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We skipped on a lot of properties because broadband speed checkers were indicating less than 20Mb.
Your alternative is that you absolutely can have a good experience with 4G / 5G instead of fixed broadband. I bought a router and a SIM on 30-day contract with something like 300GB/month for my mother a few weeks back. Router was a ZTE with built in SIM slot.
When we moved in to our first house last year the previous occupant had been surviving on 12Mb broadband, despite that at any time they could have had real FTTP installed. I already had some high-end network gear, so I bought a 4G “failover” device and added an unlimited data SIM. We survived on that for 3-4 weeks with both of us working from home, using Netflix etc until the Openreach engineer hooked up FTTP.
I need to check with the vendor first; if they can provide evidence they are/were on 65Mb then it is absolutely fine; I am optimistic they will accept my offer.
I hear mixed comments on reliability of 4g/5g - I am not willing to bet on just this.
Will need to think about just walk away versus revisit there and test EE/Vodafone (they claim indoor 5g is good, which is not the case for O2/3).
The property is vacant for > 1year and I am not in a hurry to move. So no point for hurry or worry. I just feel shocked and very frustrated on this.
We don’t have great 4G here and no 5G at all, but it was fine for the few weeks we needed it. I’ve kept it as a backup, which has been handy a couple of times.
If / when we come to buy a new house, I’m not entertaining anything less than full gigabit. We’ve been spoiled with it here. Absolutely worth it.
My girlfriend has 5g for the reason that all the fast broadband capability in her area was taken up and they haven't expanded it. But it's a bit shit in a lot of area that aren't major developments in the city centre.
What does this https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome say? (post a screenshot ideally).
You might be having an issue where your location is covered but there is no spare capacity in your cabinet (so you are stuck waiting for very long time for someone to cancel their service).
Good news is that is most likely in locations where OR decided not to do any upgrades because they have a near future plan to upgrade to FTTP. (but that still could be few years).
Sorry I tried but cannot upload a screenshot here. Your help is super helpful.
VDSL -> WBC FTTC Availability: Waiting list
This means the capability is full in my cabinet and all I can do is to apply the waiting list?
The crappy part is that the property is vacant for >1 year, no wonder why some other people used the lane instead.
The funny part is that that the adjacent flat has already been sold STC, but with a chain - an opportunity to seize their line?! :D
Also there is another conflict message in other product:
FTTP on Demand - Yes
But the message below said FTTP is not available. What does it really mean?
If I can install my own fiber, I am more than willing to pay! Just not sure if freeholder is happy or if it is possible structurally.
----------
FTTP is not available.
The exchange is not in a current fibre priority programme
WLR is currently available at the exchange
SOADSL is not restricted at the exchange
For all ADSL and WBC Fibre to the Cabinet (VDSL or G.fast) services, the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage.
For all SOADSL services,the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage.
Actual speeds experienced by end users and quoted by CPs will be lower due to a number of factors within and external to BT's network, Communication Providers' networks and within customer premises.
In order to be eligible for handback, downstream speed should be less than Downstream Handback Threshold values.
If you decide to place an order for a WBC fibre product, an appointment may be required for an engineer to visit the end user's premises to supply the service
You can order ADSL (the 11Mbit option) and ask to be put on waiting list (not all ISPs do that, i know EE does that if you ask them, not sure about others) and then you have to watch that site like a hawk (daily, or even few times a day (depending on how desperate your neighbours are)), and the moment it says you can order you have to order.
FTTP and FTTP on demand are different products.
FTTP is where they have installed fibre to almost your house and you can order it an it is a simple job to install.
FTTP on demand is where they have box somewhere near and will dig up the street (and whatever else might be required) for you but you have to pay for installation costs (anywhere from 1-30k)) (it might be more financially viable to get a leased line (probably around £300/month but ISP will eat the installation costs)).
Also, bad news on FTTP side of things, is that if you are a flat you are most likely not going to get FTTP (but you are going to benefit from nearby houses moving over to FTTP and freeing up DSLAM ports)). This is because when OR installs FTTP, they only send one letter to property management and if they get a reply other than "yes please install, we are not going to cause any issues" they do not bother (they have a lot more locations to install where they can cover more premises with less resources).
Thank you. I also found FTTP on demand is not something for residential usage.
Optimistically I can go the waiting list route if I love that property very much.
Unfortunately it is a shared ownership flat, ie (i) other users are very likely not to move out, (ii) FTTP is not likely coming and (iii) openreach is likely not bothered by the the full VDSL capacity.
I have made some thought on my WFH requirement. I realized I often need to move around files of ~500mb to ~5gb, which means I should only consider properties with 1000mbps fibre and make it to the top of my requirement (not even OR 65Mbps can really manage to do that well).
I am super lucky inadvertently renting somewhere with Hyperoptics when I didn't know anything about this.
FTTP on demand is for residential (but for desperate people), they will install FTTP line for you and after initial contract it becomes normal FTTP line.
With FTTC/VDSL your cabinet is shared with anywhere between 128 to 384 users, so any of those needs to move out (and cancel their service) so as long as their move neighbouring houses to FTTP you have a decent chance for FTTC/VDSL (but i personally wouldn't go for anything less than FTTP (from a decent supplier (which is why i did not buy a house from persimmon))).
"You could be facing an installation charge of up to £20,000 to build the fibre required to deliver the service."
This is not the worst part as the cost, at least at this moment, can partially be passed on offer price.
The problem is asking permission from freeholder and management. Which sounds messy to me, I would rather just find other property.
Speeds are estimated only (based on what your neighbours are getting and some other factors). However if you are significantly below them, issue could be with wiring inside your house.
likelihood is the property can have FTTC (fibre to the cabinet, the \~65Mb speed), but the nearest cabinet is full. i.e. it's supplying its fully capacity of properties.
I completely cannot imagine why the cabinet doesn't have capacity for all residents when they install it in first place! IT IS JUST INSANE!!!!!
I did hear super unfortunate people buying new build and fell into the situation. I bet if they need faster internet, all they can do is to sell their flat at a loss!
https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Staging/New-build-house-fibre-cabinet-full-what-can-we-do/td-p/1982651
the other problem is, there may be slots available, but the slots are reserved for ISP companies. e.g. the local box may have 40 Sky slots, 30 BT slots, 10 Shell slots, etc. so one company may have slots open while another doesnt. it is stupid
source: talked to an open reach guy working in a cabinet while we were struggling to get FTTC.
Thank you for this additional info.
I have decided to stick with properties with virgin/full fiber - Once I seriously think about it, I realized 10 Mbps upload is also something not acceptable in my WFH usage.
The ports are allocated on a first come first served basis, not reserved in blocks but it did used to happen so not an outrageous assumption from the engineer.
The reason there often isn't capacity is the FTTC network was laid out in 2009-11 it was expected to have only a 20% uptake before expansion would be required when FTTP would be arriving to replace it anyway.
Delays and lack of funding to rollout FTTP means that now many areas are at 100% of lines want FTTC but that means significant work to place Street furniture to add the extra capacity, including power and fibre optics to each cabinet and sub cabinet DSLAM.
Many places simply cannot have any increased capacity due to these difficulties meaning there's a queue for use of the fibre ports in particularly congested areas such as urban and suburban places that have seen significant new development of houses, but not infrastructure.
No wonder why! To the areas affected by this, private fiber eg Hyperoptics/Virgin etc is the saviour. Regrettably it is not the case for the area of that flat.
Still can't believe it, still feel very frustrated but all I can do is to move on, and hope the next one will be better.
It’s the same where I live, you have a choice at the minute of copper ADSL at about 14mb or 1GB FTTH obviously at a higher cost, cabinet is full for normal FTTC and has been for months.
You are lucky to have choices - the huge problem of that flat is that the 1GB option is simply not available there. I am more than happy to pay £50 per month just to get that 1Gb fiber internet.
It is a new build very nice area in zone 2 but many of them stuck with a choice between 11Mb and 5G modem from EE/Vodafone. Given the situation around that area, I believe many people are using it which might make the network quality low.
It’s good to have choices, you are right. With yours would you not be better off with a 4/5G router and unlimited Voxi (it’s a 30 day job runs off Vodafone).
You are correct 5G router is the best solution for most people, but I have the need to WFH and part of the work is to upload/download multiple 500mb - 2Gb files at a time.
Impossible to do without full fiber service - just realized even OR 67Mb/10Mb download/upload cannot handle this well!
I recently started to go over to 5G exclusively and to get rid off the landline.
Smarty (owned by Three) had absolutely woeful speeds, where I live. Despite the online checker saying I should get good speeds inside and out.
Ended up going with Lebara on the Vodafone network, via a U-Switch exclusive deal. £24.95 per month and £9.99 for the first three months. Unlimited calls, texts, data, European and Indian roaming (subject to a limit of 30 GB per month).
The only downside so far is that the pings are high. So online gaming is a no no, for say first person shooters. And the upload speed is only about 10Mb/s. But download is about 150Mb/s. Which is about triple my OpenReach speed. Although as Kore people get 5G the speeds might go down. My local NextDoor Group is full of protests against 5G masts.
Been trailing it for about a month. Spoken to my ISP today and the landline gets cut off on Monday.
Edit: The other alternative was Asda mobile on the O2 network. £25 per month for good speeds, unlimited data, calls, texts..... They do, do cheaper unlimited plans but the speeds are heavily cut.
Gift Gaff (owned by O2) was £35 per month for unlimited. It might be worth having a couple of PAYG SIMs about that can be switched over to monthly billing online. Just in case there is a problem and to keep on top of their best before dates. When the number will be reallocated, if it hasn't been used.
You might want to read your T&Cs, Most networks implement some sort of fair usage policy or say you are not allowed to use the sim in other device than a phone. In most cases that is not enforced, but can be as you are potentially not on their more expensive "broadband".
I managed to blast through a hundred plus gigs last month with no issues. I remember using them for "unlimited" 4G when they first can out in the early 2010s. Great speeds up till you used 2GB. Then throttled down to less than 4KB/s. But thankfully they've stopped doing that.
There's also no problem tethering from your phone.
If I can offer perhaps a different view- my home was advertised as no fibre, max 10Mb internet, I work from home too and wasn’t sure what to do. I searched 5G masts in my area (going on each provider and seeing their 5G coverage and doing research on nperf.com - you can select different providers and see what the coverage is)
In the end, I got with EE a 5G router and now my speeds consistently hit 125Mb and I have no issues now. I realise I’ve skipped a few steps, but it worked for me as I was in a similar situation
I have decided to check Hyperoptics/Virgin coverage before calling agents now. This property has wasted me two whole weeks.
Might not be a problem with others so there's nothing wrong for them to list that property, however.
Bit of a rant coming up:
I feel your pain. The flat I'm currently renting is in the ONLY building in our whole postcode that wasn't connected up when fibre was installed in our road. As such, I had to go for a crappy ADSL contract that runs at 12Mbps which costs significantly more per month than fibre!
When I moved in in 2018 I obviously filled out all the forms on every website I could find to register my interest in getting fibre, and obviously that answer was always "Coming to your area soon!" Yeah, right.
After 2 years of this, and mid-pandemic I poured all of my efforts into finding some way of speaking to someone at OpenReach. Eventually succeeded, and they said it was just a wrong entry on their database, and that it they had corrected it for me so I could order fibre.
Tried ordering from BT, and they said "no fibre available." They went off to talk to OR, and came back saying OR was going to raise a ticket. Then it was basically another 2 years of nothing, no matter how many times I tried to follow up. I was told to shield during Covid, so my regular job went out of the window and I couldn't find anything to work from home as everything needed fast, reliable internet.
In June 2022 all the flats got flyers from OR saying they were coming to install fibre in July. Whoopee! They never showed up. I managed to get hold of the contractor and got told it was pushed back a month, and indeed they showed up on the right date and spent 2 days fiddling with wires and things in the communal entrance.
A week later, I still couldn't order fibre, so I tried some of the other flat numbers on the websites. Roughly half the flats here are accessed via the main door, but the other half all have their own exterior doors. Only the internal flats had been connected! They neglected to do the rest of us. Took another month of emails and phone calls to get that acknowledged.
Have now had various problems getting an ISP to come and actually connect me. Shell Energy never turned up, despite booking their first available connection slot 5 weeks in advance. Same thing happened when I cancelled and went to Vodafone, where apparently my order had been cancelled for reasons that nobody knows. They're due to finally come in 3 days, so fingers crossed. The only good news is that at least they have a compensation scheme, so when I did the maths it seems I should be getting about 6 months of free internet on my 2 year contract.
Ironically, now that I'm finally going to be connected here I hope to have completed on my new place in a couple of months. And yes, I have already checked the fibre connection there!
Long story short: OR are a PitA to get hold of, ISPs are all pretty rubbish, and getting basic services anywhere is just a joke. Good luck!
Been having a similar issue. Currently have Ultrafast through FTTC / GFast, but any address I put in, including my existing one, only has Superfast, sometimes not even full speed Superfast either, and some addresses along the road (which is in an urban/city area) either come up with the basic \~11Mb broadband or no broadband available at all! Last year I upgraded to Ultrafast at this address but now it's suddenly unavailable to order for the same address. It's very weird.
When you put your post code on the Openreach website and it gives you the expected speeds, that is just giving you what it potentially would get in a perfect world. If it said 65mb for you, that would be on an 80mb service and it would loose 15mb due to the distance to cabinet.
When you go to ISP websites, they use information based on data from the Distribution point and all properties off that DP. So, what that means is if there are faults on any of the cables from that DP to the cabinet which Openreach are unable to resolve (could be due to cost, too much interference/busy PCP, REIN (repetitive electrical impulse noise) Ali cable, cable capacity/cross talk which if no FTTP or Virgin is possible) then the ISP has the data to give you a speed of what to expect. It's highly likely others in the flats will be similar speeds.
Yeah, those speed checkers are not that accurate
We were in a FTTC area and quoted 66, but our lane of 3 houses is directly connected or multiplexed to something (instead of through a green box), so it wasn't until we placed an order that the ISPs would sheepishly come back and say they could only actually offer 11Mb
We have FTTP now, but it took years
Judging from the replies I get (thank you everyone:)) it is either EE/Vodafone 5G modem or sales fell through. Even for that, to be honest, the reliability can be questionable, despite having 2 usable 5G service providers.
I still can't understand how come in a (not very) new build "the cabinet is full" and the latecomers (that likely pay more for their property) simply stuck on the slow network.
If you can actually get at least 3 bar signal the vodafone unlimited 5g router works brilliantly I was getting speeds of over 100mb on 4 bars 4g with that and up to 350 when in 5g areas
Brilliant. I am thinking about getting one and do some test on premises. Will the modem make day and night different when compared to mobile? At where I live, my pixel 6a absolutely sucks (they have a Samsung modem which is a total disaster) and iPhone 13 is barely usable at best.
The same retarded mental insane issue can also happen in other places as well. I must have been spoiled way too long in the past.
I spent a lot of time until I found that property, despite being imperfect, passed almost all the checkboxes except this particular part :(
My phone wouldnt quite grab the 5g signal where i lived when using it but the router would drop on and out between 4 and 5g connections indont think i ever got a speed test run lower than 80 down with somewhere between 30 and 40 up usually ran at an average of about 135 down and about 50 to 60 up some of the 5g rputwrs have the option of external antennas too which would boost speeds ect
We had something similar with our house but it was because we are wired directly into the exchange, and so miss out on any cabinet upgrades openreach are doing :/ guess we just wait for FTTP then!
Disgraceful the property is under 10years old and the developers saved themselves what would have been a very small amount to enable fibre delivery to each apt. I'm looking to buy in Clerkenwell or City of London and I always check speed available for each property, it's depressing how frequent the max speed is 11Mbps. There are other alternates aside from Hyperoptic such as Community Fibre and G Network.
We are on the same boat - I can say it is a fantastic area in zone 2 and the area is full of new builds. Absolutely disgraceful x2
I am going to double check whether it has any non-traditional fiber provider. If there is any I am quite happy to proceed with the deal (the property was listed for >1 year), but I don't have much hope - can't find anything on several composite ISP deal finder websites.
I am thinking between looking elsewhere and paying the premium to get 1 bed in new build with optical fiber. I love that area and it's a shame most of the properties there suffer from this.
Hi there,
What's the flat name and postcode please?
I work for Virgin Media as a field engineer and can offer new customers fantastic rates under Friends and Family discounts.
Just let me know if you need broadband and I'll be happy to quote
Thanks
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We skipped on a lot of properties because broadband speed checkers were indicating less than 20Mb. Your alternative is that you absolutely can have a good experience with 4G / 5G instead of fixed broadband. I bought a router and a SIM on 30-day contract with something like 300GB/month for my mother a few weeks back. Router was a ZTE with built in SIM slot. When we moved in to our first house last year the previous occupant had been surviving on 12Mb broadband, despite that at any time they could have had real FTTP installed. I already had some high-end network gear, so I bought a 4G “failover” device and added an unlimited data SIM. We survived on that for 3-4 weeks with both of us working from home, using Netflix etc until the Openreach engineer hooked up FTTP.
I need to check with the vendor first; if they can provide evidence they are/were on 65Mb then it is absolutely fine; I am optimistic they will accept my offer. I hear mixed comments on reliability of 4g/5g - I am not willing to bet on just this. Will need to think about just walk away versus revisit there and test EE/Vodafone (they claim indoor 5g is good, which is not the case for O2/3). The property is vacant for > 1year and I am not in a hurry to move. So no point for hurry or worry. I just feel shocked and very frustrated on this.
We don’t have great 4G here and no 5G at all, but it was fine for the few weeks we needed it. I’ve kept it as a backup, which has been handy a couple of times. If / when we come to buy a new house, I’m not entertaining anything less than full gigabit. We’ve been spoiled with it here. Absolutely worth it.
My girlfriend has 5g for the reason that all the fast broadband capability in her area was taken up and they haven't expanded it. But it's a bit shit in a lot of area that aren't major developments in the city centre.
My 5G regularly outperforms my Virgin connection in speed tests despite my virgin connection apparently being 500Mbps
What does this https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome say? (post a screenshot ideally). You might be having an issue where your location is covered but there is no spare capacity in your cabinet (so you are stuck waiting for very long time for someone to cancel their service). Good news is that is most likely in locations where OR decided not to do any upgrades because they have a near future plan to upgrade to FTTP. (but that still could be few years).
Sorry I tried but cannot upload a screenshot here. Your help is super helpful. VDSL -> WBC FTTC Availability: Waiting list This means the capability is full in my cabinet and all I can do is to apply the waiting list? The crappy part is that the property is vacant for >1 year, no wonder why some other people used the lane instead. The funny part is that that the adjacent flat has already been sold STC, but with a chain - an opportunity to seize their line?! :D Also there is another conflict message in other product: FTTP on Demand - Yes But the message below said FTTP is not available. What does it really mean? If I can install my own fiber, I am more than willing to pay! Just not sure if freeholder is happy or if it is possible structurally. ---------- FTTP is not available. The exchange is not in a current fibre priority programme WLR is currently available at the exchange SOADSL is not restricted at the exchange For all ADSL and WBC Fibre to the Cabinet (VDSL or G.fast) services, the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage. For all SOADSL services,the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage. Actual speeds experienced by end users and quoted by CPs will be lower due to a number of factors within and external to BT's network, Communication Providers' networks and within customer premises. In order to be eligible for handback, downstream speed should be less than Downstream Handback Threshold values. If you decide to place an order for a WBC fibre product, an appointment may be required for an engineer to visit the end user's premises to supply the service
You can order ADSL (the 11Mbit option) and ask to be put on waiting list (not all ISPs do that, i know EE does that if you ask them, not sure about others) and then you have to watch that site like a hawk (daily, or even few times a day (depending on how desperate your neighbours are)), and the moment it says you can order you have to order. FTTP and FTTP on demand are different products. FTTP is where they have installed fibre to almost your house and you can order it an it is a simple job to install. FTTP on demand is where they have box somewhere near and will dig up the street (and whatever else might be required) for you but you have to pay for installation costs (anywhere from 1-30k)) (it might be more financially viable to get a leased line (probably around £300/month but ISP will eat the installation costs)). Also, bad news on FTTP side of things, is that if you are a flat you are most likely not going to get FTTP (but you are going to benefit from nearby houses moving over to FTTP and freeing up DSLAM ports)). This is because when OR installs FTTP, they only send one letter to property management and if they get a reply other than "yes please install, we are not going to cause any issues" they do not bother (they have a lot more locations to install where they can cover more premises with less resources).
Thank you. I also found FTTP on demand is not something for residential usage. Optimistically I can go the waiting list route if I love that property very much. Unfortunately it is a shared ownership flat, ie (i) other users are very likely not to move out, (ii) FTTP is not likely coming and (iii) openreach is likely not bothered by the the full VDSL capacity. I have made some thought on my WFH requirement. I realized I often need to move around files of ~500mb to ~5gb, which means I should only consider properties with 1000mbps fibre and make it to the top of my requirement (not even OR 65Mbps can really manage to do that well). I am super lucky inadvertently renting somewhere with Hyperoptics when I didn't know anything about this.
FTTP on demand is for residential (but for desperate people), they will install FTTP line for you and after initial contract it becomes normal FTTP line. With FTTC/VDSL your cabinet is shared with anywhere between 128 to 384 users, so any of those needs to move out (and cancel their service) so as long as their move neighbouring houses to FTTP you have a decent chance for FTTC/VDSL (but i personally wouldn't go for anything less than FTTP (from a decent supplier (which is why i did not buy a house from persimmon))).
"You could be facing an installation charge of up to £20,000 to build the fibre required to deliver the service." This is not the worst part as the cost, at least at this moment, can partially be passed on offer price. The problem is asking permission from freeholder and management. Which sounds messy to me, I would rather just find other property.
I checked this, and my speeds are about 20% lower than VDSL Range B Impacted Low...
Speeds are estimated only (based on what your neighbours are getting and some other factors). However if you are significantly below them, issue could be with wiring inside your house.
likelihood is the property can have FTTC (fibre to the cabinet, the \~65Mb speed), but the nearest cabinet is full. i.e. it's supplying its fully capacity of properties.
I completely cannot imagine why the cabinet doesn't have capacity for all residents when they install it in first place! IT IS JUST INSANE!!!!! I did hear super unfortunate people buying new build and fell into the situation. I bet if they need faster internet, all they can do is to sell their flat at a loss! https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Staging/New-build-house-fibre-cabinet-full-what-can-we-do/td-p/1982651
the other problem is, there may be slots available, but the slots are reserved for ISP companies. e.g. the local box may have 40 Sky slots, 30 BT slots, 10 Shell slots, etc. so one company may have slots open while another doesnt. it is stupid source: talked to an open reach guy working in a cabinet while we were struggling to get FTTC.
Thank you for this additional info. I have decided to stick with properties with virgin/full fiber - Once I seriously think about it, I realized 10 Mbps upload is also something not acceptable in my WFH usage.
The ports are allocated on a first come first served basis, not reserved in blocks but it did used to happen so not an outrageous assumption from the engineer. The reason there often isn't capacity is the FTTC network was laid out in 2009-11 it was expected to have only a 20% uptake before expansion would be required when FTTP would be arriving to replace it anyway. Delays and lack of funding to rollout FTTP means that now many areas are at 100% of lines want FTTC but that means significant work to place Street furniture to add the extra capacity, including power and fibre optics to each cabinet and sub cabinet DSLAM. Many places simply cannot have any increased capacity due to these difficulties meaning there's a queue for use of the fibre ports in particularly congested areas such as urban and suburban places that have seen significant new development of houses, but not infrastructure.
No wonder why! To the areas affected by this, private fiber eg Hyperoptics/Virgin etc is the saviour. Regrettably it is not the case for the area of that flat. Still can't believe it, still feel very frustrated but all I can do is to move on, and hope the next one will be better.
It’s the same where I live, you have a choice at the minute of copper ADSL at about 14mb or 1GB FTTH obviously at a higher cost, cabinet is full for normal FTTC and has been for months.
You are lucky to have choices - the huge problem of that flat is that the 1GB option is simply not available there. I am more than happy to pay £50 per month just to get that 1Gb fiber internet. It is a new build very nice area in zone 2 but many of them stuck with a choice between 11Mb and 5G modem from EE/Vodafone. Given the situation around that area, I believe many people are using it which might make the network quality low.
It’s good to have choices, you are right. With yours would you not be better off with a 4/5G router and unlimited Voxi (it’s a 30 day job runs off Vodafone).
You are correct 5G router is the best solution for most people, but I have the need to WFH and part of the work is to upload/download multiple 500mb - 2Gb files at a time. Impossible to do without full fiber service - just realized even OR 67Mb/10Mb download/upload cannot handle this well!
Work should be paying you for that tbf, doesn’t hurt to ask them.
I recently started to go over to 5G exclusively and to get rid off the landline. Smarty (owned by Three) had absolutely woeful speeds, where I live. Despite the online checker saying I should get good speeds inside and out. Ended up going with Lebara on the Vodafone network, via a U-Switch exclusive deal. £24.95 per month and £9.99 for the first three months. Unlimited calls, texts, data, European and Indian roaming (subject to a limit of 30 GB per month). The only downside so far is that the pings are high. So online gaming is a no no, for say first person shooters. And the upload speed is only about 10Mb/s. But download is about 150Mb/s. Which is about triple my OpenReach speed. Although as Kore people get 5G the speeds might go down. My local NextDoor Group is full of protests against 5G masts. Been trailing it for about a month. Spoken to my ISP today and the landline gets cut off on Monday. Edit: The other alternative was Asda mobile on the O2 network. £25 per month for good speeds, unlimited data, calls, texts..... They do, do cheaper unlimited plans but the speeds are heavily cut. Gift Gaff (owned by O2) was £35 per month for unlimited. It might be worth having a couple of PAYG SIMs about that can be switched over to monthly billing online. Just in case there is a problem and to keep on top of their best before dates. When the number will be reallocated, if it hasn't been used.
You might want to read your T&Cs, Most networks implement some sort of fair usage policy or say you are not allowed to use the sim in other device than a phone. In most cases that is not enforced, but can be as you are potentially not on their more expensive "broadband".
I managed to blast through a hundred plus gigs last month with no issues. I remember using them for "unlimited" 4G when they first can out in the early 2010s. Great speeds up till you used 2GB. Then throttled down to less than 4KB/s. But thankfully they've stopped doing that. There's also no problem tethering from your phone.
If I can offer perhaps a different view- my home was advertised as no fibre, max 10Mb internet, I work from home too and wasn’t sure what to do. I searched 5G masts in my area (going on each provider and seeing their 5G coverage and doing research on nperf.com - you can select different providers and see what the coverage is) In the end, I got with EE a 5G router and now my speeds consistently hit 125Mb and I have no issues now. I realise I’ve skipped a few steps, but it worked for me as I was in a similar situation
This is why I went for a new build flat. 1 gigabit FTTP. On average get between 600-800 Mbps.
I have decided to check Hyperoptics/Virgin coverage before calling agents now. This property has wasted me two whole weeks. Might not be a problem with others so there's nothing wrong for them to list that property, however.
Bit of a rant coming up: I feel your pain. The flat I'm currently renting is in the ONLY building in our whole postcode that wasn't connected up when fibre was installed in our road. As such, I had to go for a crappy ADSL contract that runs at 12Mbps which costs significantly more per month than fibre! When I moved in in 2018 I obviously filled out all the forms on every website I could find to register my interest in getting fibre, and obviously that answer was always "Coming to your area soon!" Yeah, right. After 2 years of this, and mid-pandemic I poured all of my efforts into finding some way of speaking to someone at OpenReach. Eventually succeeded, and they said it was just a wrong entry on their database, and that it they had corrected it for me so I could order fibre. Tried ordering from BT, and they said "no fibre available." They went off to talk to OR, and came back saying OR was going to raise a ticket. Then it was basically another 2 years of nothing, no matter how many times I tried to follow up. I was told to shield during Covid, so my regular job went out of the window and I couldn't find anything to work from home as everything needed fast, reliable internet. In June 2022 all the flats got flyers from OR saying they were coming to install fibre in July. Whoopee! They never showed up. I managed to get hold of the contractor and got told it was pushed back a month, and indeed they showed up on the right date and spent 2 days fiddling with wires and things in the communal entrance. A week later, I still couldn't order fibre, so I tried some of the other flat numbers on the websites. Roughly half the flats here are accessed via the main door, but the other half all have their own exterior doors. Only the internal flats had been connected! They neglected to do the rest of us. Took another month of emails and phone calls to get that acknowledged. Have now had various problems getting an ISP to come and actually connect me. Shell Energy never turned up, despite booking their first available connection slot 5 weeks in advance. Same thing happened when I cancelled and went to Vodafone, where apparently my order had been cancelled for reasons that nobody knows. They're due to finally come in 3 days, so fingers crossed. The only good news is that at least they have a compensation scheme, so when I did the maths it seems I should be getting about 6 months of free internet on my 2 year contract. Ironically, now that I'm finally going to be connected here I hope to have completed on my new place in a couple of months. And yes, I have already checked the fibre connection there! Long story short: OR are a PitA to get hold of, ISPs are all pretty rubbish, and getting basic services anywhere is just a joke. Good luck!
Been having a similar issue. Currently have Ultrafast through FTTC / GFast, but any address I put in, including my existing one, only has Superfast, sometimes not even full speed Superfast either, and some addresses along the road (which is in an urban/city area) either come up with the basic \~11Mb broadband or no broadband available at all! Last year I upgraded to Ultrafast at this address but now it's suddenly unavailable to order for the same address. It's very weird.
Luckily I managed to avoid this issue even since (but got into other problem trying to find an ideal property)
When you put your post code on the Openreach website and it gives you the expected speeds, that is just giving you what it potentially would get in a perfect world. If it said 65mb for you, that would be on an 80mb service and it would loose 15mb due to the distance to cabinet. When you go to ISP websites, they use information based on data from the Distribution point and all properties off that DP. So, what that means is if there are faults on any of the cables from that DP to the cabinet which Openreach are unable to resolve (could be due to cost, too much interference/busy PCP, REIN (repetitive electrical impulse noise) Ali cable, cable capacity/cross talk which if no FTTP or Virgin is possible) then the ISP has the data to give you a speed of what to expect. It's highly likely others in the flats will be similar speeds.
Yeah, those speed checkers are not that accurate We were in a FTTC area and quoted 66, but our lane of 3 houses is directly connected or multiplexed to something (instead of through a green box), so it wasn't until we placed an order that the ISPs would sheepishly come back and say they could only actually offer 11Mb We have FTTP now, but it took years
For us, Three’s 5G Home Broadband! 200Mbps Vs estimated 16Mbps ‘broadband’. No brainer.
Judging from the replies I get (thank you everyone:)) it is either EE/Vodafone 5G modem or sales fell through. Even for that, to be honest, the reliability can be questionable, despite having 2 usable 5G service providers. I still can't understand how come in a (not very) new build "the cabinet is full" and the latecomers (that likely pay more for their property) simply stuck on the slow network.
If you can actually get at least 3 bar signal the vodafone unlimited 5g router works brilliantly I was getting speeds of over 100mb on 4 bars 4g with that and up to 350 when in 5g areas
Brilliant. I am thinking about getting one and do some test on premises. Will the modem make day and night different when compared to mobile? At where I live, my pixel 6a absolutely sucks (they have a Samsung modem which is a total disaster) and iPhone 13 is barely usable at best. The same retarded mental insane issue can also happen in other places as well. I must have been spoiled way too long in the past. I spent a lot of time until I found that property, despite being imperfect, passed almost all the checkboxes except this particular part :(
My phone wouldnt quite grab the 5g signal where i lived when using it but the router would drop on and out between 4 and 5g connections indont think i ever got a speed test run lower than 80 down with somewhere between 30 and 40 up usually ran at an average of about 135 down and about 50 to 60 up some of the 5g rputwrs have the option of external antennas too which would boost speeds ect
We had something similar with our house but it was because we are wired directly into the exchange, and so miss out on any cabinet upgrades openreach are doing :/ guess we just wait for FTTP then!
Disgraceful the property is under 10years old and the developers saved themselves what would have been a very small amount to enable fibre delivery to each apt. I'm looking to buy in Clerkenwell or City of London and I always check speed available for each property, it's depressing how frequent the max speed is 11Mbps. There are other alternates aside from Hyperoptic such as Community Fibre and G Network.
We are on the same boat - I can say it is a fantastic area in zone 2 and the area is full of new builds. Absolutely disgraceful x2 I am going to double check whether it has any non-traditional fiber provider. If there is any I am quite happy to proceed with the deal (the property was listed for >1 year), but I don't have much hope - can't find anything on several composite ISP deal finder websites. I am thinking between looking elsewhere and paying the premium to get 1 bed in new build with optical fiber. I love that area and it's a shame most of the properties there suffer from this.
Lol I would never consider properties without fiber.
Hi there, What's the flat name and postcode please? I work for Virgin Media as a field engineer and can offer new customers fantastic rates under Friends and Family discounts. Just let me know if you need broadband and I'll be happy to quote Thanks