Broadband advice please

[Woolless]

Hello all,

I have standard broadband with BT. We used to get 7mb, now getting about 3. Presumably this combined with increased demand from the kids means that our connection can be irritatingly slow and I often get kicked off the network when using my tablet to surf on here or play tunes on Spotify.

Our next problem is that, lockdown permitting, we will be welcoming self-catering guests in to a self-contained annexe at the end of the house in the next month or two. They will be using our wi-fi as well so this problem is only going to get worse.

So, where do I start troubleshooting? Would upgrading the broadband help? We apparently have fibreoptic cable to the end of the farm road. The 250m from there to the house is on telegraph poles. We had real trouble with our broadband last year and they had to repair one of the junction boxes on the poles, so I am a little dubious about that part of the infrastructure.

Any help appreciated. TIA.

 

[Chris F]

You can throttle the annex by using another wifi login and router, so they only get really crap speeds!

 

[Woolless]

You can throttle the annex by using another wifi login and router, so they only get really crap speeds!

I was going to use a wi-fi extender to throw the signal down there. I want good reviews, so I want us and them to have decent wi-fi!

 

[spark plug]

First check what tariff your on with BT, if your just on a standard tariff they could well be limiting your speed to get more money out of you. Or look at changing to a different supplier.

Alternatively you could go down the most extreme route and get the fibre connected direct to your home, if it’s as close as you say and the logistics means you could install the duct your self it may not be too costly, but you would never know ware BT are involved. But the difference would be like getting off a TE20 and jumping in a 200hp Fendt.

 

[Cowabunga]

I'm virtually attending a webinar tomorrow night, if my broadband speed allows, on 4G broadband using the cell network. Or that is what I assume its about. This is hardly relevant to someone that has fibre-optic so close by but thought I'd mention it as an option to those that can get a mobile signal near to home or office but not a worthwhile wired signal.
I'll know more by Tuesday.

 

[Woolless]

First check what tariff your on with BT, if your just on a standard tariff they could well be limiting your speed to get more money out of you. Or look at changing to a different supplier.

Alternatively you could go down the most extreme route and get the fibre connected direct to your home, if it’s as close as you say and the logistics means you could install the duct your self it may not be too costly, but you would never know ware BT are involved. But the difference would be like getting off a TE20 and jumping in a 200hp Fendt.

I suppose if I contact BT to moan about the speed, they can just sidestep it by saying it could be the home set-up or whatever. Would they actually go out their way to limit the speed on individual accounts to force folk in to upgrades?

 

[upnortheast]

If you can get fibre to the premisis, go for it. 300 mbs here,makes a huge difference.
We have 1 connection running 2 offices & 2 houses. Last time I looked on the router it had a list of 30 devices & never misses a beat
Put your post code in this will tell you what`s available

Broadband

Openreach is investing in Copper, Superfast, Gfast and Ultrafast ultra reliable Full Fibre broadband for homes and businesses across the UK. Check what's available at your premises with our availability checker and learn more about our ambitious plans.

www.openreach.com

 

[Woolless]

If you can get fibre to the premisis, go for it. 300 mbs here,makes a huge difference.
We have 1 connection running 2 offices & 2 houses. Last time I looked on the router it had a list of 30 devices & never misses a beat
Put your post code in this will tell you what`s available

Broadband

Openreach is investing in Copper, Superfast, Gfast and Ultrafast ultra reliable Full Fibre broadband for homes and businesses across the UK. Check what's available at your premises with our availability checker and learn more about our ambitious plans.

www.openreach.com

That checker says that I can get full fibre to the premises but I know that the fibre cable stops 250m away

 

[upnortheast]

Sound promising, though with bt you never can tell
Make the phone call & see what they say.
Not a big job for them to run a fibre cable 250m - along existing poles ?

 

[walesfarmer]

That checker says that I can get full fibre to the premises but I know that the fibre cable stops 250m away

The first time you order full fibre FTTP, Openreach will need to connect your property to the nearest distribution point.
After I placed my order when FTTP showed as available, Openreach did a survey one day, installed 350m of fibre cable between the nearest fibre point and outside the house another day, then spliced the fibre and installed the ONT modem another day.
If the checker says it's available, go ahead and order.

 

[upnortheast]

If you are going ahead worth looking at putting your phones on fibre. They will probably offer it as an option with a fttp contract. Then you will have no more bother with crappy copper wires

 

[Dry Rot]

I am in pretty much the same situation. I wa with Plusnet getting crap speed. Told EE was good, so phoned them and they said, yes, I could get fibre at a predicted 34. So changed to EE. No difference. Engineers attended by the bus load (well, not quite!). They eventually said it was because I am on copper wire and improvement was not ossible. Fibre goes past the gate 300m away.

So why am I paying for 34Mb/s fibre when I'm getting 2 and 0.7? So I changed to standard with the cheapest provider I could find -- Post Office at £15/month. Then, as I said, they laid the fibre cable past my gate. So I phone the PO to ask about this. Yes! I can get fibre! Yippee!

So I changed to the PO fibre tarriff -- no improvement, same speeds. More rude letters and more phone calls. Another engineer comes out and tests everything. Yes, I can get the latest high speed at 40 but would need to change to BT who have a monopoly and want £40 a month. Being on copper wire makes no difference and is apparently BS. Prices will not come down until their monopoly is broken. So there's your answer. I have a nephew who is a project manager with BT and intend checking with him soon, but his wife just died so it won't be tomorrow. Yes, I think it probably is available, but arrange to win the lottery first.

 

[upnortheast]

Sounds like you are on fibre to the cabinet. Which means the connection from the cabinet is still on copper. Where speed falls away with distance. Fttp is a different beast. Fibre cable all the way with no drop in speed

 

[walesfarmer]

So that we can understand what options you have, go to https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/Address then enter postcode then select address, then post a screenshot of the results table (crop out address or other identifying information).
It tells a lot about connection types, speed and installation methods.

 

[upnortheast]

Some useful info on this thread from 6 months ago

FTTP & Phone line

We now have (as of yesterday) FTTP available to our home. Currently with BT Business for phone line and broadband they are suggesting a FTTP package and do away with the phone line. About £51 a month for 75meg and phone over the internet (BT Cloud) Anyone gone fibre only for phone and internet...

thefarmingforum.co.uk

 

[J B]

That checker says that I can get full fibre to the premises but I know that the fibre cable stops 250m away

FTTP - a direct fibre cable from the exchange to your Premises
FTTC - Fibre connection to the (green) cabinet somewhere local (either the exchange, or perhaps a local 'hub') then it uses your existing copper cable to get to your house.

FTTP *may* be very expensive and *very* fast
FTTC may be more reasonably priced and adequate

Only local knowledge will be able to answer all the above queries, but the fact that the fibre cable is 250m away, may be irrelevant (Our near neighbour spent circa 100K, allegedly, getting FTTP. The cable runs straight past our house 50m away, but it's not the sort of thing you can tap into)

We use https://www.airband.co.uk/ as ADSL was giving us a flaky 2Mbps FTTC is not available and FTTP was going to cost over 12K

 

[Wombat]

If you can get fibre to the premisis, go for it. 300 mbs here,makes a huge difference.
We have 1 connection running 2 offices & 2 houses. Last time I looked on the router it had a list of 30 devices & never misses a beat
Put your post code in this will tell you what`s available

Broadband

Openreach is investing in Copper, Superfast, Gfast and Ultrafast ultra reliable Full Fibre broadband for homes and businesses across the UK. Check what's available at your premises with our availability checker and learn more about our ambitious plans.

www.openreach.com

We have the main fibre lines go past out gate 20m from the house but they say we cannot get fibre to premises which drives me nuts so stuck on 2mb at the farm

 

[jondear]

That checker says that I can get full fibre to the premises but I know that the fibre cable stops 250m away

We have fibre less than 50 m but can't connect to it without paying a fortune because it's a private supply that someone put in.
Fortunately we had a firm voneous come in the other day that want us to put in a receiver antenna for broadband to serve parish with very poor broadband . Currently on less than 2mbs!
Free broadband hopefully 25 -30 mbs! Believe it when I see it!

 

[Dry Rot]

Frankly, quotes of speed `"up to" means bugger all. Been there, done that, got the T shirt. And still on 2.0 and 0.7. There's also a matter of price.

 

[milkloss]

I presume you have tried plugging directly into your modem using a network cable, turned off Wi-Fi and done a speed test using at least two websites?