Broadband provider recommendations - BT Infinity?

[legrandefromage]

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/EMWOLEY

 

[ajm]

Re:

Ah, OK - that's basically what it says for our exchange too... BT Wholesale Market 1. But as far as I know you can still use pretty much any ISP as your "provider" (i.e. you deal with them for billing/tech support) even though they're only reselling BT Wholesale's service.

It's certainly the case for ADSL, I can't be sure about fibre though as they've not finished installing it here yet!

 

[drcarlos]

BT are under no obligation at the moment to unbundle fibre as they did with copper back in 2005, the copper network was funded when BT was a nationalised industry so OFCOM had them over a barrel and BT were threatened with a breakup. After this the exchanges were opened up and other providers could install their own kit (Mdoems and DSLAMs) and just use the existing copper cables to connect it all up.
The investment in 21CN (the fibre network) is all BT's so while they can sell it wholesale to other providers they will never be cheaper than BT and any network issues will always be dealt with by BT techs, unless OFCOM get involved again and things change. The way I see it at the moment you might as well deal with the organ grinder.

Carl.

 

[ajm]

The investment in 21CN (the fibre network) is all BT's so while they can sell it wholesale to other providers they will never be cheaper than BT and any network issues will always be dealt with by BT techs, unless OFCOM get involved again and things change. The way I see it at the moment you might as well deal with the organ grinder.

You might be right, but BT is of course not really one company and the company that installs and maintains the infrastructure is not one you can speak to as a customer. I've never found dealing with BT (the ISP) to have any benefit over dealing with a reseller - if there's a fault they are all using the same Openreach systems to run line tests, log it and book an Openreach visit to deal with it. You'd think there would be a risk of "purely BT" customers getting priority treatment but I've certainly never witnessed it over hundreds of calls logged - maybe things would be different on the fibre side but I can't see it.

I don't have anything in particular against BT mind, and would fairly happily use BT Business if I had to - just happy with the service I get from TTB and their FTTC price certainly looks decent compared to BT's to me...

 

[TGR]

Good evening all,

There seems to be a lot of knowledge here in relation to this topic. Perhaps (with permission from the OP - Mr History), I could pose a couple of questions -
1. When the internet is slow - how do you know?
2. I have done Speedtest and really do not know what it is saying - what should the figures tell me?
3. Should I expect a significant slow down when there are 4 iPhones, an iPad, a desktop and a laptop connected to our wireless? (happened last night when we had visitors in)?

Thanks all,

Richard

 

[Neil]

Good evening all,

There seems to be a lot of knowledge here in relation to this topic. Perhaps (with permission from the OP - Mr History), I could pose a couple of questions -
1. When the internet is slow - how do you know?

It's unlikely to be the internet in it's entirety, due to how it's structured - it's unlikely to be even a country or region problem.

Heavily subscribed loops, or websites getting an inordinate amount of traffic, can cause a perception of "teh internets down" - but in general, could just be a local issue (often hardware) or provider issue.

2. I have done Speedtest and really do not know what it is saying - what should the figures tell me?

Well it rather depends on what sort of device you're testing it on, and what is more restrictive (say if your WiFi / WLAN at home is a bit weak / compromised / slow, that may be the bigger bottleneck). My home broadband is cable, at 100M, my WLAN is often running at 65M (it's theoritically capable of a fair bit higher than that, but other configuration can be limiting.

As a general rule of thumb, I'd say, do it on a known good, not busy, relatively modern and up-to-date PC, running on a wired connection, ideally as direct as possible to your device that's nearest to the outside world. And then run more than once, choosing servers that are relatively close to your location.

3. Should I expect a significant slow down when there are 4 iPhones, an iPad, a desktop and a laptop connected to our wireless? (happened last night when we had visitors in)?

Well the number of devices shouldn't be problematic, per se.

Although it does rather depend on the type and amount of traffic, plus your broadband speed and stability. It could be that your WiFi setup is sub-optimal and either challenged on strength quality, either structurally, WiFi router placement, or channel contention with nearby WLANs, and as a result, your WLAN was challenged by the additional traffic.

Or it could be you don't have particularly great broadband speed / throughput, and you were all contending on a modest connection.

What sort of speed of broadband connection do you have, and what's your WiFi setup like (speed / type of wireless router).

 

[TGR]

Neil,

Thanks for the response, but you have left me a little confused (I am not IT savvy at all). I have BT Infinity with a BT Modem/Router? It has 3 blue lights and is about 18 months old - Home Hub 3 maybe.

I have no idea about set up etc - it works and that is all I really know - sometimes it appears slower than others.

Would it be worthwhile getting someone to check the whole set up to ensure I am getting optimal performance from the expensive Infinity? I better add that BT have introduced a new email system which seems to stop working very regularly and, at work, I have to log off and log back on every time I want to send an email - not the best system IMHO.

Richard

 

[ajm]

Re:

BT (any branch) have never, ever been able to provide a semi-decent email service - whether running it themselves or outsourcing, it's been quirky or downright broken for at least a decade!

 

[The History Man]

Oh dear.

 

[TGR]

Re:

Mr History

Has this swayed your decision?

Richard