Sky vs BT for fibre optic broadband.

[seb]

Currently have "normal" broadband at 1.5mb roughly. Can now get fibre optic broadband up to 58mb.

Anyone use sky fibre optic broadband? I am currently with sky anyway so would it be simpler to upgrade with sky or change to bt as i presume an engineer would have to come round anyway.

 

[S1MON]

You do know its only fibre optic from the box down the road to the exchange.. so is still copper from your house to down the road or wherever.. think its a piss take when i found out.

 

[seb]

Tbh, not bothered as long as i get a quicker service. I appreciate they can't replace the cable direct to my house.

 

[S1MON]

Yeah true, but i thought they would make it a little clearer to people. The phone line to our house isn't the best.. and we looked into fibre optic don't think it will be much better if we did get it. If we lived in a Virgin area i'd be getting that.

But out of the two I would say BT.

 

[Emma.]

I've got sky. No issues with it whatsoever. Although I am apparently receiving 40mb the speed tests I've run have maxed at 25/26mb so far. But that's far quicker the normal broadband

 

[...]

we had Be broadband on a local loop , but as Be have decided not to go fibre yet (and now i don't think will we swapped to bt )


we are a fair distance from the exchange ,and not that close to our cab , and this is what i have just got

​i would say BT are better than sky when it comes to customer service but its marginal.

 

[*Wilson*]

I have bt infinity 76MB not as good as virgin (the best) but still fast and over a 5ghz wifi network my speeds are 45MB, would be even faster if i used a ethernet connection i'd be getting 68MB.

 

[Tails_]

Personally, I'm with BT. I would be hitting in excess of 96+MB if it weren't for the imposed 80mb limiter they set. My dad works for BT and this is how he explained it:

"Virgin may offer you 80mb, but its 80mb to everyone connected to virgin using the same Cab as you (the little green boxes on your block), so if someone is constantly streaming, it can affect you. BT offer you 80mb to you as an individual." Granted its been dumbed down and is a biased opinion, but thats my 2pence.

You do know its only fibre optic from the box down the road to the exchange.. so is still copper from your house to down the road or wherever.. think its a piss take when i found out.

Also, I believe this is availble now. Not sure of the MB gains you'll be getting. If you have overhead cables Its considerably cheaper than underground, obviously down to the digging etc. AFAIK the costs of fiber to cab still outweigh the benefits.

 

[Cookie]

You do know its only fibre optic from the box down the road to the exchange.. so is still copper from your house to down the road or wherever.. think its a piss take when i found out.

FTTP is coming, it's being trialled all over the place at the mo. Speeds up to 330mb/sec for now. It's going to be a lot more expensive than FTTC!

Sky's customer service record in the past hasn't been great.

A BT Openreach engineer (or a sub contractor) will be doing the work in your house regardless of who you go with.

 

[Typhoon]

You do know its only fibre optic from the box down the road to the exchange.. so is still copper from your house to down the road or wherever.. think its a piss take when i found out.

The box outside my house is literally at the end of my front garden.

Success.

 

[Danny312]

My dad works for BT and this is how he explained it:

"Virgin may offer you 80mb, but its 80mb to everyone connected to virgin using the same Cab as you (the little green boxes on your block), so if someone is constantly streaming, it can affect you. BT offer you 80mb to you as an individual."

That's incorrect. Virgin offer broadband the same way as everyone else, if you purchase a package; that's the speed you will receive as an individual. We pay for 120Mb and we receive that, it isn't shared with other people.

 

[Nick172Cup]

Having got BT Infinity (FTTC) I'm not sure I'd see the benefits of FTTP, the cabinet service is ample quick enough for what I need even when it running slow.

I work for Openreach building the fibre network for both cabinet and premise services.

 

[...]

That's incorrect. Virgin offer broadband the same way as everyone else, if you purchase a package; that's the speed you will receive as an individual. We pay for 120Mb and we receive that, it isn't shared with other people.

Quite right .... I was an sdh transmission engineer way back in a previous life whats available in the cab will be way more than 80mb ...

Back in 2000 we were running a 2.5gb network round Europe and into the scandics and across to the states on nortel kit ...... I only threw all my manuals out a short while ago as havnt worked in the industry for 10 years nowadays I struggle to set up a proper cisco box

 

[Longy]

Just had BT FTTP installed in work 80mb download 20mb upload - £6 install lol

 

[Danny312]

Quite right .... I was an sdh transmission engineer way back in a previous life whats available in the cab will be way more than 80mb ...

Back in 2000 we were running a 2.5gb network round Europe and into the scandics and across to the states on nortel kit ...... I only threw all my manuals out a short while ago as havnt worked in the industry for 10 years nowadays I struggle to set up a proper cisco box

Sounds interesting, how did you end up in that job? Did you have any qualifications in that area before you started? It's just curiosity, I've got 1 more year left at Uni studying Networks and I'm going to take my CCNA exam this summer. I've got no idea in what direction to head because networks have so many areas to work in now.

 

[...]

Its a bit of a strange story ... I had no background in coms at all , in fact I trained as an avionics engineer but had worked in another industry for a while.i have an HNC in electronic engineering but no degree . My brother worked for bt for years (still does) and I had no knowlage of telecoms .
A friend said someone was looking to train sdhc engineers with no background as he felt fedup with the ex bt or royal signals guys they seemed to get .
I went for an interview and got the job and trained on the job .... was well payed and it took a few years to feel comfortable fault finding a network via a unix terminal from a network centre in london yo a network around europe .
Its quite high pressure at times as sla's mean money is bleeding away with network issues as we were the backbone network for many isps , banks and coms companies ... very rewarding though and well paid . Someone has to run the fibre networks that keep the internet alive ... most think it just works on magic ....lol

When 9-11 happendd I worked 36 hours straight as the amount of uk phone traffic that routes through hudson street in NY is amazing .... and it had to be rerouted via frankfurt to get onto our uk network and then on to bt

 

[JonnyK]

Just had BT FTTP installed in work 80mb download 20mb upload - £6 install lol

​Free install and £6 router delivery

 

[JonnyK]

You do know its only fibre optic from the box down the road to the exchange.. so is still copper from your house to down the road or wherever.. think its a piss take when i found out.

not really a piss-take.. stick to adsl if you want to moan

 

[Longy]

​Free install and £6 router delivery

yeah not bad as it took 4 BT engineers to install it!

 

[MaLicE]

Just had sky fiber pro installed 80mb down and 20mb up normal adsl in this area maxes at 1.4mb down.... So was a no brainer

 

[jenic]

We moved from BT infinity to Plusnet Fibre the other month.

Apart from the migration being a little flakey, we were without broadband for a few days, nothing is any different with plusnet except the price.

Afaik all the FTTC is provided by BT, no LLU or any of that crap which usually makes sky/talktalk etc crap ime.

 

[cava83]

We moved from BT infinity to Plusnet Fibre the other month.

Apart from the migration being a little flakey, we were without broadband for a few days, nothing is any different with plusnet except the price.

Afaik all the FTTC is provided by BT, no LLU or any of that crap which usually makes sky/talktalk etc crap ime.

The other benefit is the fixed IP for a one off price of £5 versus the typical £15 + VAT per quarter from BT/Sky and most other providers.

BT do provide the sports aspect now, for their customers which is rather good if you're a sports nut.

Rather happy with Plusnet so far, the wifi from their router is shocking though