I don't actually doubt the findings, though. UK broadband has been hamstrung by lack of investment in infrastructure, mostly due to BT's manifest observable intent to wring out and wrangle every last penny of value from the existing copper in the ground. Most European countries haven't been held back by a privatised State monopoly.
Originally Posted by Agent
I'm glad I live in a virgin cabled area... when I check with ADSL providers, they all say my max speed with them would be about 5-7mb... I get a solid 110mb on the most basic cable package - sold as 100mb (I guess I'm lucky I'm not in an over-subscribed area).
Last edited by Andaho; 08-08-2017 at 05:08 PM. Reason: speedtest added
Another Virgin user here - currently on the vivid 300 package so blasting well above the 'speeds' stated here
I couldn't go back to using a connection over ADSL/VDSL now though as the speeds are not as good, uploads not as good and it seems that with these connections, there are too many factors influencing speed on the day such as humidity, weather and other silly reasons other than just line length.
Not just sample sizes, but user desires.
I have a 200Meg (or whatever it is now) Virgin connection, and used to have a sub 4Meg connection. Do I care? No. Why have it then? Because it came with the TV package Mrs. Saracen wanted and the bundle was the most cost-effective way of getting the TV. Cutting the BB speed (to 50M, IIRC) meant going "custom" rather than hundle and the cost went up, not down.
Am I typical? Doubt it. I don't use social media, or a smartphone, don't download films, games, etc. Occasionally, I use TV on-demand, because it's there .... maybe once every ither month. But would I pay for it? Nope. On the rare occasions when I do d/l a big file, like a LINUX distro, I just set it going before bedtime, snd leave the PC on overnight.
If Virgin knocked a tenner off my monthly bill, I'd cheerfully settle for 4M again.
Not everybody wants, or needs, a fast connection. Hell, I'm not sure I want or need a connection. Period. About the only thing I'd truly miss, and realistically is keeping me online, is HEXUS. But for that, I may well disconnect entirely.
Summat like that, yes.
There is only one option round here.
Palmer Park gets a solid 74Mbps these days, on any provider.
I get a pretty solid 10-12Mbit service from Sky over a telephone line but I find at absolutely astonishing that I can't get better, right in the absolute middle of Manchester City Center. My parents can get 300Mbit Virgin Fibre line in their tiny village in the North East.
Other countries had governments who planned for the future and not just the next election. Not to mention that we have very old architecture mixed in with modern builds that seriously complicates the matter.
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This is bunny and friends. He is fed up waiting for everyone to help him out, and decided to help himself instead!
I should hope they do, given that is where the exchange isThat was just where the wire from my house ended up, I lived miles from there. Couldn't believe it when I found out that was my exchange.
wish I lived 35 miles further north.
B4RN internet. 1,000Mbps FTTH for £30 a month. all you need a is a tractor or a sturdy spade, lay the cable yourself, bobs your uncle.
or more simple. BT upgrade the cables starting at the points where the internet comes into the country, because that's where the rest of the country connects to. speed everyone up in one go.
(may be a bit biased because there's a transatlantic cable under my house that goes to a building less than a mile away with a direct connection to the US)
if it helps the rest of the countries internet infrastructure, ill be willing to suffer a faster connection
Could be worse, you could be in Australia!
<a href="http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6524330664"><img src="http://www.speedtest.net/result/6524330664.png" /></a>
I'm just over a mile away from the Spencers Wood exchange to which we connect. Ours is a wire issue. We're currently in our 5th year of BT promising that super fast high speed fibre broadband will be ours "coming soon", soon meaning "6-9 months" according to BT. It's only been 6 times that long with no results...I should hope they do, given that is where the exchange is
It also means there will be a lot below 16Mbps... as it's average speed if I remember statistics correctly then the number of people below 16Mbps is likely higher than those above it too.
As said sample sizes can play a big impact on these types of results and some of the 'higher speeds' have really small sample sizes compared with the UK so could be 'cherry picked' users to distort the viewpoint, you're also likely to get more people doing this type of survey if they have a slower connection because a lot of the time they're unhappy with the speeds so will find every opportunity to 'raise the issue'. If you've got a fast connection you're unlikely to check your speed unless you get random slowness somewhere etc.
Then there's people like me where I've been quite happily chugging away on 8Mb line because it was enough for me in real terms but am now looking into changing ISP because I'm apparently over their fup limit which I was never told about. So comparing prices etc I might as well take this as an opportunity to go onto fibre where according to all the online checkers I should get 60-80Mb range... will this speed change my usage pattern, probably not but it will make getting stuff quicker and allow me to up the resolutions on streams etc... not that I can really tell much difference between 1080p and 720p in most cases lol.
The thing with internet connections to me is how stable they are and do they do what they say they do, ie no port restrictions, unthrottled connections and unlimited is actually unlimited etc more than absolute speed.
I do however feel BT 'monopoly' is the reason we're so behind in internet speeds, they've never really invested in the infrastructure and instead have been focusing on things like tv streaming while passing on the cost to users who don't want or use it. What they should have been doing, and ofcom/government are too weak here, is they should have been working on the infrastructure so that EVERYONE can get fibre and EVERYONE can get over 20Mbps now, the 10Mbps by 2020 is stupidly low now let alone in 2020.
Last edited by LSG501; 09-08-2017 at 02:51 PM. Reason: typo
Wow, that's a bad rate for such a short distance.
Have you tried unscrewing the master socket to reveal the test socket behind it, and plugging the router directly into there? That eliminates any house wiring and phones. House extension wiring usually isn't in twisted pairs, so you get more signal lost within the house than you do in the miles of cable leading up to it. If the router reports a higher connection speed when directly plugged in, you can do something about that.
We've done all sorts.
Even on BT's reckoner for if we got proper high speed fibre, their predicted up/download rate is actually no higher than what we get right now!!
Wow, that implies there isn't a cabinet between you and the exchange?
Cabinet 16 - 400yds from the house.
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