Confused BT Infinity - it has interfering herpes

[old.user4556]

After all my l0rding when my cabinet went live for FTTC, it seems that BT Infinity is cancerous herpes.

When I was first connected (after the initial fault correction), the download speeds were a steady 75 megabits per second and upload speeds a solid 20 megabits per second. This was awesome, although I knew that it took up to 10 days for the speed to "settle". After 10 days, the connection speed was ~65 megabits and the download speeds reflected that. Fast forward to one week ago, and my sync speed was ~40 megabits with a download speed (Speedtest and BT Wholesale) of around 35 megabits.

Obviously, this is not acceptable considering i'm paying for "up to 80" with an estimated connection speed between 61 and 80 megabits "clean" and no lower than 51 megabits "unclean".

I did some digging online and it turns out that Infinity suffers from "crosstalk" where interference on the lines increases the more people that take up the service. Given that my neighbours / estate were climbing the walls for better broadband, it seems that quick uptake is killing the speeds for everyone. For completeness, I reported this to BT and had an Openreach engineer visit this morning to check my line - everything checked out absolutely fine and he went on to talk about crosstalk and Openreach's "vectoring" fix.

A user located about 200 metres from the street cabinet (i.e. relatively close) should easily be able to achieve the highest 80 Mbps connection rate in the absence of crosstalk. The measurements show that, with crosstalk, the download connection rate could fall to 70 Mbps or below, with a 99% “worst-case” download speed of about 54 Mbps. At a distance of 500 metres, ‘lucky’ fibre broadband users could be experiencing close to 80 Mbps connection speeds (in the absence of significant crosstalk interference) although many would experience download speeds between 57 Mbps and 75 Mbps with a 99% worst-case download speed of about 38 Mbps.

Anyone else been in the same position with Infinity? The BT Community forums are full of the same issues, it seems the 80 megabit service (the one i'm on) is woefully unpredictable and unstable at best.

Edit: summed up by this bloke that practically lives on top of the fibre cabinet:

Yep, I went from 75Mb down to 53Mb. Even though the BT checker states that on an impacted line, I should be getting at least 61Mb. For me has to be crosstalk as I'm probably only 170m away from the PCP.

 

[Raven]

Nope, mines fine.

All the people round me are basically dead and only use the internet to reply to Nigerian phishing scams so I can download my warez in peace.

 

[Trem]

Mines also fine, on newsgroups I get around 11mb/s I don't play games anymore so can't comment on that. I do know BT support is the most riddled with every bad AIDS there can be ever.











Oh wait, I'm on Virgin.

 

[Draylor]

Saw 75/18 at installation, still seeing the same today 3 or 4 (?) years later.

For me (and I believe most people?) it just plain works and delivers stable/reliable speeds.

 

[old.user4556]

Well, it's very very variable it seems - just browse the BT Community forums, there's dozens of examples where it's not delivering

 

[Hawkwind]

Got me worried, we just purchased a house in Falmouth and I was looking at the BT packages for TV/Internet. Are there decent alternatives for a combo package? Sky seems way more expensive.

 

[Moriath]

Anything that relies on connection distance and fibre to the cabinet etc is always going to be diappointment as the amount that get the highest speed in the upto category will be small.

Apart from virgin all the providers rely on the same technology to get those speeds afaik

 

[old.user4556]

Got me worried, we just purchased a house in Falmouth and I was looking at the BT packages for TV/Internet. Are there decent alternatives for a combo package? Sky seems way more expensive.

I wouldn't worry, but maybe worth checking what your estimated speeds are and factor in that will be "at very best". It seems entirely dependent on how many people are connected to the box. When I was first connected it was utterly awesome, but it's slowly degraded . BT are rolling out a fix, but I expect the usual glacial Openreach pace.

 

[ECA]

70 down 19 up for me on a direct ethernet to router.

I'd still rather be getting 40mb/10mb than adsl2 cockwank though.

 

[old.user4556]

After the engineer reset my line, the connection is back up in the mid 60s but the actuals are even worse

 

[Hawkwind]

I wouldn't worry, but maybe worth checking what your estimated speeds are and factor in that will be "at very best". It seems entirely dependent on how many people are connected to the box. When I was first connected it was utterly awesome, but it's slowly degraded . BT are rolling out a fix, but I expect the usual glacial Openreach pace.

BT Website states up to 300Mbps for the postcode, I was thinking of just doing TV/Int package for around 50-75 GBP pcm with additional sports channels hopefully. From what I saw on their site I could get their "Unlimited BT Infinity 2 + Weekend Calls 40+18 GBP" which gives 76Mbps and includes BT Sports, AMC + 80 Freeview and 50 Premium (12 HD). Pretty cheap compared what I pay here in Dubai and way better Internet speed

 

[old.user4556]

LAUGH IT UP FUZZBALL @caLLous

Now it's back where it was

 

[old.user4556]

BT Website states up to 300Mbps for the postcode, I was thinking of just doing TV/Int package for around 50-75 GBP pcm with additional sports channels hopefully. From what I saw on their site I could get their "Unlimited BT Infinity 2 + Weekend Calls 40+18 GBP" which gives 76Mbps and includes BT Sports, AMC + 80 Freeview and 50 Premium (12 HD). Pretty cheap compared what I pay here in Dubai and way better Internet speed

I'm finding out quickly that their estimated v's actuals (as you would expect) don't tally.

It's weird that it was ~3.5 megabits and now back up 60 megabits an hour later.

The fine art of BT.

 

[ECA]

BT Website states up to 300Mbps for the postcode

300Mbs is the new G.fast trials, not widespread and a couple of thousand homes atm, hopefully they don't take too long and it rolls out nationwide soon. I'm guessing 2020 before it's available for most people though

 

[soze]

Since going back to BT I am now sure that what Sky say about over subscribing is true. At my place Sky would only offer 40MB and they said this is due to not over subscribing their service. And honestly I can never remember not getting my 18mb on Sky.

But on BT I do seem to see some variation anywhere from this to 40Mb/s during "peak" hours.

 

[old.user4556]

300Mbs is the new G.fast trials, not widespread and a couple of thousand homes atm, hopefully they don't take too long and it rolls out nationwide soon. I'm guessing 2020 before it's available for most people though

That is the current estimate, yes.

Thing is, the new G.fast has this new "vectoring" technology, so Openreach are understandably reluctant to retrofit it to FTTC customers at cost when next gen will fix it anyway.

 

[ECA]

It just depressed me when you know that we had fibre factories up and running in the 80s and we were going to do national rollout, but maggie cancelled it and sold them to south korea.

We'd be fucking gigabit with the best internets in the worlds

 

[Scouse]

It just depressed me when you know that we had fibre factories up and running in the 80s and we were going to do national rollout, but maggie cancelled it and sold them to south korea.

We'd be fucking gigabit with the best internets in the worlds

Shhhh. @Bodhi and @Raven will literally explode!

 

[Raven]

I doubt I will ever get anything more than I get now, the only reason they put fibre to box in is because they had to redo all the normal telephone lines into the village so it made sense to do it at the same time.

 

[old.user4556]

I doubt I will ever get anything more than I get now, the only reason they put fibre to box in is because they had to redo all the normal telephone lines into the village so it made sense to do it at the same time.

Ah are you on FTTP rather than FTTC?

 

[Raven]

Nah FTTC but its not so bad as the cabinet is less than 50m away.

 

[Embattle]

G.fast will start to spread next year, should provide some nice speed bump for some people.

Personally I'm currently considering either a Wifi Extender or powerline to get my soon to be installed infinity up to the next floor.

 

[ECA]

G.fast will start to spread next year, should provide some nice speed bump for some people.

Personally I'm currently considering either a Wifi Extender or powerline to get my soon to be installed infinity up to the next floor.

Yeah but it takes forever for openreach to roll this shit out and because it requires more power down the lines than normal they need a seperate power cabinet near the cabinet, which means more council permission, more fannying around and it isn't as simple as flipping a switch at BT and giving everyone new routers

 

[Moriath]

I got cables and switches in each of the bedrooms and wifi that reaches throughout the house. And a 152mb download from virgin soon to be 200.

 

[old.user4556]

That's a phat pipe.

We can't get Virgin where I am, it's a new build "village" and ripping up the streets is a no (it was hard enough to get planning permission for BT).

 

[old.Osy]

While downloading stuff:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4742440109

No downloads:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4742443939

 

[Syri]

G.fast will start to spread next year, should provide some nice speed bump for some people.

Personally I'm currently considering either a Wifi Extender or powerline to get my soon to be installed infinity up to the next floor.

still can't beat running a proper ethernet cable. I had a powerline bridge before, and realised just how crap it was when we got fibre, and my download speed didn't change at all, only the upload went up. tried on my phone using the wifi, 65mb down; desktop, 7mb down. Stuck a gigabit cable down the wall, cleared that right up.

 

[Lamp]

Anyone else getting good speeds with Virgin?
Thinking of going with them for my internet.

(Currently using a long piece of string, some polystyrene cups, and a couple of snails who operate the morse code machine.)

 

[Moriath]

Just now laying in bed on my ipad so two walls and a floor away from the wireless router

 

[Tom]

Quick, everyone check if you've had PPI!