Switch to fibre optic, which one?

Jason56d

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Am currently on Sky BB Max unlimited, but can only get up to about 5mb on a good day. And with no news on Sky's fibre optic plans.......

So, who to go with?

BT Infinity & phone will cost me about 33.90 a month and have an estimated speed of 29.4mb.
Virgin will cost £27.40 for the 30mb pack with phone.

Cannot get plusnet in my area yet.

Can someone have a look at my setup and recommend the most suitable please.

Master socket in hall by front door. I have a extension socket fitted to study for PC. There is also a wireless telephone extension running Sky multi-room to the kitchen. From the router I have homeplugs running to the lounge into a ethernet hub that supplies Sky 1.5TB, PS3 and occasionally Wii.

The cost is not really a factor as I pay sky £15 for BB and BT £19 for phone, so same overall cost. I just want a faster speed that will fit into what I have!

Thanks!
 
Get BT

also if you can get BT you can also get plusnet just ring them

BT will move you're master socket free as part of the install if you want, up to 30 meters :)
 
Thanks. Last time I checked, plusnet was not available, but it is now. Slightly more expensive at about £36, but a better telephone package. Although, it is 120gb allowance and unlimited overnight. Decisions?!?

Anyone have experience of plusnet fibre?
 
Amran said:
BT are selling there 100mb package if your intrested.

I saw that. But it's a bit more than I want to pay at the moment. Would be nice though :).
 
Just spoke to virgin and they have offered me 30mb and phone for £27.40.

So BT is £38.90 for 40, estimate 29.4
Plusnet is £33.50 for the same
Virgin 50 is £38.90, but £28.90 for 3 months

Have heard a few bad reports about all of them, so still undecided!
 
other than cost what are your concerns ? Virgin would be (and is for me at home) my pick from that list.
 
Fe_man2000 said:
other than cost what are your concerns ? Virgin would be (and is for me at home) my pick from that list.

No real concerns with any of them really, just am a bit anal! Having to commit to an 18 month deal gets me trawling for as much info and feedback as possible to make a decision!

Most ISP's have a bad rep for customer service and that includes sky who I am with!

What package have you got and how do you find it in general?

How is Virgin with gaming? We have a heavily used PS3 in our house and would like an improvement over our current BB!

Thanks by the way!
 
I find Virgin to be fast and the ping times for gaming very low as cable tends to be - the support I have not used but I suspect its going to be poor as Virgin have a bad reputation for it. Personally I am technical and would only call them for hardware failure and in the last 8 months I have had no problems at all. I hear good things about BT infinity so far but after working for BT for 7 years (I left a while ago) I wont use them if I can.
 
Fe_man2000 said:
I find Virgin to be fast and the ping times for gaming very low as cable tends to be - the support I have not used but I suspect its going to be poor as Virgin have a bad reputation for it. Personally I am technical and would only call them for hardware failure and in the last 8 months I have had no problems at all. I hear good things about BT infinity so far but after working for BT for 7 years (I left a while ago) I wont use them if I can.

Thanks again.

Do you have a VM Superhub or whatever it is called? Or do you use your own? A few things I have read on VM and BT that using your own router improves gaming lag?

Although the new VM firmware and the HH3 are getting better feedback. Sorry to be a pain, but I did say I was anal about these things!
 
If you compare bt to virgin same packages you will find

bt infinity 40 down - 10 up with anytime phone calls is £41 (price drops if you choose to pay 12 months upfront for the landline making it for the whole package about £37)

virgin 50 down - 5 up with anytime phone calls £46.90 (without phoneline £35 or with only free weekend calls £39)

If the phoneline doesnt matter to you then drop it.

When bt estimates 29mb you usually get full 40mb speed.
 
If you compare bt to virgin same packages you will find

bt infinity 40 down - 10 up with anytime phone calls is £41 (price drops if you choose to pay 12 months upfront for the landline making it for the whole package about £37)

virgin 50 down - 5 up with anytime phone calls £46.90 (without phoneline £35 or with only free weekend calls £39)

If the phoneline doesnt matter to you then drop it.

When bt estimates 29mb you usually get full 40mb speed.

Just looked at BT's website and they have changed the deals! The price has dropped by £3, but now you only get weekend and evening calls. To add Anytime calls it is another £4.90, so more expensive than before.

Was going to go with BT as just am unsure about stories from 2 friends about issues with billing etc with Virgin, but now, not so sure.....
 
Just looked at BT's website and they have changed the deals! The price has dropped by £3, but now you only get weekend and evening calls. To add Anytime calls it is another £4.90, so more expensive than before.

Was going to go with BT as just am unsure about stories from 2 friends about issues with billing etc with Virgin, but now, not so sure.....

Do you need anytime calls or would weekend/evenings be fine?

Why is your current bt line price £19?

Virgin can be hit and miss when it comes to billing they are one of them companies when it works it works well but when you have a problem it's a nightmare to sort out.
 
Am going to go with BT.

Just asked for my mac code from Sky, once here I will order with BT.

Going for Infinity 40mb unlimited with weekend and evening calls, and going to pay line up front for £10 instead of £14.60(?) a month.

Not sure why my current BT is £19? The war office (mrs) looked after the home phone up until now.

Don't know why, maybe heard more bad reports about different issues, but felt uneasy about going with Virgin. Probably wrong, but if I am not sure I cannot bring myself to sign up for 18 months and regret it.

Look forward to approx 9x my current speed when installed!

Thanks for all the help.
 
Don't forget that Infinity will be doubling its speed early next year.
 
Don't forget that Infinity will be doubling its speed early next year.

It doesn't mean people will get those speeds.

When I had BT Infinity installed at mine the engineer tested the line and it showed the max i would get is 46mb I currently get max available in my area at the moment 40mb.
 
If you are getting 40Mbps you should see a big increase in 2012 as you have next to no losses. The new FTTC speeds will be achieved by increasing the VDSL spectrum allocation within the Access Network Frequency Plan (ANFP) from 7MHz to 17MHz. This does not require new hardware (extra cost) and is not dependent on ‘vectoring', which some of the newer DSL technologies are. Only those homes a long way from their green cabinet will not see a big increase.
 
All this speculation and news about speed increases is nice, but I will be going from 4.3 to a minimum of 29.4!

If I get that I will be very happy and if I get anything above that in the near future, then I will be as happy as the pig in the proverbial!
 
It doesn't mean people will get those speeds.

When I had BT Infinity installed at mine the engineer tested the line and it showed the max i would get is 46mb I currently get max available in my area at the moment 40mb.
If you were only able to get 46mb when it was installed you were probably in an area which hadnt been upgraded. Your max line rate has probably more than doubled since it was installed.
 
If you were only able to get 46mb when it was installed you were probably in an area which hadnt been upgraded. Your max line rate has probably more than doubled since it was installed.

Not necessarily, mine connected at 40mb when first installed, and still now only connects at 53mb.

Am hoping to see more than 53mb when the frequencys are changed next year.
 
If you were only able to get 46mb when it was installed you were probably in an area which hadnt been upgraded. Your max line rate has probably more than doubled since it was installed.

No he tested it with the kit at mine then went to the junction box because he thought it wasn't right same result. They even get a text message sent to mobile with all the details I was getting a lot of errors when it reached 44mb.

I don't really care I was getting between 7-11mb before so it's a nice jump.

Jason56d don't forget to go through quidco you can get £25+ cashback
 
The text message only gives the actual sync speed not the max speed. So the text shouldn't show more than 40mb downstream.
 
triplea4uk said:
No he tested it with the kit at mine then went to the junction box because he thought it wasn't right same result. They even get a text message sent to mobile with all the details I was getting a lot of errors when it reached 44mb.

I don't really care I was getting between 7-11mb before so it's a nice jump.

Jason56d don't forget to go through quidco you can get £25+ cashback

Thanks, didn't know about Quidco! Am going to order today, as I finally got my mac code from Sky last night.
 
Just ordered BT Infinity Unlimited through Quidco and is being installed on next Thursday morning. Roll on super fast speeds, well, compared to what I am used to! :thumbsup:

Thanks for all the advice.
 
No he tested it with the kit at mine then went to the junction box because he thought it wasn't right same result. They even get a text message sent to mobile with all the details I was getting a lot of errors when it reached 44mb.

I don't really care I was getting between 7-11mb before so it's a nice jump.

Jason56d don't forget to go through quidco you can get £25+ cashback
Hack your modem and then you can see proper line rates and error rates.
 

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