Fibre Optic Broadband - is it worth it?

[Norman Potting]

Here in sunny Crowborough BT have recently installed fibre optic broadband. On currrent set up I am usually getting around 3.5 kbps although it can be a bit variable. Those of you who are connected to fibre optic does it do what it says on the box and if I connect via wifi to a wireless server how much difference will it make to my speeds. We can have up to two PC/laptop connected plus ipods x 2.

 

[dougdeep]

I was on 5 and now I'm on 40. I wish I'd got it earlier, especially good if you're a gamer.

 

[Creaky]

Just one word - YES

 

[ElectricNaz]

I say choose Fibre Optic broadband every time. I pay for a 40mbps connection with Sky and it consistently runs at 38/39mbps. No downtime, perfect for downloading / gaming on my playstation!

Also v helpful when I work from home as I work with a lot of large excel files, with normal broadband i'd never have been able to work from home.

 

[Badger]

I went from getting about 4Mbps and struggling to stream anything during peak times to BT Infinity at around 75Mbps and able to stream multiple things in HD alongside still being able to browse the internet without any slowdown.

Wifi largely depends on where you are, if you're in a block of flats with lots of other wifi around then you won't get the full speed. Make sure you at least have Wireless-N to get 150Mbps (which in reality will be a lot less).

 

[Westdene Seagull]

It's an absolute must IMHO. Used to have around 2Mb with Sky via the telephone line and moved to 30Mb with Virgin - lightening fast. To top it off Virgin recently upgraded me to 60Mb for free and it's fantastic - especially for Netflix and catchup TV.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

It depends on what you use it for

If you log on to e-mail once a week and surf the net occasionally – no just find a deal for the cheapest copper based product out there.
If you want to use your home wireless network but have a weak signal you would be better off finding a way to either move the router or increase the range.
If you are a serious gamer / work from home accessing files based on a server / stream, loads of Iplayer, Netflix or the like then for the bit extra a month it’s well worth it.

 

[Arthur]

Here in sunny Crowborough BT have recently installed fibre optic broadband. On currrent set up I am usually getting around 3.5 kbps although it can be a bit variable. Those of you who are connected to fibre optic does it do what it says on the box and if I connect via wifi to a wireless server how much difference will it make to my speeds. We can have up to two PC/laptop connected plus ipods x 2.

I'm also in Crowborough and I've just (last week) moved over from Sky unlimited to Sky Fibre. I was getting about 6mb down and just under 1 up. Now getting 30mb down and 8 up over wifi. Wired I'm getting close to 40 down and 10 up. So speed wise it's allot quicker. However as others have said it depends what you mainly use you connection for? I have netflix and lovefilm and I very rarely had issue on the slower connection. Web is obviously a little bit quicker but nothing that noticeable really. The only thing of any size I've download is the iOS7 update which took for ever but that was on the evening it was released so not a really fair test. I don't play games so not an requirement.

For me though it was an extra £10 a month so really a no brainer to upgrade.

 

[LowerWesty]

Was on BT 'copper', I had the ADSL 2+ service and got 18Mb down and 1 up. Hassocks got Fibre to the cabinet in May and after a lot, and I mean a lot, of faffing around they offered me Infinity for £17.25/mth on an 18 month contract up and eventually got it up and running. I now get 76Mbps down and 16 up with a 17ms ping, which would be good for gaming if I needed that.

Quite why I upgraded I'm not really sure, but it only cost me about £3/mth more than I was paying before and I have also got BT YouView, it's a crap piece of kit, but does work, abet very slowly and offers BT Sport and access to even more choices via iPlayer etc.

If, when things go wrong, you can put up with BT's appalling customer service offering, it's not a bad deal. But I must admit it's overkill for what I need now, but I have no doubt that the need for more bandwidth will be essential in the future and at least I will be ready for it.

 

[doug7126]

Was on BT 'copper', I had the ADSL 2+ service and got 18Mb down and 1 up. Hassocks got Fibre to the cabinet in May and after a lot, and I mean a lot, of faffing around they offered me Infinity for £17.25/mth on an 18 month contract up and eventually got it up and running. I now get 76Mbps down and 16 up with a 17ms ping, which would be good for gaming if I needed that.

Quite why I upgraded I'm not really sure, but it only cost me about £3/mth more than I was paying before and I have also got BT YouView, it's a crap piece of kit, but does work, abet very slowly and offers BT Sport and access to even more choices via iPlayer etc.

If, when things go wrong, you can put up with BT's appalling customer service offering, it's not a bad deal. But I must admit it's overkill for what I need now, but I have no doubt that the need for more bandwidth will be essential in the future and at least I will be ready for it.

You can speed the start up on you view if you mess about with the Eco mode at the start.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

BT not worth a ****, MAKE SURE THE ENGINEER WHO COMES TO FIT IT HAS GOT A KEY TO THE JUNCTION BOX OTHERWISE A WASTED APPOINTMENT , NEED AN OPEN REACH ENGINEER THE OTHERS ARE SUBBY'S AND DON'T ALWAYS HAVE THE KEYS AND GET PAID £25 PER JOB REGARDLESS.
regards
DR

 

[Deleted member 18477]

I have BT Infinity. Its brilliant!

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

I have BT Infinity. Its brilliant!

really pleased for you
regards
DR

 

[dougdeep]

And don't worry about which company you get it from as it's all the same.

 

[LowerWesty]

You can speed the start up on you view if you mess about with the Eco mode at the start.

Hi Doug, thanks for the info.

As you say you can speed up the 'boot' time of the Youview box by changing the eco mode in setting from 2 minutes to 15 seconds for FAST mode. God knows what it's doing for 15 seconds or come to that 2 minutes, by the time the box is ready what you wanted to record has already started!

In 'fast' boot mode it uses 19 watts, thats the same as having 2 x 11 watt light bulbs burning 24 hours a day, 356 days a year and amounts to around £23 worth of electricity. If this is multiplied by the number of BT YouView boxes out there the total electricity wasted must be significant.

BT are continually crowing over their green credentials, but if you ask them about the standby power consumption they don't want to know.

As a comparison, my 55" Panasonic TV uses 0.5W in standby and the Sky box uses about the same and it starts instantly.

 

[albionite]

If you are already with bt broadband, they will upgrade you for free with no extra monthly line rental, so yes it's worth it as you get much faster speeds

 

[Vegas Seagull]

Yup, got 100 mega with Virgin... Only tinpot, ugly houses should have a dish

 

[brakespear]

Here in sunny Crowborough BT have recently installed fibre optic broadband. On currrent set up I am usually getting around 3.5 kbps although it can be a bit variable. Those of you who are connected to fibre optic does it do what it says on the box and if I connect via wifi to a wireless server how much difference will it make to my speeds. We can have up to two PC/laptop connected plus ipods x 2.

I was on a 10Mbps connection and have twice been upgraded for free - now at 60Mbps. With something with a good bandwidth behind it eg. Steam I get quoted speeds of around 3.5Mbps, a full new game (9-10GB) in a couple of hours I think. This is with Virgin - not saying the speed is different but can't speak for the free upgrades with other providers.

 

[BLOCK F]

After quite a few teething problems,my BT Infinity is now working fine.Seems there were problems somewhere at the exchange but now all sorted and reliable.
From what I read,the customer service is no worse than the other suppliers and may be a lot better.
Received a month's free rent for my troubles and the whole thing costs me no more than my previous deal with BT.
Speeds seem fine for our purposes although we are not gamers so can't comment on that aspect.

 

[portslade seagull]

BT supply the fibre for whoever you are with so normally it will always be an Openreach engineer who installs it. Virgin do have there own coverage but not in all areas so they also sub off Bt as well