Question does line speed vary from providers of fibre?

tikigod19

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hi all, so i have a choice of a few providers (I'm down to sky and plusnet I think) for fibre broadband. I have fibre from the exchange to the green cabinet and then phone like from there.

I currently get 36.8mb/s from plusnet - I'm on them now and just did a check
Sky have estimated 39-40mb/s.

Do you think they'll both offer exactly the same speed as its using exactly the same cabling?

Sky is a fraction cheaper but I'm unsure on whether to make the switch if I'm going to get exactly the same speed.
 
Yes. I have had BT and Sky fibre, despite claims they both came in at same speed. 25meg as I live in countryside.

Tip. I am with sky now, after initial offer I was able to get 50% for signing for another year. So fibre for £10 a month unlimited.

Sky router works ok for me, although you do need to be careful with them all in adding too many wifi devices as this can make them very slow. I have four and works fine.
 
Yes. I have had BT and Sky fibre, despite claims they both came in at same speed. 25meg as I live in countryside.

Tip. I am with sky now, after initial offer I was able to get 50% for signing for another year. So fibre for £10 a month unlimited.

Sky router works ok for me, although you do need to be careful with them all in adding too many wifi devices as this can make them very slow. I have four and works fine.
i appreciate the info, thanks!
 
I currently get 36.8mb/s from plusnet - I'm on them now and just did a check
Sky have estimated 39-40mb/s.

Do you think they'll both offer exactly the same speed as its using exactly the same cabling?

There's a lot of "it depends" factors to consider, not least, the performance of your copper loop from cabinet to premises (which Sky are having to guestimate - it could possibly be worse than the incumbent,) your local (internal) cabling effects and the equipment the providers hang on the ends of the fibres (or buy from a reseller) to avail the throughout to name check just a few.

It's far to simplistic to think of it in terms of "cable X equals performance Y." There's plenty of different rates you can drive down fibre and plenty of different "types" of fibre that dictate such. And that's before we even consider how the service provider divi's up the capacity between multiple subscribers (I suspect the fibre from one street box to the exchange is almost certainly carrying traffic for multiple subscribers.)

That said, the difference between 36.8 and 39-40 is sufficiently small that you'd have to be rather anal and use all sorts of measuring tools to discern the difference. In real world day to day usage, I suspect you'd be unable to tell the difference if you A/B blind tested the two.

Personally, unless there's a compelling financial reason to change, I wouldn't bother unless you've got some use case that's failing on the current service that one thinks will be "fixed" by an extra 2-3mbps.
 
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I came on here to look for the very same thing. So, assuming that a household uses a constant state of equipment would one ISP provider of fibre have the same speed as any other (not including restriction per package eg. 80/20 etc).

Basically, in terms of performance potential does each ISP really offer the same speeds? In which case choice comes down to customer service, package/product level and price?

I am just trying to weigh up if I upgrade from BB to Fibre with my current provider or move. I would not mind paying abit more for a better service in terms of connection speed/reliability. Years ago I remember reading things like contention ratios etc - does the same apply here and would going to a niche ISP give me a "clearer" highway for connection?
 
Thing you have to remember is that BT own the infrastructure and most ISP's just rent from them. Thus speed is unlikely to change by from supplier to supplier. The only exception is Virgin Media who have their own network.
 
I would not mind paying abit more for a better service in terms of connection speed/reliability. Years ago I remember reading things like contention ratios etc - does the same apply here and would going to a niche ISP give me a "clearer" highway for connection?

Doubtless "cheap" domestic ISP services, even "fiber" variants, are over-subscribed in terms of capacity and contention ratios are thus a factor of the usage experience. Ultimately, if you want a particular level of service, you need to shop around for someone that is prepared to provide it - though it may cost you. The ultimate expression of this would be to dig (very) deep down into your pockets and procure your own dedicated circuit. However, if you want it cheap, then you just have to accept that there's going to be an element of "sharing" with other people. So there's a service/cost trade off to contemplate.

Even if you did buy your own dedicated leased line, it's only going to be guaranteed performance from you to "somewhere" (probably at the ISP somewhere) - once it breaks out onto the public Internet, anything could happen.
 

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