Poor broadband performance?

[AndrewE]

Triggered by this comment

Exactly this, to use an analogy it’s much like broadband.
Twenty years ago it was fine for dialup. But as speed has increased the local infrastructure (I live in the North) has failed to cope with the increase in demand.
The government tells me that they’ve invested blah blah blah million pounds in bringing fibre to the village.
I pay Sky a princely sum each month for the privilege, and then it does the last few meters from the exchange to my house on some antiquated 1920’s copper wiring* which negates any of the above speed increases.
Labour promised I could have it cheaper when it was nationalised despite all the people who knew about such things in great detail saying this was unlikely.
*It might not be 1920’s, this being Railforums I am in NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that there WILL be a telephone cable spotter on here.

I was tempted to reply directly, but realise I shall probably get deleted for being OT, however I wanted to relate our experience of unreliable broadband.
About a year ago we got frustrated by the service quality (having paid to upgrade our BT fibre package) so rang BT via the phone "operator" menu system. They ran some tests on the line then rang us back to agree that it wasn't up to standard and within a fortnight the copper to the house had been replaced, with a corresponding improvement in service.
I suspect it helps that we get everything from BT (line and phone contract.) A long time ago a schoolfriend whose father was a post office linesman (and more) advised us against getting ourselves a cheaper telephone (than the rented GPO one) because if there ever was a problem they were likely to blame the equipment that they weren't responsible for.
I think even our current phone was bought from them maybe 10 years ago, ISTR it wasn't particularly expensive by then.

 

[PeterC]

I had a similar experience with BT. Speeds are fine for two if us to be on line or to watch a film. Might be too slow for a couple of game playing teenagers.

 

[Cowley]

I had a similar experience with BT. Speeds are fine for two if us to be on line or to watch a film. Might be too slow for a couple of game playing teenagers.

Ours is terrible. We’re supposedly getting fibre at some point but being where we are there doesn’t seem to be any rush to do it.
Sometimes when all the kids are watching films on their various devices it gives up entirely.

 

[Lucan]

A long time ago a schoolfriend whose father was a post office linesman (and more) advised us against getting ourselves a cheaper telephone (than the rented GPO one) because if there ever was a problem they were likely to blame the equipment that they weren't responsible for.

Not in my experience, at least not these days. And what I remember of BT's equipment rental chrges, they were a rip-off.

There is a clear dividing line of responsiblity - up to the master socket it is BT's responsibility (through their subsidiary, Open Reach) and within that it is your own responsibility if you have non-BT equipment.

Of course if your phone and/or internet service provider is other than BT, you contact them first, and you will be better off because if they find a fault they will take it up with BT/OpenReach themselves, and they will have more clout than you do. My smaller phone provider and ISP (they are different) have UK based call centres which answer the phone much quicker than BT's Indian call centre, and the guys answering are talking from knowledge and not from a BT script that begins by assuming you are a mistaken fool.

When Open Reach come out to deal with a problem the first thing they do is unplug whatever is in the master socket and plug in their test equipment instead. That equipment ascertains whether there is a fault in their line, and where and what that fault is; there can be no argument about it.

Even if there were an "argument" about the voice line, while the Open Reach guys are there you can ask them to use their equipment to make a voice call (to their depot or anywhere else) to hear eg crackling. They would normally do this anyway, and I keep an eye on what they are doing.

Of course before even contacting anyone I have three different voice hand sets to try in the master socket and two routers, to eliminate the possiblility that my own kit is at fault.

 

[najaB]

There is a clear dividing line of responsiblity - up to the master socket it is BT's responsibility (though their subsidiary, Open Reach) and within that it is your own responsibility if you have non-BT equipment.

Possibly OT, but it's Openreach (one word, no capital R).

 

[GB]

I pay Sky a princely sum each month for the privilege, and then it does the last few meters from the exchange to my house on some antiquated 1920’s copper wiring* which negates any of the above speed increases.

This isn't really the case. With fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) you can still get excellent speeds with the last few miles over copper wire...just depends on length and cable quality but most people can attain 40-80Mbps.

 

[AndrewE]

This isn't really the case. With fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) you can still get excellent speeds with the last few miles over copper wire...just depends on length and cable quality but most people can attain 40-80Mbps.

Exactly. My point was that lots of that copper wire was installed decades ago and is no longer fit for purpose - even if it hasn't degraded from water ingress to a junction box.
The other thing is that if one company supplies it all they can't blame anyone else, whereas if the current market structure (with different providers but only one network) means the consumer will come off worst during their turf wars (and financial/share price competition.)

 

[najaB]

Exactly. My point was that lots of that copper wire was installed decades ago and is no longer fit for purpose - even if it hasn't degraded from water ingress to a junction box.

Increasingly BT are from FTTC to FFTN - the average distance from the DP to the premise is under 200m (I think it was something like 60m). Speeds of 300-500mb/s are easily achievable for most users.

 

[underbank]

This isn't really the case. With fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) you can still get excellent speeds with the last few miles over copper wire...just depends on length and cable quality but most people can attain 40-80Mbps.

Which depends on the quality of the copper wire. Our house was built 1979, so hardly ancient, but a succession of BT/OpenReach engineers have said the wiring from the cabinet is shot and needs replacing. But they've been saying that for years and nothing has happened. All the while, we're suffering stupidly low speeds and regular drops. We barely go a month without having to call them out either for a phone fault or loss of broadband! We're less than a mile from the exchange and the cabinet is at the end of our road - we've been told fibre is laid between the exchange and cabinet, so there's only a couple of hundred yards of copper wire, between the cabinet and our house, but the broadband is still poor. The idea of 40Mbps is a pipedream - we maybe can get 4Mbps on a good day and that's with subscribing for BT's best fibre package available in our area - very noticable how their website offerings changes radically once we put our postcode in!

 

[hexagon789]

This isn't really the case. With fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) you can still get excellent speeds with the last few miles over copper wire...just depends on length and cable quality but most people can attain 40-80Mbps.

When an Openreach engineer came to fix a fault in the phone line in November he said that out of the junction box you get 80Mbps and with Fibre you can get that right into the house, however with copper you can expect to lose approximately 10Mbps per 100m of copper.

We are about 200m away and the speed is, after the fault was rectified, now 65Mbps. Before it was 13!

 

[Lucan]

out of the junction box you get 80Mbps .... with copper you can expect to lose approximately 10Mbps per 100m of copper

I get 32Mbps and I am about 600m from a fibre cabinet.

 

[Raul_Duke]

This isn't really the case. With fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) you can still get excellent speeds with the last few miles over copper wire...just depends on length and cable quality but most people can attain 40-80Mbps.

I’m going of what I’ve been told by the ex-BT engineer when he came to move the master socket for me. It was helpfully placed in a random position nowhere near an electrical outlet when I moved in. Not ideal for a router.

BT quoted me a three figure sum and a 6/8 week wait to come and move it.

Rang a local telecommunications, networking and digital tv specialist guy, came the same day and did it in under an hour for £40.

And yes, I’m aware it’s their socket etc, but seeing as the old one was seemingly installed in the 70’s, I doubt they’re that bothered.

 

[najaB]

however with copper you can expect to lose approximately 10Mbps per 100m of copper.

That's incorrect in most cases. In my last house I was well over 500m from the cabinet and had two lines both at around 60Mb/s.

 

[hexagon789]

I get 32Mbps and I am about 600m from a fibre cabinet.

That's incorrect in most cases. In my last house I was well over 500m from the cabinet and had two lines both at around 60Mb/s.

I'm just repeating what the engineer stated

 

[Lucan]

I'm just repeating what the engineer stated

I did not intend to deny what you said, I was intending more-or-less to support it realising that it was no doubt a rule of thumb and dependent on the quality of the copper on the home run. I was really gainsaying an earlier poster who seemed to say that any advantage of FTTC was wiped out by the home run being copper.

 

[Raul_Duke]

I did not intend to deny what you said, I was intending more-or-less to support it realising that it was no doubt a rule of thumb and dependent on the quality of the copper on the home run. I was really gainsaying an earlier poster who seemed to say that any advantage of FTTC was wiped out by the home run being copper.

Again, I was just going of what the presumably qualified engineer told me.

 

[Lucan]

BT quoted me a three figure sum and a 6/8 week wait to come and move it [a master socket]. Rang a local telecommunications, networking and digital tv specialist guy, came the same day and did it in under an hour for £40. ... seeing as the old one was seemingly installed in the 70’s, I doubt they’re that bothered.

I always seem to be moving my master socket around. And 5 years ago I completely replaced the wire from the soffit junction to the master socket, all through the attic etc (re-routed from ugly staples down the wall and over the window frames), when I replaced the rotten wooden facia boarding.

If you do this stuff properly, neatly, with correct cable and colour codes, they don't know the difference and I've heard reports that even if they do realise it has been worked on they don't raise an issue if it is properly done. I guess that is the basis on which your local man works.

 

[hexagon789]

I did not intend to deny what you said, I was intending more-or-less to support it realising that it was no doubt a rule of thumb and dependent on the quality of the copper on the home run. I was really gainsaying an earlier poster who seemed to say that any advantage of FTTC was wiped out by the home run being copper.

No its appreciated that, just wanted to make it plain they could've been talking about load of guff and I'd be none the wiser!

What they said tallied perfectly with the result of the fault being fixed though, so I'd no reason to doubt him