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0098386

Suspended
Original poster
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
In 2002 we could get 512kbs broadband
In 2004 to now we got 512kbps-1mbps broadband.
Neither have been good because of how far we are from the exchange, a packet loss rate of 50%, ping of 60-1600.

On Tuesday we finally get BT Infinity! They told us our minimum speed would be 21mbps, but I've heard they always claim that but with actual speeds at 40mbps. I don't care so long as its in double figures!
Our upload speed will also go from 25kbps to 10mbps. But more importantly it's the promise is decent ping, no more packet loss and no dropped connections at peak hours that makes me a jolly.

Has anyone else signed up?


I know other countries are on mega connections. This is for us rural Brits who finally get a decent connection where Virgin dare not tread, huzzah!
 

hsotnicam8002

macrumors 6502
Mar 13, 2008
467
121
United Kingdom
In 2002 we could get 512kbs broadband
In 2004 to now we got 512kbps-1mbps broadband.
Neither have been good because of how far we are from the exchange, a packet loss rate of 50%, ping of 60-1600.

On Tuesday we finally get BT Infinity! They told us our minimum speed would be 21mbps, but I've heard they always claim that but with actual speeds at 40mbps. I don't care so long as its in double figures!
Our upload speed will also go from 25kbps to 10mbps. But more importantly it's the promise is decent ping, no more packet loss and no dropped connections at peak hours that makes me a jolly.

Has anyone else signed up?


I know other countries are on mega connections. This is for us rural Brits who finally get a decent connection where Virgin dare not tread, huzzah!
As usual I don't see our exchange or nearest village/town anywhere on the details. The only fibre optics we're likely to see will be on our Christmas tree in December!
 

stridemat

Moderator
Staff member
Apr 2, 2008
11,364
863
UK
Ahhh man I'm not on the list!I don't think where I live will ever get faster than 512kb/s 'broadband'. Slightly jealous of that new download speed you will be getting.
 

millar876

macrumors 6502a
May 13, 2004
708
45
Kilmarnock, Scotland UK
Where's this list, ive registered my interest but I don't see the Peterhead exchange getting fibber anytime soon.

My street is completely random and crap for broadband. I get a steady 512/256kbps up/down speed, the guy across the road can some,times get 1.7mbps, the guy through the wall from him gets 0.7 mbps on average, my neighbours through the wall gets 600kbps and my neighbours across the driveway get 256kbps. Through the wall from them it's back up to 512kbps.

Wheras my inlays in kilmarnock live a few hundred yards from the exchange, get 18.7mbps broadband and check emails once a week and then go on Facebook, and that is literally all they use it for. They wanted to do video chats with us so they could see our wee girl more BUT Skype is too complicated for them.

Anyhoo I want to get BT infinity, it will probably never happen here, but I'll settle for BT sorting out the street and getting us descent copper broadband, byt that,ll probably never happen either
[/rant]
 

0098386

Suspended
Original poster
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
Some other nearby areas have had access to Infinity for a couple of months now. We had some serious line problems (which they attempted to fix, couldn't, BT vanished and now dispel any problems), during which an engineer told us the main road had full 40mbps. Which is just 100 metres or so from us!

The rollout seems quite staggered and patchy. My friends house down the road can't get Infinity!

The map is linked on this page.

I have been hearing about bandwidth limits. That the 100gb limit from BT's old service is still enforced, but because its such a new service and people are complaining they're considering raising the limit.

T-minus 4 days!
 

Kebabselector

macrumors 68030
May 25, 2007
2,987
1,638
Birmingham, UK
As usual I don't see our exchange or nearest village/town anywhere on the details.

I'm just on the outskirts of Birmingham and no sign of it coming here in a hurry. I'll have to stick with ADSL2 for a while. I suppose 5/6mb d/l and .6 upload with old ADSL1 equipment isn't too bad considering.
 

steviem

macrumors 68020
May 26, 2006
2,218
4
New York, Baby!
I'm on Bethere and I've just checked whether my exchange can do BT Infinty.

It will be ready in September, but they say I can get BT Total Broadband now with an estimated speed of......

1mbps

That's pretty damn poor. I'm getting 16/2.5 at the moment with Bethere. I would probably wait for them to come out with a Fibre solution before upgrading to it.
 

JonathanU

macrumors member
Jun 3, 2008
34
0
London, UK
Weird - I'm with BT now (switched from Bulldog - huge mistake) and it says that BT infinity will be available in my area on 30 September, but when I put my number in, it says I'll only get broadband of upto 3mg on the 29th November (which is basically what I have now).
 

danielcox

macrumors member
Apr 19, 2010
98
0
Not quick enough, they should have been testing this 10 years ago. Now they've been caught with their trousers down and web traffic is doing nothing but vastly increasing.
 

hsotnicam8002

macrumors 6502
Mar 13, 2008
467
121
United Kingdom
Not quick enough, they should have been testing this 10 years ago. Now they've been caught with their trousers down and web traffic is doing nothing but vastly increasing.
Where did all their money go? Remember, they used to own Cellnet (now O2) and their own security company (Telecom Security, that they sold - yet they have started another one recently - beggars belief). They are a dinosaur and the management AND staff need a rocket up their asses!
 

McScooby

macrumors 65816
Oct 15, 2005
1,238
777
The Paps of Glenn Close, Scotland.
I've got it.

Had it for a couple of months and yes you are correct re: the speed. I originally tested 19mb on the website, in reality though, my thoroughput was set at 46 down and 15 up, although this has been changed to 38.7 down and 10 up as the service doesn't officially take higher speeds yet. They anticipate it should go to 60 down in the not too distant future, I'm also eagerly awaiting FTTH that's currently being trialled in Milton Keynes which is 100 down.
Unlike Virgin, Infinity is uncontended back to the exchange from the cab, so even on peak times the speed drops to 32ish down.
The unofficiai download limit of 100gb is still in place, but I've still yet to hit it, and even so, the speed is only restricted at peak to 2mb and other times runs at full, so it won't be too much of burden.
With regards to BT's money, BT made a loss when they sold Cellnet, the company took the hit on the loss of the 3g licences that were bought and sold the company debt free to mm02, which later became 02 under the ownership of telefonica.
As far as I can tell the higher speeds that Virgin are trialling involve using bonded channels so they're 100mb service is 2x50mb, 200 is 4x50 etc, so in the long run I believe that BT should come out in top as the service is shared at the exchange and not the cab which virgin have no control over, time will tell!!
 

niuniu

macrumors 68020
I switched to o2 3 months ago on a 12 month contract so I won't be going back to BT until next year if the reviews are good.

My download speeds on torrents were rubbish with BT, now I get 200-350 as a norm with o2, with BT a good speed on something like Vuze was around 40 to 50, maybe peaking occasionally at 100 for a short while.

Will be interesting to see how Infinity works out in practice.
 

Queso

Suspended
Mar 4, 2006
11,821
8
Fastest we can get at the moment is 20Mbps with O2. There's no Virgin cables in our building and as we have a communal Sky dish it's unlikely they'll be enough takers to justify Virgin installing the fibres.

Pretty crappy considering we have a WC1 postcode (i.e. the absolute Centre of Central London).
 

danielcox

macrumors member
Apr 19, 2010
98
0
That's probably why you're not getting any cable. Imagine the effort having to go through to dig up bits of central London.
 

Queso

Suspended
Mar 4, 2006
11,821
8
That's probably why you're not getting any cable. Imagine the effort having to go through to dig up bits of central London.
If you lived here you'd not think it difficult. Every company in the city seems to be doing it, simultaneously and constantly. And of course Boris, like Ken before him, was going to sort all that out :p

The Virgin cables are actually run down our street, just not into our building.
 

0098386

Suspended
Original poster
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
Before and after speeds attached.
It's all very fast. Ping is very low too, I normally get 50-60 ping in TF2, now i'm getting 9.

My only beef is with the wifi range on the BT Hub. It's not that great and its limiting the speed of other computers in the house. 5mbps in the furthest corners! Time to centralise it I guess.
 

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0098386

Suspended
Original poster
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
So far so good! There's no slowdown at all during peak hours. It's 5pm now and my downloads are flying down at 4mb. It's as if you're copying files off a USB stick or something :D.

I'm still not happy with BT's "fair use" policy. If they haven't shifted from 100gb when our contract is up for renewal we'll switch to another FTTC provider.
 

RedTomato

macrumors 601
Mar 4, 2005
4,155
442
.. London ..
Can't wait for it to come to my company. We're in the heart of the London East End, 2 minutes from Whitechapel Tube, within sight of half the towers of the financial district, and what do we get?

A crappy 4mb down on a good day! That's shared between 15 staff here and the boss wants me to roll out a WAN backbone to 5 regional offices, all over this tiny struggling line, which is also shared with our fax machine...

There's 3 BT OpenReach vans outside at the moment, with engineers busy working away, but will they speak to me? Bollocks no.
 

stridemat

Moderator
Staff member
Apr 2, 2008
11,364
863
UK
Before and after speeds attached.
It's all very fast. Ping is very low too, I normally get 50-60 ping in TF2, now i'm getting 9.

My only beef is with the wifi range on the BT Hub. It's not that great and its limiting the speed of other computers in the house. 5mbps in the furthest corners! Time to centralise it I guess.

Very jealous! I miss being able to do even the most simple of tasks such as watch iPlayer.

Edit*



O yeah baby....we're looking good :rolleyes: Does this even class as 'broadband'?
 

hippyharry

macrumors regular
Jun 3, 2010
178
8
I get 4mbit with O2 at the moment living about 1800metres away from the exchange (as the crow flies)

The exchange down the road from me in Bothwell will be switched onto BT Infinity from 30th September, but im on the Blantyre exchange, so no chance of getting onto that unless i move, which im not going to do!

Would be nice to see BT announcing when more of the Scottish Exchanges will be switched on as the last update of about 260 exchanges were all England and Wales. :(

I saw a guy on plusnet trialling the FTTP and was getting something like 77mbit downstream and 15mbit upstream. Thats mental speeds..especially for your own home.
 

7031

macrumors 6502
Apr 6, 2007
479
0
England
I'm on Bethere and I've just checked whether my exchange can do BT Infinty.

It will be ready in September, but they say I can get BT Total Broadband now with an estimated speed of......

1mbps

That's pretty damn poor. I'm getting 16/2.5 at the moment with Bethere. I would probably wait for them to come out with a Fibre solution before upgrading to it.
BT uses traffic shaping and generally is a pretty poor ISP.

Bethere here too, easily the best ISP I've used.

 

Queso

Suspended
Mar 4, 2006
11,821
8
I spent nearly an hour on the phone with TalkTalk TV support on Thursday (at 10p a minute :rolleyes:) after my broadband refused to get a DHCP address. Whatever the engineer did seems to have pushed my speed back up. For the past year or so it's been steadily decreasing and was averaging out at around 3.5Mbps download which is abysmal for central London where you're never that far from the exchange, but I'm now getting nearly 7.5Mbps. So for those of you getting crap speeds they may be able to boost the DSL signal strength and give you a bit of an increase.
 

0098386

Suspended
Original poster
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
BT uses traffic shaping and generally is a pretty poor ISP.

Yup. The moment a better ISP uses FTTC and when our contract is up we will be switching, unless they drop both their traffic shaping and ludicrously low bandwidth limit in the mean time. Until then this is still insanely quick, shaping or no shaping.

Another trick to get some extra speed is to install (what BT call) an i-Plate. We didn't notice any difference, but friends have reported speed increases of 0.5-1mb.
 
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