14-02-2015, 12:42 PM
Being in a town, not too far from the exchange, my broadband is pretty good. I get between 8 and 10Mb/s, which is generous for our needs...
But today, I'm down to a reported 20kb/s, according the BT Wholesale test page. In theory is should be 256kb/s, but I don't think it is... It's an amazing experience! Modern websites are so bloated compared to the dial-up days, and it's almost impossible to browse the web - even if you are especially patient. When my wife looks at a page with her tablet, my computer stops completely...
Why is this? Simply because I have a broadband account with a monthly data allowance, and I have just exceeded that for the first time ever. That might well have something to do with the recent forum upgrade
. I do have the option to pay them to restore the speed (a pretty trivial 75p per GB of data), or I can just wait until the end of the billing period (which is only Monday, so no big deal). In a way, I think it'll be good to be forced to be away from the computer for a day or two - it is a major distraction...
The slightly crazy thing is that for some years now, I've been meaning to change my package to one that has no monthly limit, and is actually £5/month cheaper - so perhaps I'll finally get around to that. Or, for the same cost/month that I'm currently paying, I could have "fibre".
So, before I make the phone call, any experiences of fibre broadband? Currently, I don't think that I need the increased speed especially - what I have is fine for watching EEVBlog YouTube videos at 1080 and 50/60 frames per second, for example... But sometimes you don't realise what you're missing
What about the hardware? A modem/router would be supplied, but no idea what sort. What I like about my current service (with Plusnet) is that I'm not tied in to any provider-specific nonsense. Would the fibre router be a BT product? If so, would I have complete control, or would it be locked down in some way? Would it have BTFon enabled, and could I opt out if I didn't want to use it (I prefer to manage my own wireless network, and not have another network unnecessarily present in an already busy area). In addition to my standard ADSL modem/router, I use an additional router which has an ethernet WLAN connector. It's a good router - but I only really use it as a wireless access point at this stage. But if you could get a simple "fibre" modem, I can use my existing router to do the NAT thing...
I think that an engineer needs to visit - like they did in early days of ADSL?
Any thoughts welcome...
But today, I'm down to a reported 20kb/s, according the BT Wholesale test page. In theory is should be 256kb/s, but I don't think it is... It's an amazing experience! Modern websites are so bloated compared to the dial-up days, and it's almost impossible to browse the web - even if you are especially patient. When my wife looks at a page with her tablet, my computer stops completely...
Why is this? Simply because I have a broadband account with a monthly data allowance, and I have just exceeded that for the first time ever. That might well have something to do with the recent forum upgrade
. I do have the option to pay them to restore the speed (a pretty trivial 75p per GB of data), or I can just wait until the end of the billing period (which is only Monday, so no big deal). In a way, I think it'll be good to be forced to be away from the computer for a day or two - it is a major distraction...The slightly crazy thing is that for some years now, I've been meaning to change my package to one that has no monthly limit, and is actually £5/month cheaper - so perhaps I'll finally get around to that. Or, for the same cost/month that I'm currently paying, I could have "fibre".
So, before I make the phone call, any experiences of fibre broadband? Currently, I don't think that I need the increased speed especially - what I have is fine for watching EEVBlog YouTube videos at 1080 and 50/60 frames per second, for example... But sometimes you don't realise what you're missing
What about the hardware? A modem/router would be supplied, but no idea what sort. What I like about my current service (with Plusnet) is that I'm not tied in to any provider-specific nonsense. Would the fibre router be a BT product? If so, would I have complete control, or would it be locked down in some way? Would it have BTFon enabled, and could I opt out if I didn't want to use it (I prefer to manage my own wireless network, and not have another network unnecessarily present in an already busy area). In addition to my standard ADSL modem/router, I use an additional router which has an ethernet WLAN connector. It's a good router - but I only really use it as a wireless access point at this stage. But if you could get a simple "fibre" modem, I can use my existing router to do the NAT thing...
I think that an engineer needs to visit - like they did in early days of ADSL?
Any thoughts welcome...
