, or conversely old rural homes with very thick walls). Keep in mind BT is starting an aggressive Gfast rollout and has a slow and steady FTTH program also running. Personally I don't think it's worth the UK govt spending £30bn+ on FTTH as I believe the commercial sector will get there, especially when FTTC is so widespread.
- nimish 9y ago
  Wifi struggles hard in British buildings but the difference between 80/20 and 1gbps is huge: worry free multiple streaming or uploads or anything involving more than one person or even 4k streaming for one person The upload does matter with everyone uploading videos and high resolution pics plus game streaming. It also helps a ton if you have the odd 200GB genome you need to archive somewhere :)
  - martinald 9y ago
    Ok, I don't know if this use case justifies many billions spend on it from government funds. Netflix's top 4K stream uses 25mbit/sec. How many households have multiple 4K TVs in use at once?
    - nimish 9y ago
      ...How many families with kids streaming 2 different shows to their ipads/phones/laptops do you know? + Parents streaming video? Maybe one of them streaming a game on twitch? It adds up. Copper is far less reliable at distance than fiber (the amount of people able to get 80mbps is < 10%). And government is totally incentivized to spend money on a natural monopoly with an immense RoI. Rural areas are basically disconnected from high end internet activities. If you build a fast national network, it will pay off. And for the record, the cost to full fiber the UK is less than the government plans to spend on HS2, a single rail link between birmingham and london.

wastedhours 9y ago

I live in Zone 1 (less than 1/2 mile from an exchange) and still don't have fibre, and get less than 300kbps in the evenings with BT some days (max quoted, 16Mb). Fibre isn't even planned for our cabinet yet, so it strikes me as surprising we're at 95% coverage.

martinald 9y ago
Ironically these super central London locations are often really badly served as they are all on exchange only lines with no PCP in-between. BT also has a massive leased line base in these areas they want to maintain. I agree this is really poor and BT should resolve this ASAP.
- Mindwipe 9y ago
  The lack of a plan for EO lines is definitely becoming quite the problem.
  - martinald 9y ago
    There is a plan, Openreach are either building new cabinets or doing full FTTP. The problem in Central London is that there is often very few residential connections to justify it (though I agree that a lot of people could switch from expensive leased lines if it was available).
dx034 9y ago
I guess the problem is that so few people live in the city that it compares for BT to a small village. Businesses usually will have dedicated lines so it's not really worth going after the few people living there (esp as many use it as a second home which shortens average contract duration).
- cannam 9y ago
  "Zone 1" is not the same thing as the City -- it has a population probably close to half a million people.

gmac 9y ago

I tried BT's "fibre" for a year, and I probably never will again. When it was connected, the speed was as advertised. But it disconnected several times a day, sometimes for half an hour at a time, and they didn't seem able to fix it. Relying on decades old copper wire seems like it will never work.

martinald 9y ago
You should try AAISP. They are very technically savvy and will bully openreach relentlessly to get it fixed. They offer to refund all costs if they can't. They almost certainly can, with time.
- gmac 9y ago
  Yeah. I have thought about it. They're just a lot more expensive than the big guys, at least when you factor in cashback etc, and with data caps.

dx034 9y ago

I agree, switching to BT makes a big difference. With virgin, I rarely got the advertised speed (certainly not on the weekend or evenings), with BT it's stable 24/7 (~60mbit). In addition to that, peering appears much better. Downloading files from US west coast works generally at very good speed, any connections to servers in the US from Virgin Media was often <10mbit. Apart from downloading backups, I never find myself constrained by 70mbit download speed.

SXX 9y ago

> I don't agree. BT have got to 95% 'superfast' (24mbit+ sec) coverage, with minimal govt funding. It will probably get to 98% coverage. Is BT still have awful bandwidth limits? Because like 3-4 years ago they capped you at like 300GB and then cut your speed next month or something like that.

dx034 9y ago
I don't think so. I regularly download >1TByte/month and never got capped.
- SXX 9y ago
  Thanks. Probably they no longer practice that. I just got letters from them telling they'll decrease my level of service since I got over 300GB this month, but that was 4 years ago and on xSDL (many areas fairly close to London city still had only xDSL then).
  - martinald 9y ago
    Keep in mind there are many other providers for Openreach FTTx (though BT retail don't cap anymore). I'm refering to BT fibre as really openreach fibre. Sky, Vodafone, etc etc all provide the service also.
ollie87 9y ago
Once did a couple of Terabytes in a month on BT, didn't have an issue.

nemof 9y ago

my own experiences of BT have made me leery of using them. their customer service is utterly appalling. just consistently, every single time i've had to deal with them, help a friend or family member sort out their bs, it's a horror. we even had to move our business away from their service because we just couldn't have meetings and do screenshares consistently. even if i wanted bt fibre, i live in the center of a large city in the uk, and i cant get fttc because im on the wrong street. one street over they can get fibre, mine, not a chance - and no plans to according to openreach either. similar issue with where our office is located. wrong street. no fibre. a few streets over, fibre. virgin on the other hand, i have their 200/20 package. consistently max out the connection no problem. had them for years and they've consistently performed above expectations - i even remember when they were called blue yonder.

jrb2018 9y ago

They're probably running fibre cabling for the same geographical distance as here considering NZ is slightly larger in area. So yes, it's 20 times the premises, but I think calling that 20x the cost is a bit of a stretch. You'd have have to calculate the additional cost from street-to-house for the additional 19 million premises versus the difference in running the cable the length of each country to prove that 20x number. Side note: just left BT. Hate their service, never go back.