Broadband / Fibre / Wiring question

[Lord Tyrion]

We have just had our annual chat with Sky to reduce our bill and as we get poor broadband speed we are paying the extra £2.50 a month they quoted to get high speed fibre. I don't expect it to be extra fast but hopefully it will take us from the current 4mbps to double figures, hopefully being the key. One thought struck me. The fibre broadband gets it to the junction / box on the estate. It then goes old school to my house. The wiring in my house looks pretty old. Would upgrading the phone line into my house help? If so where would it be done from, where would my responsibility start, and approx how much would it cost?

The phone plugs look like the original ones, early 80's, so presumably the wiring now would be better. If it is not possible, too expensive, wouldn't make a blind bit of difference etc then fair enough but it is worth asking the question in case it can help increase the speed.

 

[Hobbit]

A anecdotal but when having a conversation with a BT engineer a while back he said that once the line gets back to the exchange the BT broadband customers will go onto the newer exchange eqpt and the SKY/Virgin customers would go onto the older eqpt... not sure I believe that but my experience with BT 'v' Sky when I switched to SKY certainly suggested there's a grain of truth in it. SKY BB was rubbish for speed and was prone to buffering.

However, when we switched to a fibre optic BB provision with Virgin, wow!

 

[DCB]

If the incoming connection is still over copper, then it isn't going to be as fast as they make out it will be. I'm in a similar situation, BT now have fibre into the village, but, it's still coming in copper from the roadside box about 500m away. Until the whole thing is in Fibre, they can whistle for it

 

[Lord Tyrion]

I am aware that it may not make much of a difference but for £2.50 a month extra it is worth a pop. They also state that if the speed is not a minimum of 8.8mbps then we can withdraw from the deal at no cost to ourselves at any time. As we currently get around 4mbps that should be an immediate improvement.

Brian, I know Virgin is much better as the fibre optic goes all the way, my sister has it and gets 50mbps +. Unfortunately we don't have Virgin / cable in our area. I don't want to have bits with BT, bits with Sky etc.

 

[richy]

I am aware that it may not make much of a difference but for £2.50 a month extra it is worth a pop. They also state that if the speed is not a minimum of 8.8mbps then we can withdraw from the deal at no cost to ourselves at any time. As we currently get around 4mbps that should be an immediate improvement.

Brian, I know Virgin is much better as the fibre optic goes all the way, my sister has it and gets 50mbps +. Unfortunately we don't have Virgin / cable in our area. I don't want to have bits with BT, bits with Sky etc.

Virgin isn't fibre all the way, it's coax into your property. Copper if fine for broadband however the speeds drop off rapidly the more distance it has to travel.

They also don't use the old equipment for sky/talk talk as it's different equipment anyway and the service provider owns/rents it anyway.

With regards to your home wiring then it is your responsibility. If you wanted it upgrading then you'd likely have to pay. You wouldn't expect an electrician to install a new light fitting for free, right?

 

[Rooter]

the sky engineer will fit a new "bt box" i expect, wouldnt worry about the internal wiring, it will either work or it wont. i have sky fibre, i could get virgin as the house had it before we moved in, but i like the sky router, its configurable enough for me to run a VPN, its quick enough for all of our needs too and its unlimited download.

i do remember laughing at the sales monkey on the phone who tried to convince me it would be true fiber right to my house!

 

[guest100718]

You'll get a new master socket ont the wall to split the phone and BB. The router has to be plugged in to this.

 

[Hacker Khan]

the sky engineer will fit a new "bt box" i expect, wouldnt worry about the internal wiring, it will either work or it wont. i have sky fibre, i could get virgin as the house had it before we moved in, but i like the sky router, its configurable enough for me to run a VPN, its quick enough for all of our needs too and its unlimited download.

i do remember laughing at the sales monkey on the phone who tried to convince me it would be true fiber right to my house!

Can I just say Rooter talking about routers is my favourite bit of this forum....

 

[Hacker Khan]

I am aware that it may not make much of a difference but for £2.50 a month extra it is worth a pop. They also state that if the speed is not a minimum of 8.8mbps then we can withdraw from the deal at no cost to ourselves at any time. As we currently get around 4mbps that should be an immediate improvement.

Brian, I know Virgin is much better as the fibre optic goes all the way, my sister has it and gets 50mbps +. Unfortunately we don't have Virgin / cable in our area. I don't want to have bits with BT, bits with Sky etc.

I'd make sure you get the offer to withdraw in writing. As I am sure you know if you live too far away from a cabinet then you will not get much extra speed using fibre to the cabinet (FTTC). I'm currently being ripped off by BT as I'm on their 'fastest' FTTC broadband which sounds like the thing they are offering you, but get 4 at best. Before I was getting 3.5. And they cunningly tied me into a 18 month contract when they 'upgraded' my router (which made chuff all difference) and they have massive penalty fines to get out of a contract. A lady at BT even admitted that their current charge was 'extortionate' (her exact word) for the speed I get.

OpenReach have recently stuck a fibre cable direct from the cabinet on the telegraph poles next to my house, and as soon as that is all connected up and ready to go I'll probably leave BT and go to Sky, more on a point of principle than anything else. As I can get up to 76 meg with their introductory offer for a quid less than I am currently paying BT to get 4.

 

[ManinBlack]

With regards to your home wiring then it is your responsibility. If you wanted it upgrading then you'd likely have to pay. You wouldn't expect an electrician to install a new light fitting for free, right?

When I complained about the speed BT came out & fitted a new, modern, socket free of charge & this increased the speed quite a bit.

 

[Dan2501]

A anecdotal but when having a conversation with a BT engineer a while back he said that once the line gets back to the exchange the BT broadband customers will go onto the newer exchange eqpt and the SKY/Virgin customers would go onto the older eqpt... not sure I believe that but my experience with BT 'v' Sky when I switched to SKY certainly suggested there's a grain of truth in it. SKY BB was rubbish for speed and was prone to buffering.

However, when we switched to a fibre optic BB provision with Virgin, wow!

That sounds like absolute rubbish. The typical rubbish that BT and Openreach spout.

Fibre to the premises is the future of internet connectivity but I'd imagine most people don't even know it exists. With FTTP you're looking at gigabit per second speeds, minimum download speeds of around 800mb, it's incredible. TalkTalk are piloting it in York at the minute and I went down and gave it a go and it's unreal. We're running 2 4K TV's streaming 4K content from Netflix seamlessly and stuff was just downloading in an instant, it's amazing. That should be the norm, and hopefully in 10 years it will be.

https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/broadband/ultra

 

[Lord Tyrion]

With regards to your home wiring then it is your responsibility. If you wanted it upgrading then you'd likely have to pay. You wouldn't expect an electrician to install a new light fitting for free, right?

I would expect to pay for it, I mention this in my first post. I asked if it was worth it and any idea of a price.

 

[need_my_wedge]

I've got BT Infinity, had it a few years now. 700 yds from the exchange, fibre to the end of the close, then 20m copper I guess. Speedtests all say 69MB - 7"MB, fast enough to work online whilst the boy is playing xbox online with his mates, and wifey is streaming her TV from Japan without any degradaton or pausing for any of us. BT guarantee 48MB minimum. Don't think I could work on 8MB any more......

BT moved my primary phone socket from downstairs to upstairs so that I could locate the router next to the servers, didn't charge for it, but they didn't replace any other wiring.

 

[Rooter]

Can I just say Rooter talking about routers is my favourite bit of this forum....

To avoid any confusion:

Router -

Rooter -

Router -

 

[richy]

I would expect to pay for it, I mention this in my first post. I asked if it was worth it and any idea of a price.

The price would be set by your service provider, they might not even pass the charge onto you. Openreach charge the Provider and its up to them what they do from there.

Whether it's worth it or not depends on the condition of it now. It might be perfectly fine.

 

[richy]

When I complained about the speed BT came out & fitted a new, modern, socket free of charge & this increased the speed quite a bit.

Someone would've been charged

 

[jim8flog]

I made the simple switch from Standard up to 8mb (TalkTalk) to BT infinity and the difference was very easy to spot.

400 yards to exchange. Copper cable in the road and to house . Router on an extension socket.

Download 39MB Upload 9mb compared to 6MB and 1MB.

Uswitch reckon BT is the fastest in our area.

 

[ManinBlack]

Someone would've been charged

Not sure who, then. I'm with BT & have BT Infinity