Internet connections

[TheApprentice2011]

I dont understand why, BT connections vary so much depending on where you live( where i live i pay for 20mb unlimited bandwith but i only get about 8mb) where with virgin u can have up to 50mb unlimited bamdwith as a standard and the connection dont drop depending where you are. Now here's the problem where i live you cant get virgin as theres no fibre optic, this is where i dont understand we live in a technology advanced world and they cant even get a contant internet connect or fibre optics out.

[Inky Pete]

Need to dig up every road in the country to lay fibre to everyone. That ain't going to happen overnight.

So Virgin's speed does vary from one place to another. In some places it's up to 50 meg, in others it's zero!

If you're only getting 8 meg why are you paying for 20? If 8 is all your line will deliver wouldn't you be better off getting a cheaper 8 meg package?

[northwales4u]

If you're only getting 8 meg why are you paying for 20? If 8 is all your line will deliver wouldn't you be better off getting a cheaper 8 meg package?

I'm way out in the country and I also too pay for the 20Meg Unlimited deal but my speed varies between 4-8meg depending on the weather. I have rung them but they have said that because I want unlimited downloads (for gaming, general surfing and porn) there isn't another package suitable

[TheApprentice2011]

Could they not replace the phone line cables for fibre optic because to my knowlege fibre optics faster than standard phone cable and can deal with more than one thing at once

[Inky Pete]

Who are you currently with?

Post Office have been good to me for the past couple of years. Paying for 8 meg, getting around 7 consistently. Used to only get 3 to 4 on exactly the same line with PlusNet.

[Inky Pete]

Could they not replace the phone line cables for fibre optic because to my knowlege fibre optics faster than standard phone cable and can deal with more than one thing at once

No. Fibre has to be buried. It's made of glass and is not flexible enough to hang from telephone poles and get blown around in the wind without cracking.

[kellys_eye]

Fibre is as flexible as you wish (you can tie it in a loose knot quite easily with care) and like any other cable it can be found plastic coated or armoured-plated to some extent so stringing it on poles should pose no problems. Obviously there is 'cost' so....

Anyway, I believe the correct approach to 'up to 20Mb for only £19.99/month' is to pay them UP TO £19.99 depending on what it is you actually get......

[Inky Pete]

Fibre is flexible from that point of view, yes. It'll bend around corners - as long as they're not too tight. But it won't take being flexed back and forth the way a phone line between poles has to for very long before it starts to develop microscopic cracks in the glass core which will "cloud" the glass and degrade the signal.

[northwales4u]

When I last had a BT engineer round I asked him about the rollout of fibre optics and he said that they will be doing main sections first (like the commercial centres of cities) because of cost and logistics. Saying all that, once all the fibre optics are rolled out they only go to the nearest exchange, green boxes on the side of the street not buildings containing ladies with headsets like I envisaged, so from the exchange to the houses will just have standard cable.

He may have been feeding me a load of bull though...

[joinerjohn]

Speed with BT ( and others through the phone line) all depends how far you are from the exchange. Your speed can also depend on contention (the amount of people all using the same exchange for broadband in simple terms)

Pricing is a bit of a strange one though. My brother is on Sky (through his phone line) and pays for the up to 20mb speed. He only gets a maximum of 5mb connection speed BUT If he drops his speed connection to the 10mb package, he then has a cap on how much data he can use each month, before he's charged (over the odds) for any data over his limit.
With the 20mb speed, there's no such cap on data transfer.

[scot-canuck]

Its all to do with signal strength on copper, over the distance signal degrades, noise on the line increases and the networking kit on each end has to slow down to be able to communicate (bit like trying to talk in a noisy bar)
Fibre is quicker yes, but the roll out cost will be massive. BT did offer to lay fibre to the whole country at no cost to UK.gov in the 80s in exchange for the right to broadcast TV over the new fibre network, but Thatcher's govt declined their offer.....twits
Inky: Their have been trials of stringing fibre between telephone poles to decrease the cost of installations in rural areas. Thick enough sheath would stop it bending I would think
NW4U: Right info, BT are using 2 different tactics FTTP (Fibre To The Premises - Fibre straight into your house and 100Mbps max speed) and more commonly FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) Fibre to the street cabinet with copper the rest of the way to massively cut the average line length and allow speeds of up to 40Mbps, most people have got ~30Mbps.
TA2011: The speed diff is because virgin put their kit in street cabs with fibre to the cabs and coax cable from the cabinets to your home, shorter line length and better cable so better speeds.

Just a shame H20 networks plan didn't work out (They wanted to lay cables through sewers, cunning plan considering most homes are connected to the sewer network) One of their partner companies is under SFO investigation though.