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Old 31-05-2015, 19:46
-GONZO-
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Bit In Bold or Bit In Black, whichever takes your fancy
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Old 31-05-2015, 20:03
binary
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Old 31-05-2015, 20:46
DevonBloke
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OK Devon, here's one to work out for me. Was getting speeds of 15mbps upload but only 0.4mbps download on three yesterday afternoon, given top speed on this mast can be 65-70mbps (max seen by me is 68mbps) how many active users would you say this mast sector was dealing with?
Far too many variables to take into account to know.
What I don't really know is how well LTE copes with more than the maximum number of users. Clearly the cell has to rapidly switch groups of handsets from active to inactive and back which must impact hugely on throughput but I don't really think this is even happening most of the time anyway since in urban areas there's probably an adjacent cell you could be pushed to with a spare active slot.

I mean 10Mhz of 3G seems to cope pretty well most of the time and that has way less overall capacity.
In cities cells are fairly dense and with 15 or 20Mhz per cell that's a lot of users that would need to be doing something high bandwidth before things got bad.

If you were on 3 and you've had 68meg then that must be 10 or 15Mhz of 1800.
One hell of a lot of users would have to be either doing a continuous download or watching video simultaneously before speeds got to half a meg.

I would put it more down to a fault or inadequate back-haul (legacy Microwave and waiting on fibre perhaps). That would only be 1-2Gbps for all 3 cells.
That combined with all the 3G users could screw it up I guess but I still question just how many people are doing a continuous lasting data transfer all at the same time.
The vast majority of transfers are tiny blips here and there. A 10KB pushed email, an iMessage, a couple of hundred KB Bookface page update and most handsets are doing nothing much more than they are doing something.

Someone will tell me this is crap now and most cells are dealing with 1000 users all watching youtube!!! Hahaha
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Old 31-05-2015, 23:14
snuffle_-_uk
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From the BT Mobile website it looks like you get access to BT Sport when you take out a BT Mobile contract. If you are a BT Mobile customer only (i.e. not a broadband customer), can you watch BT Sport via the online player, or is it only via the mobile app? Reason I ask is because there doesn't seem to be a BT Sport app for Windows Phone
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Old 31-05-2015, 23:19
gomezz
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There is not. BT Sport is one reason I also use a cheap Android tablet to fill the Windows phone app gap. Of course your phone also needs to support internet tethering but that is another issue ...
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Old 01-06-2015, 00:54
srw985
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From the BT Mobile website it looks like you get access to BT Sport when you take out a BT Mobile contract. If you are a BT Mobile customer only (i.e. not a broadband customer), can you watch BT Sport via the online player, or is it only via the mobile app? Reason I ask is because there doesn't seem to be a BT Sport app for Windows Phone
Yeah once you've got BT mobile you can use BT Sport both online and on the app. I think the only exception is that you can't watch via Sky.
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Old 01-06-2015, 06:00
snuffle_-_uk
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Also you get access to BT Wifi... is this as good as it sounds, the website makes it sound like there are loads of WiFi connection points around
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Old 01-06-2015, 09:47
gomezz
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There can be. It does seem a bit rum that BT BB customers get access to other BT customer's wi-fi in exchange for reciprocating the arrangement but BT mobile only customers get access without any quid pro quo?
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Old 01-06-2015, 10:14
Chris1973
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Also you get access to BT Wifi... is this as good as it sounds
Depends on where you are. If you are in the middle of a city or a large town then yes, if you are rural, then its probably next to useless.

I think most of the private BT access points (created by household routers on BT Broadband) are limited to a maximum download speed of around 512k as a result of BT customers complaining about the 'forced' sharing of their bandwidth some years ago. I'm a 'FON' member, and my experience of BT Wi-fi points, certainly the private ones, is that the download speed is terrible. Fine for a 30 second check of emails, but not for much else.
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Old 01-06-2015, 10:36
gomezz
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Not my experience. Park outside a BT FON house in a remote village with no 3G mobile coverage and able to stream live TV with ease.
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Old 01-06-2015, 10:58
corf
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I checked my parents fon the other day and it was dishing out 5mb of their 15mb line sync. Whether this throttles down when the internal said is being used I don't know
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Old 01-06-2015, 11:11
Synthetic42
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I checked my parents fon the other day and it was dishing out 5mb of their 15mb line sync. Whether this throttles down when the internal said is being used I don't know
I can't find the source now but I'm sure I read somewhere there is QoS in play that gives the customer VLAN highest priority.
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Old 01-06-2015, 14:05
Chris1973
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This was one (of many) threads from BT customers when the whole router based BT Wifi / Fon debate began

https://community.bt.com/t5/Apps-and...eed/td-p/46209

The thread is five years old, but there are countless others on both the BT community and Fon forums which pretty much say the same thing, i.e the connection doesn't come out of the customers' broadband allowance and download via that access point is also limited to 512k. Here is another slightly newer thread from another forum saying roughly the same thing.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/bt/...n-hotspot.html

I imagine that there has to be some kind of limit applied as not every BT customer enjoys or can get 5mbps+ speeds, there are still millions of rural and semi-rural households still getting 2mbps or under from their local exchange, and if I was a BT customer on one of those exchanges, I don't think I would be too happy if a stranger / neighbour with BT Wifi / Fon access could come along and max it out whenever they felt like it, for hours at a time if they wished - which on such a crappy connection would be easily do-able and noticeable. Even if the public Fon / Wifi data is going through a different point and not counted out of any personal ADSL allowance, if your line can only physically provide 1mbps - 2mbps then surely that's all there is available, I can't imagine BT suddenly being able to double it for the BT Wifi public access portion of the router!.

I checked my parents fon the other day and it was dishing out 5mb of their 15mb line sync. Whether this throttles down when the internal said is being used I don't know
On an older FON based Router there is a slider in the admin panel which selects how much speed you can allocate to the public access. By default it is set to 512k, however you can increase it right up to the full available speed of your line. I have no idea if the same facility exists on a BT based Router, but if it does, maybe your parents' is set to 5mbps?.
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Old 01-06-2015, 14:14
corf
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I have previously seen it as only 512k (years ago) and dont think that is applicable any more and think it is variable now. Only thing I can find is that BT say that internal customer traffic is prioritised.
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Old 01-06-2015, 15:14
BKM
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This was one (of many) threads from BT customers when the whole router based BT Wifi / Fon debate began

https://community.bt.com/t5/Apps-and...eed/td-p/46209

The thread is five years old, but there are countless others on both the BT community and Fon forums which pretty much say the same thing, i.e the connection doesn't come out of the customers' broadband allowance and download via that access point is also limited to 512k. Here is another slightly newer thread from another forum saying roughly the same thing.
This probably needs updated for BT Infinity - the FON connection on my 38Mb fibre connection certainly goes up to 5Mbs. It definitely does NOT count against any caps the customer might have (which was very handy as I was once on a 20Gb/month tariff and could get extra using my own FON SSID!)

You can opt-out of FON - but then you lose the massively useful ability to use other people's access points (which seems only fair!)
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Old 01-06-2015, 15:55
corf
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Its not just for infininty I have seen 5mb/s on fon via adsl2 syncing at 15mb/s
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Old 02-06-2015, 09:55
Carl_Boys
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I've seen 20 on BT wifi x. Obv cons must have infibity 2 80mbs sync.
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Old 02-06-2015, 10:14
moox
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Depends on where you are. If you are in the middle of a city or a large town then yes, if you are rural, then its probably next to useless.

I think most of the private BT access points (created by household routers on BT Broadband) are limited to a maximum download speed of around 512k as a result of BT customers complaining about the 'forced' sharing of their bandwidth some years ago. I'm a 'FON' member, and my experience of BT Wi-fi points, certainly the private ones, is that the download speed is terrible. Fine for a 30 second check of emails, but not for much else.
I can't agree. If you take rural to be "my neighbour is 5 miles away" then sure, but most people's definition of rural is living in a village. Where you're likely to have neighbours right next to you, who may well be on BT.

I'm rural and can pick up a few BT hotspots and could probably pick up even more. A few megabits/sec should be easy to achieve while connected to one - especially if its owner has Infinity

It is very likely that BT has thought about limiting the amount of bandwidth it can use. If they wanted to do it elegantly they'd have proper QoS to ensure that the traffic on the private network gets absolute priority
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Old 02-06-2015, 10:46
Chris1973
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I'm rural and can pick up a few BT hotspots and could probably pick up even more. A few megabits/sec should be easy to achieve while connected to one - especially if its owner has Infinity
i'm talking rural as in 8km line length from the nearest non-fibre exchange. As opposed to a 'village' on the outskirts of Kent or Essex or otherwise lying in the shadow of a larger Town.

I have neighbours less than 5 miles away, I have several less than 1 mile away, but since the entire Village only gets 512k to 1 mbps speeds, my neighbours' ADSL speed is no different to mine, so I wouldn't benefit even if he was on BT.

Putting my postcode into the BT's 'find a hotspot' puts my nearest available hotspot as HSBC Buxton - 7.01 miles away.
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Old 02-06-2015, 12:38
slick1two
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Depends. BT is limited to "Single Speed' EE speeds or 30mbps. If you don't need more than that, which to be honest most people don't then it's no different to EE, except of course you can't tether, although that doesn't seem to be enforced at the moment but they could enforce it in the future.
I don't see why they should, because you have limited data, should be able to do as you please with it to be honest. If you burn through 20gb, which is the max you get with their top tariff, then that's down to you. Maybe they would rather people didn't but cos its not unlimited data being offered, I don't see why they would enforce it.

Been tethering with no problems for the past 2 months.
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Old 02-06-2015, 14:28
tdenson
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I don't see why they should, because you have limited data, should be able to do as you please with it to be honest. If you burn through 20gb, which is the max you get with their top tariff, then that's down to you. Maybe they would rather people didn't but cos its not unlimited data being offered, I don't see why they would enforce it.

Been tethering with no problems for the past 2 months.
It's the same old story that has been discussed endlessly here though. The business model is predicated on the basis that people who have these plans and only use a mobile will typically use a lot less than the 20GB or whatever it is. Those who tether, on average will use more than those who don't.
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Old 03-06-2015, 19:13
Fieldmouse83
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I have just switched to BT mobile on my iPhone 4S. I have access to BTs wifi hot spots most of the time - when I browse the Internet on it how do I set my phone to connect only to BT wifi hot spot and not use the 3G signal? I want to avoid additional charges that occur if I go over my data allowance.
My plan is £5 monthly for unlimited texts, 200 mins and just 500mb data.
Some pointers on how to do this would be much appreciated.
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Old 03-06-2015, 22:34
gomezz
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There is a BT Wi-fi app which logs you in automatically when the phone connects to a BT hot spot and goes Bing! to let you know it has done so. Many apps that use lots of data have an option to only allow usage when on wi-fi.
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Old 04-06-2015, 01:58
Zee_Bukhari
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Been tethering all day today with it with no problems at all. Very pleased.
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Old 04-06-2015, 08:56
jaffboy151
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This probably needs updated for BT Infinity - the FON connection on my 38Mb fibre connection certainly goes up to 5Mbs. It definitely does NOT count against any caps the customer might have (which was very handy as I was once on a 20Gb/month tariff and could get extra using my own FON SSID!)

You can opt-out of FON - but then you lose the massively useful ability to use other people's access points (which seems only fair!)
I moved house 6 months ago to a rural be broadband only area, for the 1st 2 months had nothing but problems, slow Internet, I player buffering, torrents downloading at a max of 30kb all intermittent regardless of time or day, my father in law on the same estate has a similar problem, it wasn't till a friend came round who was on O2 and started using the Internet that I found out anyone could use your connection, with good speed too I might add. For me I think the problem lies in its not the sharing of download speed that is so much of an issue as we get between 6-8mbps here, it's the upload which is only a max of 0.3 and often much lower then this, it can't cope with multiple users at once,
Soon as I ditched the home hub and used my old netgear router I've hardly missed a beat since, speeds are much, much quicker and streaming and downloading work 99% of the time now.. I can now stream HD movies for 2 1/2 hours while my father in law can't keep a facetime connection going... What ever the science and/or marketing behind BT WiFi sharing, it has a detrimental effect on broadband connections in this area at least..
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