BT Infinity & other fibre broadband in Stafford.

B

Bodman

A few posts under my belt
Got home last night to discover an email from PlusNet telling me my upgrade had been moved to next week :( Had to then change it again as the date/time I was given wasn't convenient so now it's the morning of the 23rd.

However this isn't confirmed yet and even if it is it seems like BT can change it when they feel like it. Grrrr :mad:



Bodman
 
B

Bodman

A few posts under my belt
As a final update I have finally been moved to a fibre connection on the 23rd :)

The BT engineer called me at 12.30 pm to apologise for running late and said he was about to go to the cabinet to switch my line. At 1 pm the line dropped and 10-15 minutes later he turned up.
He put a new faceplate on the master socket (internet socket is above the phone socket) and attached the modem and ran the diagnostic and told me it was showing 40 meg. Oh and you don't need filters anymore, it's all built into the face plate.
He then plugged in the router PlusNet provided and attached my PC's network cable and I had Internet again so he left at 1.30 pm.

Testing on Speedtest showed 28.74 Mbps download and 1.69 Mbps upload, however downloading a 6 gig file from Steam showed an average download rate of 4.3 Meg/s which is around 36 MBps I believe.
There is still the rule about leaving things to settle for 10 days and this is even more inportant with fibre lines but things are looking good so far.

It seems they are rather busy at the moment with installs and they are offering fibre as they enable areas around Stafford, seems the Silkmore Cresent area is lucky in being one of the initial ones.

But hopefully that means that if you have noticed cabinets being upgraded then they will be enabled soon :) Granted not sure who is offering fibre at the moment, I'm guessing BT and PlusNet definately but I'm sure more ISPs will offer it as time goes by.



Bodman
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
It may, or may not, be anything to do with this, but my TalkTalk connection suddenly started improving last Wednesday and has improved every day since - and this after a period of very steady (under)performance for years. It is now 60% faster than it was this time last week - or any time over the last three years..

Whatever the reason, I doubt that it's anything I've done.
 
glued2

glued2

A few posts under my belt
Jimbo said:
My address is shown as ready and I order Infinity today for installation on 1st March, presumably the switch on day.
Click to expand...

Hey Jimbo - did you get your Fibre Broadband installed? Is it any good? :)
What area of town are you out of interest?
 
citricsquid

citricsquid

Well-Known Forumite
Gramaisc said:
It may, or may not, be anything to do with this, but my TalkTalk connection suddenly started improving last Wednesday and has improved every day since - and this after a period of very steady (under)performance for years. It is now 60% faster than it was this time last week - or any time over the last three years..

Whatever the reason, I doubt that it's anything I've done.
Click to expand...

I would guess that your fellow TalkTalk customers that are heavy users are moving to Fibre so the amount of network usage is much lower.
 
Devilsbait

Devilsbait

Newbie
Bodman said:
As a final update I have finally been moved to a fibre connection on the 23rd :)

The BT engineer called me..... Oh and you don't need filters anymore, it's all built into the face plate.

Bodman
Click to expand...

Hi, you don't need microfilters because you can't use it through an extension, which means you have to be really happy where your master socket is IE. It being located where you want your computer! Which no doubt like mine -it isn't, which is a complete pain in the arse. :(
I'm also with plusnet and have received the letter just last week(ish) and jumped on it and get the install next week. Getting 40mb/s or thereabouts will be a great improvement on my current 1.5mb/s !
 
Kickstart

Kickstart

Well-Known Forumite
Hi

While some online sites are claiming we can now get FTTC, we rang Plusnet to order it and they say we can't get it yet (Derrington)

All the best

Keith
 
W

Wolfenrook

Well-Known Forumite
Just thought I would pop on and clarify something for Tek Monkey.

Bud, if you are currently on 50 meg broadband, and paying for 50 meg broadband, you will 'only' be getting upgraded to the 100 meg, and will continue to pay your 50 meg charge. That's a pretty nice upgrade though, especially when you consider the OLD price difference between 50meg and 100meg.

The 120 meg is for customers already on 100meg, and paying the 100 meg charges. We're basically only getting an extra 20 meg down and a bit of money off as Virgin can't cope with 200meg. ;)

So no, if you are on 50 meg now, you wont get a free upgrade to 120meg in the summer, but you will get a free upgrade to 100 meg much sooner. They say free, but pretty sure they're putting the prices up. lol http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/feb/02/virgin-media-broadband-price-increase

Regarding the BT offering, 40/10 is a pretty good ratio, 4:1 is pretty nice. Virgin the ratio is 10:1, so to get 10 meg up you need to be on 100 meg, most people though care more about down speed as for them it's all about how fast they can download stuff. For online gaming though a good up speed is as important. The down speed though is rather, uhm, silly in a service that seeks to rival Virgin.

Ade
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Weird, the letter I had from virgin said I'd get the 100Mb like everyone else, then get a further 20Mb once the rest of the upgrades had been done for being a loyal customer. TBH I'm tempted to drop down and then go back up to 60Mb, as we don't really need the extra and I'd rather pay less!
 
I

ItsMe

Active Member
Checked the btwholesale site and my line (on Astoria Drive) has been activated even though it was saying 31st March earlier this month. So, getting all geekily excited, I rang O2 yesterday to get my mac code, talk about being difficult, not only can I not provide my mac code to another ISP for 7 full working days (their notice period apparently), but I have to send back the O2 modem and cables. Never had that with any other ISP before!?!? Or is that normal nowadays?
 
wizzard

wizzard

Well-Known Forumite
ItsMe said:
Checked the btwholesale site and my line (on Astoria Drive) has been activated even though it was saying 31st March earlier this month. So, getting all geekily excited, I rang O2 yesterday to get my mac code, talk about being difficult, not only can I not provide my mac code to another ISP for 7 full working days (their notice period apparently), but I have to send back the O2 modem and cables. Never had that with any other ISP before!?!? Or is that normal nowadays?
Click to expand...

Maybe you should point them to ofcom regulations that state they have to provide the mac code within 5 working days.

http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/internet-service/MAC
 
gilbert grape

gilbert grape

Well-Known Forumite
Just a quick note of caution/advice to anyone having new BT Infinity. While I can confirm it is rapid compared to my old Sky Router, there may be issues you need to deal with after installation.
The engineer came and did my installation and while I had a connection using the LAN cable the wireless function did not work. I was advised by the engineer that as he had installed it and there was a connection using the LAN cable it proved that it worked and as the wireless error was due to me having Norton on my machine it was that that was causing the problem. He was not allowed to take any further action and advised me to remove it (Norton) and that may solve the probem. I downloaded the uninstall programme from Norton and ran this. It removed Norton but still didnt work. I asked and I.T mate of mine to come and have a look. He ended up going through the Norton process again to make sure and also uninstalled McAffee in case that had any bearing. He ran a clean up and did various checks to improve my PC. While I was watching him I thought I'd look on the net using my phone and found a tip saying to update your wireless driver. We ended up doing this and eventually it solved the problem.
Just goes to show things may not be that straight forward. I think there may be an issue of compatiblity with having Vista in some cases, too.
Dont have Norton on your machine when you install Infinity.
If that doesnt work, update your wireless driver.
 
J

Jimbo

Well-Known Forumite
Well, we've had BT Infinity for around a month now, and it is lightyears faster than my old Sky connection.

I consistently have downloadspeeds of 36-38 megabytes per second, and upload speeds just under ten (I'm on Saxonfields). Never had it drop out, no problems to report other than my iPhone (and other Appl devices) struggled to connect via the wireless. A quick google serch and it was obviously to do with the channel that the Hub was running on.

The brilliant thing was engineer moving the master socket into the lounge. An engineer will move the socket to anywhere in the house, for free!
 
My Name is URL

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
wizzard said:
Maybe you should point them to ofcom regulations that state they have to provide the mac code within 5 working days.

http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/internet-service/MAC
Click to expand...

To clarify (having left O2 myself recently.....) they WILL provide you with the MAC within 24 hours, they just say that they will charge you an early termination fee if you then use the MAC within 7 days....

Very sh*tty of O2 but what do you expect, you are leaving and they want to try and make it difficult for you.

To be honest though, I ordered my Sky BB the same day and then just didn't go back to them with my MAC for a week and all was fine.

Oh also ItsMe, I have twice been with O2 BB and terminated to leave... not once have they actually chased me for the router back.. What does it matter anyway, surely your new ISP will provide a new one?
 
PeterD

PeterD

ST16 Represent.
I work for BT and the one and only perk of this is free broadband, the infinity look up for my number has been saying 31st of march for quite some time, now though it is saying the end of june for an upgrade, curse them.
 
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