8 ms·

Is this US only? I got "This address is invalid". I live in the UK at the moment. Would be good to know a bit more about this tool. I'd love to get FTTP!

gnfargbl 6y ago
You might find https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/ https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/ helpful. If you want to check an address and don’t know the phone number, use https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search to get the UPRN for the address and paste that into the BT tool. I’d also love FTTP, but the state of affairs in the UK seems really disappointing at the moment. If you run a business and live in a rural area then the Government will contribute £3500 to the cost of an FTTP-on-Demand build. Unfortunately, Openreach’s engineering costs are so ludicrous that (in my experience) it’s still not a realistic prospect.
- wdb 6y ago
  The UK lives in the dark ages regarding Internet. In Switzerland I already had 150mbit internet (in 2010+) while when I moved to London I couldn't even get more than 16mbit while living in Zone 1. Still these days I can't get that speed.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Weird, I get 100MB consistently not far from zone 1. You may live far from the exchange
    - tomfanning 6y ago
      Or, ironically, too close to the exchange. https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/exchange-only-line-fibre-broadband.html https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/exchange-only-line-fibre-broa...
    - wdb 6y ago
      I live near Hyde Park ️
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      OP was getting that in 2010 elsewhere - it’s fairly amazing that London isn’t getting multiples of that now.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    It doesn't help that the UK (and some other countries) have corrupted the definition of fiber by allowing pretty much everything to be called fiber. DSL (running on the shitty, rusty phone lines) is allowed to be sold as fiber because fiber is involved at some point in the transmission (up to the DSLAM). By that standard, even 56k dial-up could be called fiber because there would be fiber somewhere in the datacenter on the other end. HFC (Virgin Media cable) is also called fiber even though it's fiber to a certain point and then you're sharing a coax loop with dozens or even hundreds of people. It's even worse because the shared bandwidth can be saturated and the connection becomes unusable because of packet loss (could technically happen with DSL if the exchange's uplink saturates, but I've never seen it happen compared to cable networks). There's also a naming convention of "superfast", "ultrafast", etc which creates more confusion. If you want to express speeds, how about you just quote the raw numbers?
    - wdb 6y ago
      Yeah, if you live in a new building or further out of Central you can get things like g.network or Hyperoptic but even aa new apartment block build by Westminster council doesn't offer fiber. Maybe this all will change when there is more Working From Home to be happening the coming years.
    - gnfargbl 6y ago
      Definitely agree. Only a small percentage of the general public here seem to understand the difference between FTTC (which is what we have) and FTTP/FTTH (which is what we need). Perhaps if they did then the Gov would have to work harder on FTTP delivery.
- ancarda 6y ago
  Thanks for the link. As I suspected, I can only get FTTC (80/20). FTTPoD is available but ... as you mentioned it's not exactly the best option. Going by https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband - I see "Good news – we'll be upgrading your area to Full Fibre (Fibre to the Premises - FTTP) soon." Anyone know how soon "soon" is?
  - maccard 6y ago
    Anecdotal but mine was about 6 months.
- maccard 6y ago
  Can you elaborate on OR's engineering being ludicrous? I've found them to be quite helpful, and their costs to be roughly in line with the costs I would expect from other trades!
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Well, the cost can be both reasonable compared to other market rates and yet ridiculous. I know someone who got a quote recently to connect their rural property to fibre, literally about 100 metres from the cabinet, like, not far at all. But because they had to dig through a road and lay the cable over a small stream they quoted about £60k for the job. That might be "in line with the market" but it's still a ridiculous amount, there's no way a normal homeowner can afford that.
    - maccard 6y ago
      Right but that's not openreach's fault, that's because they need to dig up a road and go under a stream. Get a quote for a mains gas connection or an electrical connection and you'll find it in the same ballpark.
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Well, so for electrical work I know that Northern Grid will do any reasonable upgrades for your network for free, just because that's part of what they exist to do. I asked for an upgrade to 100amp connection to my house, they did a survey and answered that they would need to dig out the whole cable from my house to the street and replace it with a new one. "Of course" - they said - "we would put everything back at is was once we're done". Cost? Absolutely free. Well, funded by the taxpayer I guess. I don't see why openreach shouldn't be the same - if your house isn't on the fibre network, they should connect you as that's literally their mission statement. I guess for really complicated cases the cost could be shared or something, but quoting people 50k for connecting a domestic property to fibre shouldn't be acceptable.
        maccard 6y ago
yshrestha 6y ago
Unfortunately, I am using the FCC form 477 data which is only valid in the US. Do you know of a similar dateset in the UK?

gnfargbl 6y ago

You might find https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/ https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/ helpful. If you want to check an address and don’t know the phone number, use https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search to get the UPRN for the address and paste that into the BT tool. I’d also love FTTP, but the state of affairs in the UK seems really disappointing at the moment. If you run a business and live in a rural area then the Government will contribute £3500 to the cost of an FTTP-on-Demand build. Unfortunately, Openreach’s engineering costs are so ludicrous that (in my experience) it’s still not a realistic prospect.

wdb 6y ago
The UK lives in the dark ages regarding Internet. In Switzerland I already had 150mbit internet (in 2010+) while when I moved to London I couldn't even get more than 16mbit while living in Zone 1. Still these days I can't get that speed.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  Weird, I get 100MB consistently not far from zone 1. You may live far from the exchange
  - tomfanning 6y ago
    Or, ironically, too close to the exchange. https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/exchange-only-line-fibre-broadband.html https://www.choose.co.uk/guide/exchange-only-line-fibre-broa...
  - wdb 6y ago
    I live near Hyde Park ️
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    OP was getting that in 2010 elsewhere - it’s fairly amazing that London isn’t getting multiples of that now.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  It doesn't help that the UK (and some other countries) have corrupted the definition of fiber by allowing pretty much everything to be called fiber. DSL (running on the shitty, rusty phone lines) is allowed to be sold as fiber because fiber is involved at some point in the transmission (up to the DSLAM). By that standard, even 56k dial-up could be called fiber because there would be fiber somewhere in the datacenter on the other end. HFC (Virgin Media cable) is also called fiber even though it's fiber to a certain point and then you're sharing a coax loop with dozens or even hundreds of people. It's even worse because the shared bandwidth can be saturated and the connection becomes unusable because of packet loss (could technically happen with DSL if the exchange's uplink saturates, but I've never seen it happen compared to cable networks). There's also a naming convention of "superfast", "ultrafast", etc which creates more confusion. If you want to express speeds, how about you just quote the raw numbers?
  - wdb 6y ago
    Yeah, if you live in a new building or further out of Central you can get things like g.network or Hyperoptic but even aa new apartment block build by Westminster council doesn't offer fiber. Maybe this all will change when there is more Working From Home to be happening the coming years.
  - gnfargbl 6y ago
    Definitely agree. Only a small percentage of the general public here seem to understand the difference between FTTC (which is what we have) and FTTP/FTTH (which is what we need). Perhaps if they did then the Gov would have to work harder on FTTP delivery.
ancarda 6y ago
Thanks for the link. As I suspected, I can only get FTTC (80/20). FTTPoD is available but ... as you mentioned it's not exactly the best option. Going by https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband - I see "Good news – we'll be upgrading your area to Full Fibre (Fibre to the Premises - FTTP) soon." Anyone know how soon "soon" is?
- maccard 6y ago
  Anecdotal but mine was about 6 months.
maccard 6y ago
Can you elaborate on OR's engineering being ludicrous? I've found them to be quite helpful, and their costs to be roughly in line with the costs I would expect from other trades!
- gambiting 6y ago
  Well, the cost can be both reasonable compared to other market rates and yet ridiculous. I know someone who got a quote recently to connect their rural property to fibre, literally about 100 metres from the cabinet, like, not far at all. But because they had to dig through a road and lay the cable over a small stream they quoted about £60k for the job. That might be "in line with the market" but it's still a ridiculous amount, there's no way a normal homeowner can afford that.
  - maccard 6y ago
    Right but that's not openreach's fault, that's because they need to dig up a road and go under a stream. Get a quote for a mains gas connection or an electrical connection and you'll find it in the same ballpark.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Well, so for electrical work I know that Northern Grid will do any reasonable upgrades for your network for free, just because that's part of what they exist to do. I asked for an upgrade to 100amp connection to my house, they did a survey and answered that they would need to dig out the whole cable from my house to the street and replace it with a new one. "Of course" - they said - "we would put everything back at is was once we're done". Cost? Absolutely free. Well, funded by the taxpayer I guess. I don't see why openreach shouldn't be the same - if your house isn't on the fibre network, they should connect you as that's literally their mission statement. I guess for really complicated cases the cost could be shared or something, but quoting people 50k for connecting a domestic property to fibre shouldn't be acceptable.
      - maccard 6y ago

yshrestha 6y ago

Unfortunately, I am using the FCC form 477 data which is only valid in the US. Do you know of a similar dateset in the UK?