[gmincca]

Hi all,
Like to 'upgrade' to Fibreoptic broadband when the service become available locally (~ 2 months) but wondering how to cut through the hype and make an informed choice.
Openreach data advises that my line should be capable of delivering 'up to 55Mb' so presumably the distance from the nearest cabinet is quite short. 3.6km from home to exchange, should get (and used to) ~ 4Mb adslmax, but now rarely get close to 2Mb - nowhere near the claimed 8Mb in the hype!
My ISP is offering 38Mb and 76Mb Fibre options, but if Openreach advise up to 55Mb is there any point in considering the faster offer - should they even be offering it ?
I note on the ISP installation terms they state that a fault will only be logged if the new fibre service starts up below 15Mb, so presumably if I was to pay for the 76Mb and only get 16Mb then thats just tough luck ??
I'd value a few informed views and/or voices of experience.
Thanks.

[*MikeB*]

With regards to speed, if you use the BT Wholesale ADSL Checker it will give you a speed estimate that should be accurate. If your ISP advises a speed higher than the BT Wholesale one it will be incorrect. It does do FTTC even though it says ADSL checker.

The BT Wholesale checker looks at the distance from the cabinet, type of cable (copper or aluminium), and thickness of cable stored in BT's database.

[ney]

I have been 99% happy with BT Infinity since I got it almost 18 months ago. I got the speed upgrade about 4 weeks ago and have also been 99% happy with that. I get between 56.9mb and 74.3mb speeds depending on the time of day.

Darren

[Lurkalot]

It is brilliant in my opinion, noy just for superfast downloading but if like me you have kids who have gadgets and laptops it's essential, I have two teenage girls and a twelve year old boy, they each have a pc or laptop and the girls have smartphones, before infinity I had a 2.5mb connection and we could never do stuff (streaming, downloading etc) at the same time without affecting what someone else is doing, but now we can all stream or download or whatever all at the same time and no one suffers from buffering or having to wait.

[iniltous]

If you are considering fibre to the cab, FTTC, then the distance from the exchange doesnt matter, its the distance from the cabinet to your home that determines (in the main) what speed you get, BT infinity offer 80/20 but have to quote 'real world' figures so normally state something like 78/18 this would be for someone quite close to the cabinet...all ISP's re-selling BT should quote the same as each other, unless they restrict or sell the older 40/10 service, if any appear to be way faster than the others then I would ignore their estimate

[albertd]

It probably all depends upon what you use the Internet for and what speeds you are already getting.

If you are already getting, say, 10Mbps download and you only use the net for general surfing and e-mail, then you probably will not see much advantage.

If, however, like me your ADSL speed is (or in my case "was") only about 1.5 Mbps then you will see a great improvement. I could barely use iPlayer with ADSL as well as getting lots of disconnections and my ISP was incapable of providing any improvement, but fibre changed all that.

The real advantage with fibre comes for those who download large files, like movies, and want to reduce the time spent waiting.

[neo_wales]

Your ISP is the numbers to work with. You will see a massive improvement, go for it.

[carguy143]

The OP mentioned that they are offered both up to 38 and 76meg which implies it's not BT, but possibly Talktalk here. Basically I have an up to 76 meg service and was quoted 67 by the fibre checker on both BT Infinity and Talktalk's website. I'm currently getting just under 70meg so I'm more than happy with the speed of the service I receive. The 15meg quoted is the absolute minimum Talktalk will accept for fibre orders to be taken. If you can't get 15, they won't sign you up.